North Street Creative

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the gallery director of an art gallery. We sell ancient art to museums and private collectors.

For what projects/services did your company hire North Street Creative, and what were your goals?

Our website was outdated and didn't have all of the functionality that we were looking for. We hired North Street Creative to completely redesign the site as well as update the logo. We were hoping by updating the design, we could build more traffic and our viewers will remain on the site longer.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We found North Street Creative through a PR firm. We looked over two different proposals and North Street Creative felt more in the direction that we wanted to go. I saw from their portfolio that they have done impressive websites and I felt confident that they could deliver for us.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We had a zoom meeting with Tom, the owner, and from there he had the dev team prepare a questionnaire for us to fill out which included describing the company and our target audience as well as the style of website we were hoping to create.

Our old site did not have much scrolling and they were able to create a landing page with lots of movement and scrolling down and sideways which keeps the viewer engaged. They also implemented several convenient call to action buttons throughout the site which helped keep the viewer on the site longer.

As well as convenient inquire/contact us buttons so that the site did not have any "where am I?" moments. They also created viewing rooms which we have been able to show our videos, which is something that the old site lacked.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Greg was our main point of contact but we were able to bounce ideas off of all of the developers and designers in our zoom meetings. The design team did a great job reading our minds when it came to the layout of the site. And the developers exceeded our expectations with what they were able to do.

Even the slightest thing like having the stat numbers on our home page tick up like a headcounter. I was very impressed by the many different animations they implemented into the site.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

There has been an overwhelming increase in inquiries from the website and the newsletter sign up has added many new emails to our directory. Our existing clients as well as our competitors have been very complimentary on the ease of use and the bold design. I have also been using the site more myself.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Greg was very good at keeping us in the loop with the progress of the site and he was able to forward any of our questions or ideas over to the developers right away.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed with how everyone on the team had meaningful input. I never felt like I was depending on one man to deliver. And I was pleasantly surprised that they had an answer for every question that I had, even when I thought I was asking for the impossible, they made it happen. They are very knowledgable about the array of plugins that can be added.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

When we first launched, there were some minor glitches with the search bar on mobile vs desktop. But they were able to address it right away and sort it out.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the managing partners and the head of day-to-day operations at Drexel Hamilton, a boutique investment bank. The unique part about us is that we’re 100% owned and operated by military veterans, and 60% of our workforce are military veterans too.

What challenge were you trying to address with North Street Creative?

We had a branding problem, and we were told that our website was terrible. We all worked in the firm before we purchased it. After we did a management buyout, we wanted to change it and put our stamp on it. We fixed the business operations, and the only part left was the marketing and branding of the place. 

We underwrite corporate debt and equity municipal securities, so whenever we make contact with a possible client, they need to be able to go to our website to see who we are and that we’re real. We needed to put our past deals on the website to show who we’ve worked with — it’s due diligence for a lot of people, so we hired North Street Creative to help us with that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

North Street Creative helped us develop our company website from scratch. I believe it was WordPress, but I’m not entirely sure. 

In the first part of the project, we decided on the messaging we wanted to present to the world. A lot of our deals come from the fact that we’re veteran-owned, and we’re considered a diversity company. We needed to highlight that as well as the fact that we can actually be competent in the financial space, and find a way to put that together in 1–2 lines. 

North Street Creative created a better logo for us. They helped us with the overall look and feel of our brand. For that, they walked us through the messaging, the branding, and who we are. Once we completed those steps, we went ahead and put it on a website. 

They also helped us with making our pitchbook material,  business cards, email signatures, and our one-page marketing pieces. They continue to do our data analysis and help us with maintenance and upkeep.

What is the team composition?

They had different people to walk us through different stages, but there were three persons who were consistently with us throughout the project. In total, we worked with about 9–10 people from branding, to messaging, to design.

How did you come to work with North Street Creative?

They were a referral from a leading global investment banking firm that we do a lot of work with. We had looked at some other companies, but when this firm recommended them, it was big and probably what convinced us to use them.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent around $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the process in September 2020, and it’s ongoing. We really liked the stages they put us through. First, they did the marketing and branding, and then they did the website and materials we use.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The outcome of the project is 1000% positive. People love the new logo. We were initially hesitant to do anything with our logo, but we gave them a shot, and the logo is a total win for us. 

