Pop Art

Please describe your company and your position there.

I work for a development project Municipal Energy Efficiency and Management Project in Serbia (MEEMP) implemented by a consortium of 3 Swiss and 2 Serbian companies and supported and financed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. The project is supporting Serbian municipalities on their forward-looking pathway towards improved energy efficiency and climate performance. My position on the project is Project Office Manager, and I am in charge of all the administration and logistics for implenentation of this project.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pop Art?

We started cooperation with Pop Art for development of the project's logo and branding design and afterwards, since we were very happy with product and collaboration we also engaged them for development of the website.

What were your goals for this project?

When we started the implementation of the project we needed to develop certain items for the visual identity of the project that we would use for recognition of the project among our partners, stakeholders and competition. The goal was to create pieces of memorable design that we would use in all occasions when we are representing the project, either on the web or electronically, or on printed material.

How did you select this vendor?

When looking for a design studio we were focused on finding a company that already has relevant experience and that has visual and emotional sensitivity similar to what our project is about and how we want to represent our project. Pop Art has a website that is very appealing and very strongly selling their art and capabilities. Their website has a rich presentation of their past work and strong list of references. This made our search much easier and once we looked at their previous work we were almost certain that with Pop Art we will find a common language. In addition, when we started communication and negotiation about the conditions, it showed that their sales team is very responsive and knowledgable. Finally, the cost was aligned with the market conditions and properly aligned with the quality of their service.

Describe the project in detail.

LOGO We first needed to create a LOGO that was aligned with the content and messages of our project. We supplied Pop Art with main bullet points presenting the project's goals and ideas and we described briefly our visual preferences regarding colors, lines, mood, etc. Following that, Pop Art presented us with a few options for the logo. We were able to select one straight. This is when we understood we selected the right design studio. BROCHURE AND ROLL-UP After closing the design of the logo, Pop Art continued to design a brochure and the roll-up for the project. From our side we provided the elements and the text that had to be included and we wanted Pop Art to propose the most desirable way to visually present that content. Pop Art gave us two draft designs from which we were able to select one straight. WEBSITE The biggest work was developing the website. As a project, we needed a platform that will spread information about our project to wider audience and we had to make sure that it will present the project in the right way. When we started work on the webpage, Pop Art already knew what is our sensibility and visual taste so it made the work smooth. We wanted a website that is simple and straightforward. I made the outline of pages and subpages and provided text for each of them. Pop Art supported me by designing the right way to present the content (segmenting the text, arranging boxes, making elements interactive, etc.). We are very satisfied with the website, both in terms of design and functionality.

What was the team composition?

Initial collaboration was with a sales representative with whom I agreed on general conditions. This same person was always my contact for administrative and financial matters. For design, I was collaborating with two persons: one designer for the logo/brochure/roll-up. For the website, I was working with another designer. All three contact points at Pop Art were good for cooperation and knowledgable.

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

Our project is often appearing on various conferences, fairs, international events where we are being recognized by our partners and stakeholders for the logo and the branding developed by Pop Art.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I find that our cooperation was so successful because both sides knew their part of the work. We were clear about what we wanted and they have the right capacity to bring it to life. For this reason, our communication was clear and effective. As clients, we were grateful to receive good designs already at the first draft stage and we were able to reach final products in a few rounds of polishing. For matters of design, we were communicating directly to Pop Art's designer dedicated to our account. For administrative matters, we were in contact with their sales. Both were responding in a short time without delays. All agreed deadlines were reached.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciate cooperating with partners that are professional, thorough and straightforward in work. I was very glad to find that with Pop Art we share this same work approach. Even though we were working in matters of design and art that are not really black and white and there are delicate preferences, working with Pop Art was a very smooth and efficient design process.

Are there any areas for improvement?

From my perspective, I have no remarks about the work and performance demonstrated by Pop Art.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the principal engineer at VIDA, an e-commerce that provides manufacturing and customer support services to designers. I helped launch the company with the founder.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pop Art?

The website allows designers to upload and curate their products. Our platform has designer and consumer-facing sides with the intent to create new income streams for artists.

