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Culture
Philosophy
Process

Culture

Experiments with GPT-4: Exploring the Possibilities of AI-Language Models

As someone who has always been fascinated by the capabilities of artificial intelligence, I was excited to get my hands on GPT-4, the latest AI language model developed by OpenAI. I

Process

Knockout: A CSS framework for Webflow

Created by the folks at Edgar Allan

For the past few years we've been stuffing all of our Webflow learnings into a framework that we use as the basis for all of our Webflow projects. Now we're ready to share it with the world.

People

Now Hiring Project Manager

We are looking for a smart and kind Project Manager in Buenos Aires

In 2021, the Edgar Allan team more than doubled in size, tripled our technology group with traditional and visual developers, and made some new friends in the no-code and Webflow worlds. We also went global, helped clients have great stories, and even launched a couple tiny product boats off the bow

People

Hiring: Digital Writer/Content Strategist

Also looking for a wordsmith who loves details.

We're looking for a sharp, self-starting Digital Writer/Content Strategist with a love of order and making sense of large systems of copy to join our fully remote global team.

People

Join Our Team

Looking for the kindest, smartest Javascript Developers we can find.

In 2021, the Edgar Allan team more than doubled in size, tripled our technology group with traditional and visual developers, and made some new friends in the no-code and Webflow worlds. We also went global, helped clients have great stories, and even launched a couple tiny product boats off the bow

Culture

Holiday Gifting the Digital Way

Last-minute gifts rounded up EA’s yearly giving event.

Procrastinators rejoice: If you’re still trying to figure out what to get for everyone on your list — without having to worry about days to ship — we’re sharing a list of the gifts our team gave.

People

BA Webflow Meetup

El jueves 23 septiembre. 1 - 2 pm (Argentina) / 6 - 7 pm (España) / 12 - 1 pm (EST) / 9 - 10 am (PST). Por Zoom.

Sumate a la primera charla de Grupo Buenos Aires Webflow, en castellano.

Process

Why we love the un-presentation.

Don't present (every time). Perform a little.

Decks can be boring — your work is not. We won’t come right out and say we don’t make them anymore, but we have figured out a more dynamic, meaningful way to do the obligatory presentation dirty work than the typical deck. We call it the Un-Presentation.

Process

CD Chronicles 4: Bridging the Gap with Notional Copy

The great debate: Which comes first… design or copy? We choose neither. And both.

In the world of digital creative, there’s a never-ending battle about what should lead the way when creating a web experience — UX/design or copy? Wireframes or word docs? If you're embracing content design, it can't be an either/or.

Process

CD Chronicles 3: Embrace a Blank Slate

Why what you don't publish is just as important as what you do.

By all means, do a site audit. But don't let it blind you to what could be if you'd never done one at all.

Process

CD Chronicles 2: Why We Stopped Presenting Site Maps

How to use Content Design to get to wrong faster.

When we started creating a culture of Content Design at EA, the info-gathering, discovery-workshopping, collaborative, "question everything" stuff came pretty easily. What didn't was figuring out how to show our work in that very first client-facing readout meeting.

Process

Introducing The Content Design Chronicles

CD Chronicles 1: "How in the World are We Gonna Make this Work?"

We’re building a culture of Content Design bit by bit at Edgar Allan. Every day, we discover quirks, problems, and then come up with even more questions. We’re pretty sure the stuff we’ve figured out can help other UX folks and Content Designers. So, let's collaborate. We'll start.

Process

The Greatest Campaign You’ll Ever Work On

Your design portfolio

We spend tons of time looking at design portfolios, even when we’re not hiring. We’re curious who’s out there doing what, where. Here’s a short list of things we look for.

Philosophy

Sometimes Content Design Isn’t About Words at All

Good design isn’t objective; it’s undeniable. It’s functional and beautiful, intuitive and efficient, and it is those things when (and because) it elegantly fulfills the needs of the humans it’s meant to impact. And that has nothing to do with whether it has letters on it or not.

Philosophy

Writers: Web Experience is Your Responsibility Too.

Content IS Design on the internet.

Writer, you may not know it, but the web is yours to shape.