People love our new website — it pops and really tells the story of our firm and our people, which is what we sell. We get compliments on the website all the time. 

Our pitchbook is central to our marketing; we contact people directly and show them our pitchbook. Our pitchbook, marketing materials, and website all look the same — this shows uniformity, which is something we’re big on as a military group.

How did North Street Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They are excellent. If anything, we have slowed them down. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

North Street Creative is very hands-on.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think so. We were in a hurry to get the project done quickly, but they explained to us that we had to go through the stages. We did that, and everything was great. 

Any advice for potential customers?

Have your asks upfront. They do a lot, but if you have specific things that you want, they can pretty much accommodate anything.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re an investment management firm. I’m the former head of human capital management and communication. 

What challenge were you trying to address with North Street Creative?

They designed and built a new website for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We were acquired in the summer of 2019 and needed a new branding platform. They designed and built an external public WordPress website as well as internal marketing materials that were aligned with the new name and concepts. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with their CEO, an account manager, and a chief creative. 

How did you come to work with North Street Creative?

Our public relations firm had collaborated with them before and thought highly of them. They recommended them to us along with a few other firms. We interviewed all of them and decided we liked North Street Creative’s proposal best. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since June 2019. The original project is complete, but we’ve kept them working on additional projects with us.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They won an award for graphic design with the platform they designed for us. It was awarded to them in 2020.  

How did North Street Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent. Throughout the project, they were responsive and determined to meet our needs. If our needs changed during the project, they were flexible in adjusting and changing direction. They gave us regular status updates, so we always knew about their progress. 

If they ran into roadblocks, they’d let us know as well. That helped us stay agile and determine new direction as needed. We communicated through emails and status update phone calls every few weeks. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were communicative, stuck to our budget, and provided excellent client service. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Express your needs and budget clearly. They’re very open to ideas from the client.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a creative and brand consultant. At the time of this project I was consulting an independent film company based in NYC. They were in need of a brand overhaul starting from scratch with their logo suite.

For what projects/services did your company hire North Street Creative?

We hired NSC to create a new suite of logos.

What were your goals for this project?

Create new suite of logos which would later inform the website redesign and overhaul of all marketing materials.

How did you select North Street Creative?

The creative director was a classmate of mine from college and I'd seen NSC's work in the wild. I reached out because if this personal connection and my confidence in the creative output.

Describe the scope of their work in detail.

Their process was thorough but not overly time consuming. A discovery session lead to initial design presentation with room for a couple round of revisions. They were flexible in terms of how and when we were able to review and provide feedback.

They were very communicative and clear with timelines, the scope of work, and the budget. Rounds were delivered in an agreed-upon timely manner and the final product was packaged up and handed off shortly after approvals.

What was the team composition?

I worked directly with their Production Director and meetings included their founders, creative director and designers.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We landed the plane on a brand design that reflected where the film company was and where they were headed. This new branding will appear on a Netflix series in early 2021 and has been rolled out on marketing materials which have lead to an uptick in new business.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very. Clear direct communication with one main point of contact. A schedule and timeline that was adhered to and very clear roles and responsibilities.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were very agile and adaptive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founding partner of a small insights consultancy called Old Salt Insights Consulting.

What challenge were you trying to address with North Street Creative?

We built and launched our business in 2020, so we retained North Street at the end of 2019 to build our brand identity.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us to find a brand identity, including all the underpinning assets like creating a logo, color pallet, font package, business cards, letterhead PowerPoint templates. Really, they delivered every sort of outward-facing touchpoint.

We let them lead the process. They eased us into the pool and guided us throughout. To start, we received a detailed questionnaire to narrate our thinking and goals. We didn’t provide any documentation. Rather, we responded to the process they laid out.

What is the team composition?

We worked with just about everybody they have. Tommy (Founder) was our primary point of contact. Sean (Creative Director) was the head designer. There were 2-3 other designers as well, including another project manager.

How did you come to work with North Street Creative?

I found them through a friend of a friend. Originally, I was looking for someone to put together marketing collateral for a project I was putting together and they were recommended. I tested them with a one-off deliverable for a client, and, since then, we’ve been regular users of North Street.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $32,500 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from November 2019 until February 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I smile every time I see the brand logo. I was looking for something I wanted to hang on the fridge, and they delivered it.

