Opacity Design Group (ODG)

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of marketing services at Steveston Real Estate and I’ve been with the company for 12 years. We’re a full-service marketing company in Richmond, British Columbia that specializes in bringing multifamily projects to market. We do mixed-use buildings, townhouse sites, and more.

What challenge were you trying to address with Opacity Design Group (ODG)?

We hire ODG to provide us with beautiful assets that can help us when the building we need to advertise isn't physically built yet. We have to overcome the big challenge of pre-construction marketing because many people aren't comfortable purchasing simply based on a disclosure statement. They need to feel something about the offering, and ODG delivers that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

ODG creates beautiful renderings to bring our designer’s scheme to life, highlighting it in a way that would be appealing to our given target market. Depending on the scale of the project and the partnership group involved, they could be involved from the very beginning, including the naming and logo design process of the project. Their main work revolves around developing our project assets and website, facilitating the registration phase to attract potential purchasers. After that, they continue to maintain the platform and oversee our registration database.

Until we’re ready to go to market, the team is in charge of creating all presentations such as wall graphics, site signage, colour boards, and printed materials such as brochures, handouts, floor plans, and feature sheets. They also provide suggestions on how we could present our materials and organize all the content that we present to our customers, working with their preferred providers to produce the images we’re going to be happy with. We often incorporate drone footage of the area we’re offering, including seamed images of the actual views, which is always an impactful asset. We work with ODG through launching until sellout, and in between, they adjust our website and materials as needed.

For some of the multiphase development projects that we’ve done, the team spearheads extensive research and discovery in order to dive into the history of the area we’re going to build in. They try to create a name and logo that could be rooted in something relevant to a certain area. On top of that, they watch out for marketing trends so that we ensure we launch with relevant assets our potential customers want to see. For example, nowadays many people are gravitating towards digital brochures and ODG has helped us transition away from print offerings in some instances.

We have a multi-phase project with them offering affordable new housing, everything from one-bedroom to three-bedroom homes, over 16 different floor plans, and 85 units in the East Building. ODG had to configure the sales center with all of the assets, floor plates, brochures, touchscreen interactive displays, and more for the East launch. After 10 months, we hit our presale target and were able to start launching the West building with 140 units. Because Will is so highly organized, it took ODG three days to reconfigure the sales center and switch everything from East to West assets. They also revamped our website to reflect all those changes and we were able to switch between offerings within a week.

What is the team composition?

Will (Principal & Creative Director) and Chris (Founder & President) are our two main contacts. Will is the gatekeeper for all of the content, creative materials, and branding deliverables that we need. We also work with Kelly (Lead Developer) who does a lot of the individual website programming work, and we collaborate closely when there are troubleshooting issues that need to be done.

How did you come to work with Opacity Design Group (ODG)?

The founder of Steveston Real Estate collaborated with Will when he started ODG with Chris. He hired ODG to build out his first brick and mortar, transforming an old produce store into a beautiful and modern office space, housing both the real estate marketing company, their project display area, a full kitchen and a developer's office in the heart of a retail district. 

Having used ODG for his own personal design work, he built a trusted relationship with them and began recommending the company to all of the developers that we were working with. In the end, we continue to chose to work with them because the quality of their work continues to be outstanding.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $500,000 — just within the 12 years where I have been present in the engagement. Typically, the minimum investment we see for the smaller projects is $30,000 and for bigger projects, upwards of $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing collaboration started in February 2000.

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

The quality of the images and assets that ODG comes up with is unbeatable. They have a quick turnaround, stay organized, and they’re always ready to go when we need to jump into action. We’re impressed with them because not all projects that are launched hit the ground with such success as we continue to have —  it’s really their understanding of the market environment and trends that has helped them be successful in this way.

As an example, we hired ODG for one of our boutique projects of only 13 units with a starting price point of around $2 million. We started a registration campaign based only off-site signage and a very limited website with beautiful imagery. After 6 months, we advertised our launch of sales and we were able to secure 30 appointments solely based on the renderings they created and the website they launched. We were able to sell seven units in three days  — hitting our pre-selling target for the development in an unbelievably short time. No small feat for such a higher-end development. ODG is able to create a real connection to the real estate offering based on the quality and content for the assets they produce, no matter the scale of the project.

How did Opacity Design Group (ODG) perform from a project management standpoint?