Philosophy

Edgar Allan No Longer Offers Writing.

Instead, We Offer Content Design.

Sorry folks, the EA writing department has moved. Our process is changing, and so is our approach to making the internet a more accessible, informative place.

Philosophy

How Content Design Can Bridge the Brand to Web Gap.

The Content Design process is great for ensuring the web is a user-centered place at the page level, but it can also help brand thinking translate from strategy deck to online experience.

Process

Content Strategy Isn’t Working.

Content Design Will Remake the Web.

The job of Content Strategist has got to go in the interest of creating a web that truly works for users. Here’s why.

Philosophy

A UX Perspective on the US Election

If the Founding Fathers Were Content Designers, What Might They Do?

Americans don’t seem to agree on much right now, but there’s one non-partisan sentiment that holds true no matter whether you bleed red or blue: The electoral system in the United States is hardly user-centered. We wondered, how could smart Content Design help?

Philosophy

What is Content Design?

Let's Talk About the Value of Words on the Web

On the web, the best writers have always been designers at heart, defining not just what words might solve users’ problems, but how to use them on the page. Content Design gives a name to what great digital writers have been doing for ages, and it’s why for us, the web just keeps getting better.

Philosophy

The First Wave of No-Code Was For Designers. The Second is for Writers.

Making websites got easier. Making them say what they need to didn't. So, what now?

What happens when technologists don’t hold all the keys to the creation of the web anymore? We think the answer is that more chairs are going to get pulled up to the digital table. And that writers and other authors should claim a whole mess of them.

Process

Why Our Copywriters Are Now Content Designers.

In the no-code era, a site’s story belongs to everyone.

If anybody did business cards anymore (Ah...simpler times.), we’d have to do a reprint right now. Our copywriters, content strategists and content creators now have a new job title: Content Designer, and boy, are we happy to finally start calling our work what it is.

Culture

Can’t touch this... QR Codes!

The QR code is quietly making a comeback.

Once considered mere marketing fad, it appears as though Quick Response codes have been slowly reemerging over the past several years, and may finally cement their place in our daily lives as the no-touch tool we never knew we needed.

Process

Digital Transformation: How Can No-Code Change the World?

Cultivating a Human Centered Approach to Digital Change.

The coronavirus is forcing businesses to focus on their digital transformation stat, but the key to coming out on top is understanding that the shift is really less about technology, and more about the people it will affect.

Process

Distance Working Tips for the Long Haul

Because remote working may be the new normal.

Even as social distancing restrictions start to ease, working from home is still encouraged for those organizations who are able to conduct business from home. The new reality? Your team needs to be remote-ready for the long term.

Process

The Five Dirty Words Creatives Don’t Want to Hear (But Should)

Inspired by Adam Savage’s "Every Tool’s a Hammer"

Adam Savage of Mythbusters offers a new way of thinking about how to tackle the most difficult parts about being creative in his book "Every Tool's a Hammer." We have a few more thoughts on how those often frightening subjects are actually beneficial to the process.

Culture

Don’t Cancel Your Event, Get Creative

We All Live on Zoom Now; Let’s Network!

As social distancing drags on, you’re going to be tempted to cancel that in-person event you’ve been planning. Don’t. Online gatherings are going to gather speed, and you’ll want to know how to go virtual with confidence. Now’s the time to get comfortable on-screen.

Philosophy

No Code Conf 2019

Celebrating Visual Development in the Golden Gate City

Our week in San Francisco at Webflow's first conference gave us a peak into what we believe to be the future of the web, where authorship is democratized and marketing websites are placed in the hands of designers and marketers.

Process

Six Principles of No Code Stewardship

With great power comes great responsibility.

No Code developers benefit from the ease and access tools like Webflow provide. But without a considered approach to development, that ease and access may not survive through the client handoff.

Philosophy

Content is King

But is it the ruler we want, or just the one we deserve?

Listen Up: We've got something to say about content. Introducing The Brand Journalist, a Podcast from Edgar Allan.

Process

Game of Phones

Heads up: Your site can be mobile-friendly without being mobile-first.