How did North Street Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a fabulous job of holding our hand and helping us understand what was driving the timeline. We always knew what to expect of them because of their communication. Google Suite helped us communicate, as well as phone calls and emails.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their buttoned-up processes were great. Creativity can feel esoteric and out there, but they had a defined, precise process that took us through. I knew we’d have a voice in the work and I knew we’d be able to offer our own perspective.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The project went exactly as expected, as did the outcome. I’m not sure there were any hiccups along the way. I wish we’d gone into it thinking more broadly, but that’s hard to pin on North Street.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I wouldn’t make it specific to North Street, but make sure to do your homework to ensure you have a strong vision and a sense of who you want to be.

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO and owner of a specialist events company focused on fast-tracking renewable energy investment in Latin America and the Caribbean.

For what projects/services did your company hire North Street Creative?

COVID-19 meant a complete about-face for the company was required. We needed to totally retool our offering to reflect the fact that we could no longer host in-person events.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to use as many existing online assets as possible, but reframe and re-organize the offering to reflect our new reality. Facing a complete closure of our in-person event business, we needed to be smart and fast.

How did you select North Street Creative?

We knew the team at North Street from the complete website overhaul they had undertaken for us in 2015.

We looked at other options, but ultimately we needed a safe pair of hands and the smart and responsive partnership that we knew we would find at North Street. At a personal level, we had history: we like and trust these guys.

Describe the project in detail.

Our business needed to pivot fast, and our existing website (which North Street had originally built) reqired a quick but complex update in order to reflect our new offerings and position in the market. 

In order to get a lot of wishlist items done in little time, North Street worked in two sprints over the course of six weeks to transform key site pages and to build out all new content types.

More specifically, our website was once focused on in-person events and industry news. North Street reengineered the site to accommodate content hubs, which can contain any number of content types including webinars, keynotes, virtual events, in-person events, and industry news.

We needed all of this done with enough time to promote registrations for an upcoming virtual event, and the team was able to deliver.

What was the team composition?

We worked closely with various team members, including the company founder, Tom, as well as with their Production Director, Creative Director, and Managing Developer. Tom had the most history and familiarity with our website, and so he was the primary project manager.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our customers are buying our product. The online offering is the key sales driver. We have a viable business again. Enough said.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Highly effective. Tom and his team were super-responsive, quick to understand our needs, and if they promised a turnaround by a certain deadline, they delivered. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their ability to listen, absorb, & understand. It's unusual. You don't need to explain yourself twice. No less impressive is their ability to translate a brief into a smart set of solutions, and elegant & effective product.

All delivered on time, and by a team you want to work and spend time with.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I'm sure there are, but as far as our interaction on this project was concerned, they delivered. Period.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the Senior Director for Content Strategy, Insights & Analytics at Spotify. My team analyzes how people consume content on our audio streaming service, then gives recommendations about what we should create or curate.

For what projects/services did your company hire North Street Creative?

A key part of my team's work involves presenting concepts and explanations to various other teams or partners.

But we're a fairly new group, and we lacked well-designed presentation templates that could deliver our learnings cleanly and uniformly. (Many people were designing their own work from scratch, which also lead to an inconsistent look from the full team.)

We've used North Street to create presentation templates and also help with some high profile projects.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a set of core presentation templates that had a huge variety of slides to cover the wide range of presentations we created. We also needed them in multiple color schemes. The goal was to create a toolkit that made presentations clear, consistent, elegant—and efficient to create.

How did you select North Street Creative?

We had seen an example of North Street's work previously. We tested them out on a bespoke design of a presentation that needed skills beyond what we had in-house. The work was so good, we hired them for this larger project.

Describe the project in detail.

For our most recent project, we commissioned North Street to create a sprawling presentation template that could be used for just about any need for our team. The deliverable included style guides, color work and versions in multiple color varieties.

To initiate the project, I created an in-depth brief outlining our needs and accompanied it with many examples of previous presentations to illustrate all of our use cases. North Street dug through all of that source material and boiled it down into a first draft of a template. We then had several rounds of notes/revisions as we finessed the core design elements and all the various pages.

My team then used the templates for two months. We next came back for another round of revisions, having seen how everything played out in real life--what were the unforeseen needs or tweaks that we encountered?

What was the team composition?