Not a deadline goes by unnoticed with ODG because they’re very meticulous. They prioritize our consecutive timelines, making sure nothing interferes and we can achieve the timing we expect for our various activities - website launch, sales centre launch, etc. We’ve worked with other companies before where we could pay less for design services, but there’s always some form of oversight that reminds us why ODG is simply the best at what they do.

Once you work with Will, you’ll understand how valuable his management skills are. He is able to organize and maintain an incredible workload. He’s remarkably organized; he communicates all our milestones as reminders via email, proactively reaching out to us via phone if we lag in our replies. He will start off a project collaboration in person so that he has a better insight into our expectations and desires for the product.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They never put something in front of us that they’re not proud of, and they’re willing to do however many revisions are required to perfect their work. They work with excellent service providers and provide the best quality imagery, signage, and design. Their understanding of real estate is excellent and they are able to bring our offerings to life.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only negative feedback I've ever received from developers we've referred to ODG is that their budgets could be more trim, but I fully understand that their services are worth it and that you'll get what you pay for. Overall, I really couldn’t say anything that they could do better because they’re truly amazing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d leverage Will’s opinions as much as possible. He has worked with a large range of clients across many different platforms so he has a well-formed idea of what you want and what you could need. I always feel that Will has something to add and it’s worth considering his angle.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of marketing for an investment fund company. One of our programs is an income trust that raises funds to build self-storage facilities and car washes.
 

What challenge were you trying to address with Opacity Design Group?

With one of our investment funds, we are preparing our first launch of a national company. We needed a team to help us create the website for this company, because there were a lot of specific functionalities that we wanted to include.
 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We brought on Opacity Design Group to own the development of this new website. In particular, we needed to include capabilities for online reservations, storage calculators, and other tools specific to the self-storage business. They also built the connections to archaic backend tools — despite not being familiar with that software from the onset, they were able to work through the platform and get all of the necessary integrations hooked up. 

Pretty much every self-storage facility in Canada and the United States uses the same backend administration software to manage reservations, clients, and accounting, but it’s not user-friendly at all. Opacity Design Group created a solution that would let us have all those key functionalities without sacrificing UI/UX.

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with almost every member of their team at this point. For this project, I mainly worked with William (Creative Director) and Chris (Director of Technology), but I interfaced with Kelly (Lead Developer) and Rob (Senior Developer) as well.

How did you come to work with Opacity Design Group?

I’ve been working with Opacity Design Group for 12–15 years across various projects. I really trust them to take on new work, no matter the size, so it was a simple choice to go with them on this project. We originally discovered them through the recommendation of one of our fund managers, who suggested we work with them to develop a website. We were really pleased with the customer service that Chris provided, and our relationship grew from there.

How much have you invested with them?

Since beginning our relationship with Opacity Design Group, we’ve invested $200,000–$500,000 into their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first started working with Opacity Design Group in March 2008, and we are still collaborating to maintain our websites and coordinate the details of online promotions. There’s a lot of planning and technical expertise that goes into managing the types of promotions that we run for our storage facilities, so Opacity Design Group puts a lot of work into the backend to make sure that everything is functioning properly. 

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

All of the integrations and tools that they designed for our storage website are actually being used, which is proof that they work and are user-friendly. They’ve definitely delivered on our expectations in that capacity.

How did Opacity Design Group perform from a project management standpoint?

We primarily manage project assets through a Trello board that we have with them. Chris, Rob, Kelly, and anyone else who is involved are all attached to the board, as are any contacts from our office. It’s a great way to go chunk by chunk for each part of the project and track our progress. 

Beyond working in Trello, Opacity Design Group are also very communicative via email and phone. Whenever I reach out to anyone on their team, they get back to me almost immediately — they really showcase their client service ethic when it comes to communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The best aspect of working with them is their communication, and that goes hand-in-hand with their willingness to work on projects of all sizes. Opacity Design Group is always happy to take on the work that we give them, even though they tend to be quite busy. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there are no improvements to share. I couldn’t get even half of my work done without them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We have had a lot of success by fully laying out the project upfront whenever possible. When we’ve done this, they’ve been able to review my notes and figure out what I have in mind, which makes development go more smoothly. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of an independent financial advisory company located in Vancouver.

What challenge were you trying to address with Opacity Design Group (ODG)?