When the company launched, we used spreadsheets and other manual tools. Pop Art automated our business and made software solutions to the website’s designer-facing side scalable to our operations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pop Art revised the database architecture I designed, offering valuable insight that made its foundation more stable and scalable. Recently, we’ve moved from a basic site in PHP to Node.js. We use Mongo software running on Google Cloud in addition to other tech-forward SVG software. We worked with Pop Art to improve business intelligence for the designer-facing side.

They also simplified our approach to using Shopify in conjunction with other software. As a result, the team made our business more organized and effective.

Additionally, they created a product wheel that functioned an SPG element for which we had specific aesthetic requirements. This tool was the project’s most complicated aspect.

What is the team dynamic?

The team had a project manager, a necessity as our company comprised only a few engineers. There were separate teams for frontend and backend.

How did you come to work with Pop Art?

I knew Ethan Brown [Director of Engineering, Pop Art] and that he was trustworthy for node-heavy projects. I met the team and familiarized myself with their previous work. Their design skill and technical expertise were apparent in products they created for mobile devices, tablets, and the web.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $65,140.

What is the status of this engagement?

Collaboration started May 2015 and ended December 2016.

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

2016 was a recording breaking year. We presented on our performance to Y Combinator. Overall, we were very happy.

How did Pop Art perform from a project management standpoint?

The project manager came in on a weekly basis to supervise progress. That consistency was advantageous. We spoke primarily via phone. Initially, we held weekly calls but increased to semi-weekly when approaching deadlines.

The team was very responsive and communicated well under the project manager’s guidance. The approach was top-down; the respective CEOs communicated with each other. The backend and frontend teams coordinated well with our engineers while working autonomous of one another.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their interpersonal communication is highly professional. Sharing the same time zone enhanced their hands-on approach to management and workflow.

They made collaboration fun.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Pop Art tends to upload company pages rather than build software. This difference may have caused them to set some unrealistic expectations because they didn’t anticipate the level of intricacy involved.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We're a commercial vehicle dealer based in Portland, Oregon. In my role as an IT business systems analyst, I support corporate communications and manage relationships with vendors.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pop Art?

We’ve worked with them on several projects. We most recently hired Pop Art to develop and maintain an HR website for internal use. We wanted the site to be highly engaging, with a unique, cutting-edge aesthetic, and we needed developers who could offer out of the box solutions.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They started by doing extensive research in the discovery phase, interviewing our employees to determine what they wanted to see in an HR site. Some of these focus groups produced radically different feedback, and Pop Art navigated these diverse user requests.

Pop Art is very good at suggesting and implementing interesting solutions, so the website they created is far from static. It features personalized pages, providing specific information depending on a user’s department and office location. Links, too, are personalized, allowing employees access to different portions of our benefits page depending on their position. They also implemented single sign-on.

We later hired Pop Art to build an onboarding application underneath the completed website, presenting a huge technical challenge. They worked through an API alongside another vendor responsible for workflow and content, and both companies did an excellent job communicating and staying in sync.

Implementing the onboarding assistant was a high-pressure project done under an incredibly compressed timeline, and Pop Art stayed deeply engaged during the follow-up phase to fine-tune the rough edges.

How did you come to work with Pop Art?

We’ve worked with them on a number of projects over the last 19 years. I wasn’t a part of the hiring process for this particular job, but our company typically begins and RFP process. Pop Art submitted a proposal to develop the HR site and won.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend roughly $90,000 on maintenance for the HR site each year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started work on the website in 2015 and the onboarding assistant has been active for one year. Our relationship is ongoing.

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

I don’t have direct access to the website’s metrics, but I do know it was well-received by our employees. It was a successful project.

How did Pop Art perform from a project management standpoint?

One nice aspect of our relationship is that Pop Art is a local company. We conduct most of our business by phone and video conference, but it’s also helpful that we can sit down for in-person meetings occasionally, especially during the initial phase of a project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re responsive and work well under pressure. They're also technically astute, able to suggest solutions we wouldn't have considered on our own. We aren’t always familiar with the latest technologies available, so my HR customers and I look to companies like Pop Art to provide cutting-edge solutions.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Their prices can be on the high-end. You get what you pay for, of course, but they are more expensive than other companies we’ve worked with.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am an associate attorney at a law firm in Seattle.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pop Art?