There was a project manager and a designer. We had our kickoff call all together. But after that, our primary interaction was with the project manager. Although we traded notes or hopped on a call with the designer a few times if there was any question that was easier to discuss in person.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I (and my team) have been extremely happy with the final deliverable. It has made our work look significantly more clear, professional and consistent. We've received complements from other teams and upper management.

It has also made our team more efficient. They're spending less time creating presentations because so many slides are pre-made for them. They can focus on the content rather than worry about the design

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication and workflow was clear and simple. We had our kickoff call and a few other check ins. But for the most part, we communicated by trading emailed notes or in-document comments. They took feedback and direction extremely well--and rarely needed extra context. They could take a page of notes and quickly execute them.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was pleasantly surprised with the team's efficiency and self-sufficiency. I expected to have to spend time talking through notes on revisions, because our needs are fairly particular.

But North Street picked right up on our written notes and rarely needed any follow up. I could send back some comments and they'd address quickly and without any further hassle from me.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Honestly, not really. They've done great work that's really helped our team. And the process was simple and pleasant.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the owner of an SEO consulting firm.

For what projects/services did your company hire North Street Creative, and what were your goals?

North Street helped us with several projects where we needed high end design skills and the ability to quickly and reliably build those designs in Wordpress, as well as include our SEO requirements. Each time the design was excellent and the client loved it, and the resulting site was easy to use and bug free.

How did you select North Street Creative and what were the deciding factors?

I met Tom on a project nearly a decade ago and was impressed with the results. Now every design and build that fits into his team's wheelhouse goes right to them. I know I can trust them to deliver high-quality work on time and to communicate early when expectations might need to change.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

• Kick-off
• Design iterations and discussions
• Prototype of key pages in dev with review by the client
• Site building and asset collection
• Publishing
• Launch.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We usually work with one project manager, one designer, and one to two developers splitting time on the project.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

First, the client reported the new site was "infinitely easier to use" than their previous site. From a performance side, the site was twice as fast and we were able to make SEO optimizations to begin positive growth, which in this case was to first reverse the negative growth trend the client was on for the previous two years.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

North Street is extremely professional. They communicate proactively, but also make sure that meetings have a clear purpose. If not, they avoid the meeting saving everyone time and money.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

North Street does a very good job of managing their workload, which means they give realistic prices and timelines. If they don't have capacity at the time, they say so and tell you when they can help, or that they can't. If the job isn't a good fit for what they are good at, they say no, and let you know why. This is very impressive in this digital marketing and development world that is full of scope-creep and over commitment.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

North Street can grow and take on more projects!

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the director of Growth at a major new publication. I'm responsible for driving subscription growth through mobile web and desktop site testing and optimization.

For what projects/services did your company hire North Street Creative?

North Street conducted an SEO audit and optimization recommendation plan on our core acquisition landing/product pages.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to simplify our Landing Page structure, streamline many shared URL's into a single dynamic landing page that maintained our top SERP rank position.

How did you select this vendor?

North Street was recommended by a colleague due to their reputation as an affordable, high quality, and service oriented approach.

Describe the project in detail.

North Street began with an audit of a large catalog of Landing Pages which led to strategic recommendations to streamline our pages and better manage our audience funnel. Our landing pages shared similar structure but varied in content for specific audiences, requiring us to "mirror" pages for minor changes which led to a proliferation of our own landing pages that ultimately competed against each other. Our goal was to reduce our overall number of landing pages from dozens to a few by creating dynamic versions that can be managed by a CMS. We had to ensure we had an optimized URL structure and that we didn't impact our rankings. North Street took a holistic approach, digging into our analytics, our user experience, our page and tagging structure and recommended a myriad of options to optimize our pages and ultimately provide a more efficient acquisition funnel.

What was the team composition?

2-3 People Account Lead / Customer Success Manager SEO Lead / Strategist

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We achieved our goal of reducing a large number of pages on competing URLs to a few pages using a shared URL structure that dynamically adapted to user data. Our rankings actually improved as a result of the recommendations provided by North Street. Our Landing Page Conversion rates increased drastically and we observed benefits to our SEM spend as a result of having a more efficient SEO strategy. North Street exceeded our expectations by identifying short run and long term strategies and tactics that enabled us to implement changes immediately and build toward our long term goal(s).

