It’s all about the LAUNCH
For enthusiastic entrepreneurs, experiencing a new company launch from its conception to the peak of success is one of the most fulfilling adventures in the business world.
Greetings! My name is Marty, and I’d like to share the story of how I came to re-launch a creative agency that I had back in the early 90s.
The concept of designWorks is not a new one
It’s a rejuvenated dream, an idea that was executed long ago back when the tools of technology were a tad more primitive.
In the early 90s, I launched a digital agency called designWorks! of Tahoe, which specialized in working with clients in the Outdoor Industry.
I was lucky to be there at a time when a handful of grassroots companies pioneered a new industry with exciting designs in camping, backpacking, hiking and mountaineering equipment. Product development was exploding in a fast-paced environment where truly innovative concepts were continuously hitting the market.
Everything was about PRINT back then, Catalogs and Packaging were the backbones of an innovative Design Agency.
Imagine cranking out seasonal Catalogs and Workbooks with Aldus Pagemaker 1.0, Adobe Illustrator 88 and Adobe Photoshop 1.0. They were incredible times with everything running on floppy disks and SCSI drives.
The fax machine had just arrived, the Internet and email were still a long way off, and for some crazy reason, marketing departments were pleased as punch having progressed past Rubylith and Xacto knives.
There’s a lot to consider in launching creative agency in 2019—
A while back, I started thinking about what it would be like to start a Creative Agency in today’s world. I added a few concepts to my “to-do” list, and like many boards on Trello, the idea begin to expand with a little research and brainstorming. What exciting times we are in, there’s so many new tools available to advance communications. The deeper I dug I discovered some incredible technologies that could be brought together. Indeed the Adobe Creative Suite alone is a game-changer, but that’s just a start!
How to niche a creative agency in today’s world?
I started to gather my vision into a plan; I would like to share the concepts that came together for the Liberty Lake designWorks launch.
designWorks defined- concept to manifesto—
A creative agency of experienced freelance specialists based in the Pacific Northwest
designWorks foundations—
Imagine a different kind of company that works with a priority towards teamwork success.
The vision is to match the best freelance specialists with today’s leading technologies in service to our Clients.
The core values revolve around six basic parameters—
- Team designWorks
- Tools & Technologies
- designWorks Methodology
- WordPress Blog Hosting
- Brainstorming & Strategy 2019
- designWorks Services
01. Team designWorks
Priority number one in the designWorks manifesto— handpicking the right people.
The goal— to assemble a network of amazing talent that specializes in hard to find marketing services.
Some of the most exciting creatives out there today are freelancers!
Read more about how designWorks has assembled a team of inspirational professionals—
02. designWorks Technologies & Tools
designWorks has an obsession with the latest technology. We are proud to partner with visionary companies to improve our efficiencies.
There’s an incredible number of offerings out there in today’s software world, and it can take weeks to compare the features and options of today’s leading applications.
In researching designWorks, we put together a quiver of exceptional companies to streamline our workflow and customer service objectives. Check out the details of this designWorks toolbox, a mix of specialty tools featured in our recent technology post.
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Avaza
- Dropbox
- Grammarly
- Hubspot
- Moz
- Paste
- Scrivener
- Shopify
- SiteGround
- Slack
- Trello
- WordPress
- Zendesk
03. designWorks Methodology- here’s how we work
a Creative Design System—
Our streamlined three-step workflow keeps us competitive while taking teamwork to the next level in completing your project with on-time delivery.
Step 1— Discovery Call, Proposal & Brainstorming
We’re all ears! With most projects, the process starts with a Discovery Call—
During this first conference, we listen to identify your goals and understand what you want to achieve with your project.
Step 2— Production
Our designWorks production system prioritizes managing your project with team assignments that yield the best quality work on deadline.
Step 3— Presentation & Final Proofing
At last! A presentation of the final design for feedback and corrections.
Strategic Creative the designWorks way! It’s not easy to make great design work happen, but with a structured system and the best software available, we have created a formula that strives beyond our clients’ expectations!
.04 WordPress Website Success
With its exceptional Search Engine Optimization capabilities, WordPress is the best web development tool for launching a business or product.
We design WordPress sites with the tools that achieve keyword success with the search engines.
WordPress is ideally suited for businesses of all sizes, entrepreneurs, and professionals alike.
The world’s most popular website production system is used by more than 60 million websites worldwide.
Our Web Development team is proud to offer a three-step workflow to complete your website—
WordPress Design
We start with research to find a specialized theme with a responsive mobile-ready template for cell phones & tablets.
WordPress Production
We design clairvoyant solutions— rolling up our sleeves to produce a meticulously crafted site that’s hidden in a “staging” mode online.
WordPress Hosting
designWorks exclusively offers Managed Hosting.
Our maintenance plans offer a complete package with blazingly fast load times.
We partner with the experts at SiteGround. Their worldwide server infrastructure includes 5 data centers in 4 countries with speedy SSD drives on their dedicated servers.
Would you like to manage your WordPress site? We can get you launched with the SEO built-in to a turnkey website that’s ready for you to start blogging.
.05 Brainstorming & Strategy 2019
Creating a Virtual Think-Tank
Successful creative agencies seek to develop an environment that spawns big ideas — a place where a team can collaborate and be inspired towards brainstorming with a Think-Tank approach.
It’s an exploration for those “out-of-the-box” concepts, digging deep for solutions, opening up all the options in an ambiance that yields fruitful results.
In the good old corporate days, we used to lock ourselves in the conference room with a bunch of coffee and pound our heads together to fill our notebooks with concepts with which we could expand! Corporate offsite meetings have always been excellent venues to get folks together to define successful goals and game plans.
In today’s digital world, we have a new challenge.
Creating a network system that works efficiently to gather a remote team of freelancers. Sharing ideas without a conference room.
designWorks Brainstorming Sessions 2019 style
How do we facilitate a fireside chat environment in today’s digital world?
The goal was to create a virtual Think-Tank, a fun-relaxed environment that encourages a clear vision with inspiring artistic freedom — a place where team culture would thrive to define the ideas that create brand success.
Once again, today’s technology came to the rescue.
We have brought together three incredible software tools—
Avaza, Trello and Slack efficiently assemble our remote creative teams online.
Read our Brainstorming Sessions Post how we do it—
.06 services— the designWorks menu of offerings
designWorks casts a broad net with our services listing
We are fortunate to bring together an experienced network of freelance specialists with a deep roster of capabilities.
As a creative agency, our expertise is defined in seven categories—
- Web Development
- Graphic Design
- Creative
- Print & Packaging Design
- Digital Marketing
- Copywriting & Translation
- Photographic Services
Serving customers worldwide
Although our remote team works with clients worldwide, we are also proud to offer incredible local service from our headquarters here in the Pacific Northwest.
- Local Service Area- Spokane-CDA
- Spokane, Washington
- Spokane Valley, Washington
- Liberty Lake, Washington
- Post Falls, Idaho
- Couer d’Alene, Idaho
Sign up for our Creative Brainstorming Blog—
Follow along as we take the journey of launching an agency.
Sharing ideas & strategy in this technology-driven world is what designWorks brainstorming is all about.
Our future posts will feature contemporary marketing ideas for successful niche branding in today’s world. Look for our quick subscribe form in the bottom right corner of each webpage!
Do you have a project you’d like to explore together?
We would love to hear about your goals and how we can provide a plan to achieve them!
Let’s Chat—
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