We wanted to update our website to make it a more welcoming experience for our clients. We wanted it to be more useful to them. We have a litigation side and a family law side. For our litigation side, it didn’t have the information that clients needed to hire our litigation attorneys and we needed to make it more information-rich. Our family law side wasn’t getting search results, and so we wanted to increase our SEO, update the site and have more information on it. It hadn’t been updated in about 10 years.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pop Art visited our office in Seattle and met with our website committee to discuss what was important about our company and what set us apart. When we interviewed, we talked about what makes the firm unique. We highlighted that the attorneys are all at the firm of their own volition, we volunteer at social justice organizations and in the community, and we find it important to treat other attorneys with respect. We all feel lucky to be attorneys. The designers pulled these various aspects into the website. They listened not just to the design aspect, but also what we found special about being attorneys and about our firm. They could tell we have a very northwest feel, and that we’re very committed to social justice and progress. They translated our values into a design.

Specifically, they've created new pages for us, as well as helped us with content, and find images. We didn’t want to stay with trite lawyer images. We carried over a color scheme and kept our logo, but everything else is new. They helped us clarify our message, breaking things down into practice areas and then into further segments. Our prior website had large block text and they explained that it was not user-friendly. They have implemented tabs to make the site more user-friendly, rather than having to continually scroll. They completely changed the design of the site. Also, our website was not mobile-friendly, and we need it to work on mobile devices and on desktops. They’ve finished development, but they’re waiting on us for content. We are also in the process of doing SEO. We compile the words and Pop Art will review them.

How did you come to work with Pop Art?

We didn’t consider Pop Art originally. We were looking at other companies in the Seattle area who had expertise with law firms. They were incredibly expensive and everything they turned out looked like every other law firm; nothing from their proposals was jumping out. One of our shareholders said his brother, Noah, [Director of Business Development, Pop Art] was down in Portland and we could put him in the pool. We agreed under the condition that we would treat him like everybody else. He wrote a proposal. We figured if we were branching out, we’d branch out a little further, so we threw in a couple of other Portland companies. We reviewed them and Pop Art’s proposal came in right in the middle of the price range.

We were surprised to find companies with very high bids but didn’t have their own websites. When we looked at Pop Art, they had a great, interactive website. The samples they sent us were beautiful, and their proposal was excellent. It said, “These are good features we think should be on your website; here’s an example of that. Your website should be dynamic; here’s an example of a dynamic website. Your website should have white space; here’s an example of good use of white space.” It was a breath of fresh air going through such a clear proposal. They clearly showed us what they were going to do. We were nervous because they hadn’t done a law firm’s site before, but their own website was so good, and that's why we went with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested between $10,000­ and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March of 2017 and work is ongoing.

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

They’ve been excellent to work with. With the previous developer we worked with, it would take a month to get something changed. We have needed to get things changed on our current website and Pop Art has helped us with that. Pop Art was hired to launch a completely new website, but they have nice enough to update our current website to help us out. They have been so responsive in everything we’ve asked for in terms of tweaking designs and been so kind when we’ve been unable to make a meeting. They are so professional to deal with and they’ve really blown us away in the design they’ve come up with for us. Overall, they've been so wonderful to deal with, and we are looking forward to launching the website in August.

How did Pop Art perform from a project management standpoint?

Although they have had some changes in their personnel, they have been highly communicative. It’s been a very smooth transition to the next person, and we have not felt any problems on our side. They created a schedule and have met every deadline. Every email is responded to quickly. I’ve sent an email on Friday and received a response on Saturday.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When we were going through the selection process, we communicated with seven different companies. Pop Art is a big company, and we’re not a big account, yet they treated us like we were special and they were excited to work with us. We were very impressed with that. They have been respectful and engaged the entire time, and always showed enthusiasm for our project. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, not at this point. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a partner at Sunrise Disposal Inc., which is a solid-waste collection company. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Pop Art?

We noticed major discrepancies in subscriptions payments versus the services people actually had. We were trying to solve a routing issue for our drivers by putting something in their hands to let them see instantly which services the customer is paying the city for.