The growth of mobile traffic is one of the biggest trends impacting the digital marketplace, and while you need to ensure your website is optimized for phones, designers should consider a holistic multi-viewport experience in terms of the overall customer journey.

Process

Microcopy & the Rise of UX Writing

These little words can have a big impact.

Unlike, say a print ad, digital products are inherently interactive, which means there’s more to worry about than how something looks and what it says. Enter UX writing: well-crafted microcopy that guides people through their online journey, providing answers, encouraging action and more.

Philosophy

Futuristic Vintage Digs in Modern Time

Prioritizing the visitor experience, TWA Hotel offers a unique impression

From the larger architecture themes down to the smallest details, Eero Saarinen's terminal-turned-hotel engages the human dignity of each visitor who walks through its doors.

Process

Take Your Shoes Off (Before You Try Walking in Your Customer’s)

...and other batshit-sounding things digital marketers should regularly tell each other.

Sometimes, when you’re immersed in your own work world, it’s easy to forget to pop your head up for air and remember that we don’t do this all for us, but for someone else: our customers/audiences.

Culture

The Changing Face of Luxury in the Digital World

How do you create an intuitive digital experience that embodies a new definition of luxury?

Across industries, there’s been a shift in the concept of luxury as the needs and expectations of the high-dollar consumer have changed; no longer a formal, pretentious display of wealth, the idea of luxury is more intimate,

Philosophy

Hooked on a Feeling

How hotels can push their brands to make the feeling of “away” something guests can take with them when they check out.

That unrelenting, human craving for the release, recharge and rarified air of an unfamiliar setting is something we all want more of, whether we’ve loaded up the suitcases and booked flights...or not. It’s also something hoteliers can and should think about extending—and capitalizing on.

Philosophy

The new hospitality: On selling place not space.

The hotel room isn’t necessarily the primary product anymore.

We’ve been thinking about different trends happening outside of the hotel industry, and questioning how they could have immediate implications inside it. And while researching —and dreaming of far-off places to travel —we eventually came back to what was right in front of us... work.

Philosophy

How A Suitcase Brand Became a Modern Traveler’s Touchstone

Building a travel brand beyond the ordinary.

The story of Away is less about selling suitcases, and more about embodying a lifestyle. It’s a great example of how brands can use more than just what they physically make to raise their capital in the consumers’ messaging-packed world.

Process

Exploring "Pull" In Concurrent Design Processes

Understanding iterative thinking across disciplines on a project level instead of a task level using concurrent design and development.

Understanding iterative thinking across disciplines on a project level instead of a task level using concurrent design and development.

Process

Responsive Grids Are Fun!

The design tool for bridging the gap between static design & responsive development is your noggin.

There's always been some translation involved in turning statically designed page layouts into functionally responsive web pages, & a number of design tools have tried to bridge this gap. But with a little understanding about responsive behavior, static comps can translate seamlessly to development.

Culture

Summer 2019 Reading List

A snapshot of a few things to read

Summer may not officially begin for another couple of weeks, but we’ve already reached temperatures in the mid-90s here in Atlanta which means it’s officially unofficially that time of year: the season for porch parties, beer festivals, Braves baseball, Hooch shooting… and summer reading lists.

Process

Creating a Project Estimate with Wrike

Demystifying the project estimation process

In all honesty, we haven’t found any product that is perfect for our management needs, but Wrike gets us the closest. It’s great at building out project timelines, managing timelines and reporting status, but it’s missing a key piece of project planning: building out the actual project cost.

Process

Webflow for Teams

Building for Scale and Stability in Webflow

Our guide aims to be more than just a how-to, though (Webflow University has got that covered), here we've started to outline our philosophy on why we approach certain aspects of a Webflow and how to create sites structured for stability and scale.

Process

Alexa, design for ambient voice interactions…please?

Why designing for voice is different (and how it’s not).

We recently took a stab at designing and building our own Alexa Skill — one that would walk people through a project review using our Retro Cards as a template. Along the way, we realized we knew a few things about talking but that we had some stuff to learn about how to design for voice.

Philosophy

Selecting a CMS based on... user needs

How to select a Content Management System based on user needs instead of just technology capabilities.

