Planeteria

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company.

I own a design firm. We sometimes hire partners to help with our large client projects.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with them?

I had a client consumer package goods food client that needed to devise a new website. I was working with them as a marketing and design firm.

SOLUTION

Can you describe their services in detail?

When I worked with them, it was more Web design and helping us with overflow work. I needed a company who could guide us with some advice as to what was most critical in developing in the website, so I would say consulting as well. I do believe they did training, I was involved in the development of the site originally.

What was your process for selecting Planeteria with which to work?

I’d gotten a referral and I honestly don’t remember who that was and I had gone through and talked with several different website design companies.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative with either a general cost range or just the amount of hours that they dedicated to this project?

I think we probably started out at $20,000 for the whole project. It took a while. 

When was the project completed?

It was at least one year ago. I’m not really positive.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the results of their work? Are you satisfied?

Yes, I do have to say that when I started, I met with the owner at the time, and during the process of developing the website, things got a little screwy, and I did not find out until midway through that the ownership changed. So, there was a period of time where I was not so happy, but then once the ownership changed things worked much better. So, I was happy with how it worked from then on under the new ownership.

Is there anything unique or special about Planeteria that really stands out for you as different from other companies?

I think their service was quite good after the ownership change. I thought they were very responsive.

On the other side, looking back, is there anything you think they could improve upon as something you might do differently?

It was a little bit hard because their creative process was a little problematic, but I think that had to do with the change of ownership and the lack of communication that was going on so I really don’t think I can answer that.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

We are an art gallery in downtown San Francisco and have been in business since 1983. We’ve been online since 1995. I have an online retail operation as well as brick and mortar. We’ve gone through numerous rebuilds and reiterations of site development. We're going through our seventh overhaul and redevelopment project. Our focus in what we represent is imagery and art from popular culture. It could be photographs from rock 'n’ roll or Hollywood, paintings or photographs by celebrity artists like Ron Wood, or album cover art.

It's pretty much all search engine material, so we come up if someone searches for Jimi Hendrix or other celebrities. The idea is that we focused exclusively on the artwork. Everything is priced from $1,000 to $100,000 or more. We’ve sold things like the original Abbey Road photograph that was used on the cover of the album. We’ve sold the original artwork that was used to create the "Dark Side of the Moon" cover for Pink Floyd. We’ve had photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, the Beatles, jazz, and so on.

We have about 3,000 items for sale. We represent about 200 photographers, painters, and artists that were all one degree of separation from the subjects.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I am the founder and owner.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with Planeteria?

Our last site was a CMS [content management system] site that was developed after 2011, and I had two or three sites prior to meeting Planeteria. At that time, I was looking for a site that gave me complete latitude in making changes. I went to a content management system that gave me more access to the back end, rather than having an engineer change it. Our first CMS was in 2002 or 2003.

We migrated with an outfit in Germany and England, and then we came across another firm that built on that and redid our entire site base on CMS. That was a sole developer, designer, and engineer who had been in the business for 20 or 30 years. It took forever. That’s what we have up now.

In 2013, I was ready for a change and wanted to develop a responsive site. We had an app for the first iPad that we had developed before the first one launched, before Planeteria came on. By the time I was ready for another change, I analyzed several different CMS companies online to see where the best fit was, what I felt the best competence was. Part of it was relational, so I wanted to be sure there was a good vibe in design.

Ultimately, I looked for a development company that could provide a good design, do a lot of backend work and use accessible off-the-shelf features. I needed content that could integrate into the rebranding that I’ve done on the user site.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

Planeteria was involved in stitching together a connection to the user interface created by the branding outfit. They also developed a way to migrate all of the content from our current database on our current site into logical locations in the new database that they’re developing.

Planeteria has been working on a large project and a small, ongoing project. We have the wireframes that were developed in conjunction with Planeteria through the branding company. They are now beginning to do the required programming for the user interface to integrate the way we want it. They will modify it as necessary based on our bright ideas that come up in the middle of the night.

The app is a project that is related to the art business, but is designed to make judgments on whether a work of art follows compositional rules that make it great art, modest art, or bad art. It has an algorithm in there that they understand. It took a while to get it because it's complex, but they have a grip on the algorithm. We'll come out with something called a Maestrometer. That’s a project that is already in development.

What was your process for selecting Planeteria with which to work?

When I was looking for a new CMS outfit, I wanted someone who could listen well, listen intelligently, and knew how to make things work. In addition to Planeteria, I brought in someone who was doing the rebranding to do the wireframes and the front end of how I wanted the site to look. In this era, the cost of producing a quality and functional website has gone down because of the number of plug-ins and off-the-shelf solutions.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

That is confidential.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

We do not track stats and metrics at this time.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

Planeteria listens well, they are eager to please, they ask a lot of good questions and come up with solutions. I’m talking with them about an app that I’m developing unrelated to this business, and they have a team that can develop an iPhone app that I'll put on the App Store later this year. They are thinkers and ask how they can take our ideas and put them together based on the technology. The idea is to put together a general idea, refine it, test it, and then altering it. I found them very easy to work with, open, friendly, and solution-oriented.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I really can’t think of anything major.