I had hired another company previously that did the entire app, but it never worked correctly. That company said they were no longer offering mobile services, so I needed to find somebody to fix this buggy app. Noah [Director of Business Development, Pop Art] had worked at our former vendor previously, so I knew him already, and he mentioned that Pop Art would be able to help us. We’ve worked together for the last 6 months trying to revamp our app. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re just uploading our route into the database. The app puts the city administrators, our administrators, and our route drivers on the same page. The city administrators can change subscriptions because they process all the billing. This ensures the data are correct and adjusts it for our route drivers at the same time, which eliminates a lot of inefficiencies. Previously, if the city made a change, they would email us, and we would have to let the driver know. This mapping system keeps us all on the same page.

Pop Art worked primarily on the backend of an iOS app, building the functionality that wasn’t there. The old app would pick up addresses out of order and jump around depending on location. They fixed the issues.

Were there any challenges that they overcame?

We’d worked on this project for 2 years before Pop Art came along. At the time, I was really frustrated with the whole process. We’d dumped $140,000 or $150,000 into an app that wasn’t providing us with anything useful. They came up with a fix that was actually pretty simple, and they did that in a timely manner. The app isn’t operational yet.

How did you come to work with Pop Art? 

I originally found them through Noah, who was our prior representative at the old vendor. I really wanted to have a partner that I trusted. I looked at a few different companies, and everyone wanted retainers and had these long-term plans for consistent revenue. I just wanted our product to work.

I’ve worked with technology companies in another field, and often, vendors will promise they can deliver a solution but run into major problems after we’ve already spent thousands of dollars After meeting the guys at Pop Art, and I liked their small team structure and hands-on approach. They seemed genuine and had good processes in place. Our project manager was fantastic to work with and gave me weekly updates. Pop Art was transparent in everything they did. I had a good feeling about them.

How much have you invested with Pop Art?

We spent between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in March 2017, and we completed the project in June 2017. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

I’ve just tested the app, so I don’t have thorough experience with it yet. I’ve essentially made sure that a few features are working correctly and that information is cycling through as it should. The UX has been improved.

How did Pop Art perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great and on top of everything. We had weekly check-ins and bi-weekly conference calls, and we also communicated through email.

What did you find most impressive about Pop Art?

They are in this field for their customers. A revenue stream is needed to stay in business, but when a firm takes care of their customers, that revenue stream should take care of itself. The other companies I’ve looked at and worked with seem to chase the revenue streams. I liked that Pop Art was different in this respect.

Are there any areas Pop Art could improve?

There are always areas we can do better. This was a pretty simple project, and we had 1 bump in the road. The first release wasn’t ready, so it was a disaster when it first got into my hands. We had a little push to set things up because we were augmenting a solution that was already there. We weren’t starting from scratch, and my primary focus was to get the app working before redesigning it. They wanted to move everything from WordPress to Node. We’re a small business, so this stretched our budget because we have trucks to buy and just acquired another business. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO of Oregon Catholic Press. We publish music for religious organizations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pop Art?

We need a technically savvy developer that understood user experience as well as the technology to help us implement new e-commerce websites. Oregon Catholic Press had worked with other agencies before Pop Art, but I wasn’t involved at that time.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pop Art created all of the templates for the user experience for the website and did some of the PHP programming that we needed. I worked with them during the sales process, and they worked directly with my engineers during the project. The websites were custom-made and are customer-facing, allowing visitors to purchase our products or services. We also needed Pop Art to have the technology capabilities to work directly with our engineers. The 2 main features of the sites were shopping carts and content management systems [CMSs]. We customized the CMS for a software development project, and Pop Art helped out with the interface.

How did you come to work with Pop Art?

I already knew Pop Art from previous experience and trusted them. We did an RFP and considered the capabilities and costs. Pop Art won the bid.

How much have you invested with Pop Art?

We have spent between $10,000 and $50,000 with them so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January of 2016, and the work is ongoing.

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

We’ve had a lot of positive comments. The sites launched effectively and worked well. They produce $1.5M per year for the organization, which is on the smaller end for us. But, this is the only part of the business that does e-commerce. We achieved our goals and are happy with the service.

How did Pop Art perform from a project management standpoint?

They integrated well with our team, and they got the work done. I never heard any complaints from the project manager. We communicated via email and phone.

What did you find most impressive about Pop Art?

They’re able to cross over from being experts on the usability and marketing side in addition to having strong technical acumen. It’s hard to find good companies that can do that.

Are there any areas Pop Art could improve?