The selection of a CMS for an organization can be challenging, but the process for choosing doesn’t have to be complicated. The key: focusing on user needs and how the system can empower users to meet those needs.

Process

Baby Steps to Content Personalization

A Crawl, Walk, Run Approach to Content Personalization

The unfortunate reality is Artificial Intelligence is not going to make content better through personalization.

Process

Fully Responsive Images

Using Object Fit to optimize image display in Webflow

What if I told you images could be cropped by their parent div omni-directionally, behaving like background-size: cover, but retaining the feature set of an IMG element? There's object-fit for that.

Process

Making Collection Sliders Dynamic In Webfow

Suppressing slides with conditional display

A shortcoming of Webflow’s Slider component is that slides can’t be created or deleted via the CMS system. So when we wanted to display team members in a slideshow for our case studies, we needed to figure out a workaround for dynamically displaying slideshows with varying numbers of team members.

People

Lessons in Team Dynamics From The Road

Edgar Allan's Chesley Lowe & The Whiskey Gentry

“Being on stage as a band is a lot like being in a small agency,” Chesley explains. “You can think about each section of the band like different departments, and they all need to work together.”

Philosophy

Team Building via Brand Sprint

If Brand is a reflection of culture, then the brand sprint is a great way to get everyone together talking about what makes the brand work.

Putting everyone together to be a part of essentially one big team working toward one common goal is intensely uniting, and it’ll help your employees connect both to the company’s mission and to each other.

Process

Our take on The Google Ventures Brand Sprint

A Running start to building brand strategy

Brand strategy is generally the very first thing we want to talk about when we start a project with a new client. Is there a strategy in place? You’ve got a logo and some colors? Hey, that’s great…but what else? How’d you choose those things?

Process

How We Dressed Up B2B Like B2C (and why it was a smart move)

Simplicity begets Solutions

What do you get when you take a deck of cards, the yearning to turn traditional B2B marketing on its head, and an affinity for some healthy risk-taking? Our Retrospective Cards project!

Philosophy

Finding a Fit: A Look at our Organic Hiring Philosophy

The infamous face-to-face interview is only a small percentage of the entire hiring process – at least that’s how we see it.

Take a glimpse into our hiring philosophy, and how getting from applicant to employee starts long before you ever set foot in an interview. 

People

Be A Shark In a Sea of Creative Guppies

When vying for a creative role in a competitive field, there are a few calculated actions you can take to ensure you show up and stand out.

People

Safety Not Guaranteed

Hello, Designers and Writers! We're hiring.

We’ve got some interesting (fun, meaty, exciting) stuff happening at Edgar Allan, and we need some help from a couple smart creatives – one writer and one designer. Want to join the team?

Process

3 Resources to Help Visual Designers Break into User Experience Strategy

Making the shift from designing for views to users

Breaking into user experience design can be a challenge because the typical designer’s playground — the visual artifact — is really only a tiny part of the process. We have collected a list of resorces to get visual designers started on thinking about user experience strategy.

Process

WordPress vs. Webflow: Common Considerations, Advantages and Challenges

Looking at the strengths and weaknesses — and ultimately frustrations — of each platform

The answer to this question, like many technology questions, really comes down to what do you want to do with the platform. A more realistic answer isn’t should we use one of these tools but when should we?

Process

A Retro on Our Sprint Retrospective Cards

Why’d We Make a Retrospective Deck?

In the spirit of working on ways to improve the work, we created a set of Retrospective Cards. “Look back to look forward” is our new mantra, and it can be a part of your post-project rituals and routines too.

Culture

The Sound of Story

EA Podcast Roundup

Everyone in the studio spends an inordinate amount of their personal time absorbing narrative of one type or another (music, movies, Netflix binges), but one of our favorite modes is the humble podcast.

Philosophy

Content vs. Brand Journalism

A quality-over-quantity death match.

Content Creation is something we do here, but we've come to be less than thrilled with what "content" has come to mean in the world of marketing, inbound or otherwise. So, we came up with something better.

Culture

Atlanta Webflow Users Group

Talking Shop with the Local Web Product Community

A night talking shop and sharing our approach to designing in the browser with the Atlanta web community. We had the good fortune of having some of the members of the Webflow team to join us remotely to help debut Interactions 2.0.