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

North Street has an outstanding service model. The whole team was available throughout our engagement for weekly touchbases, presentations to dependent teams and were available on short notice on numerous occasions. We employed both video conferencing and in person meetings which were equally productive.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive aspect of North Street is the personal nature of their customer service. Despite a heavy load of clients, it was never apparent that there were any other clients besides us. Additionally, North Street employ and partner with subject matter expertise to ensure they have the proper resources to exceed project goals.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I'd like to see North Street utilize a managed service model where they can be retained for longer periods of time.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Director of Content Strategy for Loews Hotels at the time of the project. In 2015-16, the company owned and/or operated 23 hotels and resorts in major city centers and resort destinations across the U.S. and Canada.

For what projects/services did your company hire North Street Creative?

Loews hired North Street to create a new Wordpress-based blog design for #WishYouWereHere, the company's consumer-facing blog that published destination-centric updates from each of the Loews properties. The design had not been updated since its initial design in 2013 and did not reflect the brand identity.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to bring the design more in line with the brand identity, improve the shareability and performance of the content on the blog, and to provide a way to showcase the brand’s new #TravelForReal advertising/content campaign, which relied on UGC—primarily Instagram images taken by guests at Loews properties.

We were looking for a more organized site structure and an easy way to view archived posts. Loews hoped these changes would help drive more page views, which would in turn assist overall SEO performance once the blog was moved under the main brand.com domain.

How did you select this vendor?

Members of the marketing team had met with North Street in previous years, when they pitched our team on a social platform they had developed. We were impressed by their pitch and portfolio — particularly their design work — which is why they came to mind when this project came up.

We considered two other firms on our shortlist, but ultimately myself and the Director of Social Media decided to work with North Street after a discovery meeting, which demonstrated the depth of their knowledge and expertise in web design, and unearthed great insights specific to our project.

Describe the project in detail.

The scope called for North Street to redesign the Loews Hotels blog, build the new design out in Wordpress, import all existing blog content and deploy the finished site on the live production environment.

Loews provided a brief with specific requests for design features as well as overall marketing objectives. After a kickoff meeting, the project proceeded with regular emails and calls between myself and North Street's founder, as well as with the firm's art director, to discuss wireframes and other design samples.

North Street was responsible for:

• Design presentation
• 1 round of revision to the overall design concept
• 1 design for each interior page type
• 1 round of final tightening up (small edits) to each page type layout
• Clean up of creative files and export of assets for development

What was the team composition?

The project was primarily managed via North Street's founder, and their team also included a project manager, art director and developer. We worked with the same team throughout the project—and beyond, when team members were available to us for any questions, even long after completion of the initial deliverables.

I was the main point of contact, however following this project, at least two other members of my marketing team at Loews hired North Street for other projects based on their work on this blog redesign.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The new design was rolled out in mid-March 2016, at the original standalone URL. The Loews marketing team considered that all of their main goals were met via the execution of the new design: the look and feel was more reflective of the brand, we had an effective way to showcase the #TravelForReal guest content, and all blog content was more clearly organized and easily accessible via City and Topic archives.

Page Views was the main measurable metric: in the new blog design’s first three months, the period from March 2016 through June 2016, the number of page views saw a 4.72% increase YOY, including an increase in the number of sessions (4.29%) and users (3.44%) and a decrease in the bounce rate (-3.47%), meaning readers were finding the content more useful and relevant.

The blog was not moved to the brand’s main dot.com domain until late July 2016, but after that implementation, the blog continued to drive organic search to the main dot.com site, and page views continued to increase in subsequent years.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Workflow was smooth and effective, with streamlined communication handled by myself and North Street's founder. We had access to other members of the team for calls and presentations if necessary but it really helped us manage the project on the Loews side to have almost all communication handled by the one contact. North Street always responded to questions swiftly and met all deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were most impressed by North Street Creative's creativity and depth of experience. They’re skilled at zeroing in on exactly what a client, and a specific project, needs. Their thorough discovery process really set them apart from other vendors we had considered (and worked with on different projects), so we knew they would be a strong partner for us throughout the engagement.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing on the agency side. If we could have improved anything on this project, it would have been response time on our side. Sometimes, corporate culture on the Loews marketing side meant we were moving slower on decisions or review than was ideal.