They’re a smaller organization and want to grow. I know they work with large and small-sized clients. I don’t have any criticisms. I was very happy with their work. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Oregon Lottery supports state programs through the sale of lottery tickets. As the marketing director, I was responsible for all aspects of marketing, product development research, marketing communications, sales materials, and responsible gambling communications.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pop Art?

We needed to maximize revenue for our programs while promoting responsible gaming. We wanted a content management system [CMS] for our website, and we were looking for a digital agency with experience in CMS that could act as a consultant. Pop Art evaluated our business need, looked at our systems and existing processes, and worked with our team to recommend the top content management system. As I got to know them, I realized they were broadly skilled in digital marketing, so we worked with them on other projects as well.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pop Art acted as our digital marketing consultant for a category of projects, and we had a retainer with them to address our marketing plan and challenges for the upcoming year. Every month, they proposed concepts for product sales, branding, and other areas where we could leverage the digital space to accomplish our goals. From those ideas, we came up with features on our website. We developed a couple of mobile applications to promote our in-state lottery game. Pop Art provided micro-site work to help us launch new products.

As the marketing director, I needed to come up with a way to engage younger markets 10 years into the future, as there’s a lot of competition for lottery games. I did extensive primary/secondary research on my own or with research companies and concluded that we needed some sort of cashless option that involved either marketing or playing on a mobile device. At that time, the iPhone was entering the market. I worked with Pop Art and a gaming vendor to develop a mobile game concept with a scalable entertainment-based element. Pop Art helped me develop game concepts and found a device for testing this concept in market research, which led to the prototype for a game concept. We ended up developing a loyalty program and platform that the lottery implemented. Pop Art built mobile apps on both iOS and Android. This was the biggest and most innovative project they worked with us on.

The most notable aspects of the website include items that users reference through it, such as the mobile application. Another part involved a promotion for the Powerball game, which let users look up winning numbers or shake the device to turn an origami dollar bill into a real sailboat, for example. It was a fun way to promote turning your dollar into a dream. They also integrated a retailer locator into the mobile app. It various supplementary ways, the website pointed to a mobile application that offered an interactive way to enjoy the game or find a location to play.

How did you come to work with Pop Art?

During our consultant search, we found 3 technical marketing companies. My marketing communications manager at the time knew them. We chose Pop Art because of their thorough brainstorming process. They did a really great job of interviewing our people and coming back with a recommendation. Through our initial work with them, we recognized that they were technical problem-solvers.

I had another agency do some of our digital, but it turned out to be more straight marketing. In contrast, Pop Art really acted as a technical resource as well. Since we wanted to include new technologies and trends, we recognized that Pop Art was a valuable asset. We worked with them on a separate contract for a digital and technical agency, and I had another traditional agency that we worked with as well.

How much have you invested with Pop Art?

We spent $500,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2006, and we worked with them for 5 years. 

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Because we worked with several agencies, it’s hard to say which results are attributable to Pop Art. The loyalty platform that we developed gained notoriety all over the world as something that was unique and showed the future of gaming. The owner at the time, Steven, and I were asked to travel to the ICE Show in London, and we met a variety of gaming companies and partners who looked at our concept and figured out how to build on it. I can’t attribute specific numbers to Pop Art. Instead, we focused on producing innovation, maintaining the partnership, and developing something unique.

How did Pop Art perform from a project management standpoint?

When I worked with them, they had excellent project management. They were extremely thorough in setting up each project and making sure they understood the stakeholders, goals, and priorities. They had solid management processes and strong people. Pop Art makes sure that they’ve got project managers who know what’s important to the client. I know their tools have evolved significantly over the years. We had many in-person meetings and communicated via email, notes, logs, and shared project schedules.

What did you find most impressive about Pop Art?

They respond creatively to challenges. They approach problem-solving in an innovative way, especially from a UX perspective. I think their strongest suit is their engineering staff, all of whom look for the newest trends. I didn’t have that skill set either in-house or from my traditional agencies. They acted as our technology expert and provided custom development from devices to software.

Are there any areas Pop Art could improve?

I think any agency needs to make sure that they keep the customer’s goals in sight and communicate regularly to stay on track. I think problems happen if there’s a gap in communication that forces the team to backtrack. But, I don’t think that was a major problem in our case.