Our name contained the name of our founder. We needed to move that away because he’s retired now, and we’ve evolved as an organization. Additionally, we wanted to modernize ourselves and tell our clients’ stories instead of ours.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Four years ago, we engaged with ODG to do our website. Then, we completed a rebranding with another organization. After that, we gave ODG our brand guide, and they converted our old website from start to finish using Sitefinity. They also built a slick database so we could automate many aspects for us.

A large part of our content was advisors’ blogs and articles, so we provided that. ODG wrote some of the copy, made some icons, and brought them to life. When we converted the articles, they worked on the backend. Now, when we click on an area, it’ll pull up related content.

Additionally, they created an automated structure so we could create profiles for the advisors, link their staff to them, and filter articles. It allowed individuals advisors to tweak their page while maintaining the consistency of the brand across the site.

At the end of last year, we worked with social media strategy, and we’ve moved into the full program. We’ve worked with ODG to translate our brand to social media, and the team now runs campaigns for us on Facebook and Linkedin.

We have ClickDimensions connected to our CRM system, and ODG has worked with us to integrate leads or sign-ups from our social media posts. We’re currently scaling up to do more content, and they’re refreshing our corporate brochure. They’ve created template documents and designed landing pages and email templates for our marketing system.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is Chris (Founder & President). There are probably five people working on various items, but we don’t manage those interactions.

How did you come to work with Opacity Design Group (ODG)?

We were looking for Vancouver firms to do the website. We interviewed many companies and had them pitch for us, and ODG was very impressive.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over $150,000 CAD (approximately $118,000 USD) over the years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2017, and we launched the site in January 2018. However, we’ve kept working with them for many years on different projects. Also, they continue to update and take responsibility for the website.

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

First, the website was beautiful. We had so many compliments on it. It was modern, and it really represented our brand. Moreover, that engagement was so successful we moved on to using them for our brand implementation.

In that sense, they’ve been great about making resources we can use in many ways. They’ve done videos and graphics for our social media to explain the journey of financial planning, and we now use them when we sponsor events or have to provide materials to play.

Overall, they’re strong partners, and we’ve grown what we do with them.

How did Opacity Design Group (ODG) perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been fantastic. We primarily communicate over emails and meetings as needed and use Trello to manage the project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve made an effort to understand who we are. ODG has brought our brand to life.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything; they’ve been excellent.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust them and consider them a partner. They want to be an extension of your business.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the technical product and marketing manager for Techtop. We’re a wholesale distributor of industrial electric motors. We import our product from our manufacturing facilities overseas and then do the technical sales and support for the product in various industries across the country.

What challenge were you trying to address with Opacity Design Group?

We hired Opacity Design Group to help us redevelop our brand message. We wanted to freshen up the look of our brand image and appear more like a North American-based company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Opacity Design Group has provided a range of services. They researched competition within our market and helped us come up with an image that works within our industry. They’ve helped us create everything from slogans to logos to taglines, a range of web-based and print-based projects. They put together a brand guide to help us use these materials correctly, including the colors and product images. Their team has also entirely redeveloped our website. They’ve become the marketing department of our company. 

What is the team composition?

We have worked with a majority of their team since we’ve done so many projects with them. Kelly (Lead Developer, Opacity Design Group), David (Director of Strategy and Design, Opacity Design Group), and others have helped us on numerous projects. 

How did you come to work with Opacity Design Group?

We found them after looking for local companies with marketing specialists. At the time, we were just looking for assistance leading up to a trade show, but after we learned about everything Opacity Design Group offered, we knew they were who we needed to use moving forward. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since January 2017 and our engagement is ongoing. 

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

We haven’t been tracking any measurables, but based on the feedback we’re receiving from our customers, we know the work they’re doing is having a huge impact. The feedback has been exceptional. 

How did Opacity Design Group perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. They follow through on deliverables, meet timelines, and are extremely well-managed. We’ve never had any issues working with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Between the people on their team, the products they deliver, and their skill, they really can do it all. From web design to development, they’re great. We tried to work with other companies in the past and never found one as skilled as Opacity Design Group. They produce designs that are eye-catching and thoughtfully convey our messages.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. They’ve made us happy and are doing an excellent job. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust them. They know what they’re doing, so you should take their suggestions.