Process

A Response to Responsive Design

The web is evolving, the way we design should evolve too.

After wrestling with how to best design for multiple viewports and then how to work along Agile development teams we took a step back and said... how can we improve our overall approach and even the tools. Webflow has been part of that answer.

Philosophy

Unopologetically Basic

And You Should Be Too.

Everyone loves the latest and greatest shinny digital tool or technology but more often than not, most companies are still struggling to get the basics right.

Process

All the screens. All the time.

Or why we don't use print software to make responsive websites.

Over the past four years, Edgar Allan has worked to create a process that would scale for design teams, provide the detail needed for developers, and meet the velocity needs for Agile focused groups.

Philosophy

Nobody Goes to the Gallery to See the Frames

An argument for function over form in responsive web design.

Have you ever just wanted to get the website out of the way of what you are actually trying to read or search for? Yeah, we have too.

Philosophy

Great Products Have Great Stories

And other things we’ve learned about brand.

Yeah, yeah...everyone’s a storyteller these days. But more than just telling a story, we think of this approach as embodying a back-to-basics philosophy as story is the first communication method we encounter as humans and the way we come to know the world.

Culture

Experiments with GPT-4: Exploring the Possibilities of AI-Language Models

As someone who has always been fascinated by the capabilities of artificial intelligence, I was excited to get my hands on GPT-4, the latest AI language model developed by OpenAI. I

Culture

Holiday Gifting the Digital Way

Last-minute gifts rounded up EA’s yearly giving event.

Procrastinators rejoice: If you’re still trying to figure out what to get for everyone on your list — without having to worry about days to ship — we’re sharing a list of the gifts our team gave.

Culture

Can’t touch this... QR Codes!

The QR code is quietly making a comeback.

Once considered mere marketing fad, it appears as though Quick Response codes have been slowly reemerging over the past several years, and may finally cement their place in our daily lives as the no-touch tool we never knew we needed.

Culture

Don’t Cancel Your Event, Get Creative

We All Live on Zoom Now; Let’s Network!

As social distancing drags on, you’re going to be tempted to cancel that in-person event you’ve been planning. Don’t. Online gatherings are going to gather speed, and you’ll want to know how to go virtual with confidence. Now’s the time to get comfortable on-screen.

Culture

The Changing Face of Luxury in the Digital World

How do you create an intuitive digital experience that embodies a new definition of luxury?

Across industries, there’s been a shift in the concept of luxury as the needs and expectations of the high-dollar consumer have changed; no longer a formal, pretentious display of wealth, the idea of luxury is more intimate,

Culture

Summer 2019 Reading List

A snapshot of a few things to read

Summer may not officially begin for another couple of weeks, but we’ve already reached temperatures in the mid-90s here in Atlanta which means it’s officially unofficially that time of year: the season for porch parties, beer festivals, Braves baseball, Hooch shooting… and summer reading lists.

Culture

The Sound of Story

EA Podcast Roundup

Everyone in the studio spends an inordinate amount of their personal time absorbing narrative of one type or another (music, movies, Netflix binges), but one of our favorite modes is the humble podcast.

Culture

Atlanta Webflow Users Group

Talking Shop with the Local Web Product Community

A night talking shop and sharing our approach to designing in the browser with the Atlanta web community. We had the good fortune of having some of the members of the Webflow team to join us remotely to help debut Interactions 2.0.

Philosophy

Sometimes Content Design Isn’t About Words at All

Good design isn’t objective; it’s undeniable. It’s functional and beautiful, intuitive and efficient, and it is those things when (and because) it elegantly fulfills the needs of the humans it’s meant to impact. And that has nothing to do with whether it has letters on it or not.

Philosophy

Writers: Web Experience is Your Responsibility Too.

Content IS Design on the internet.

Writer, you may not know it, but the web is yours to shape.

Philosophy

Edgar Allan No Longer Offers Writing.

Instead, We Offer Content Design.

Sorry folks, the EA writing department has moved. Our process is changing, and so is our approach to making the internet a more accessible, informative place.

Philosophy

How Content Design Can Bridge the Brand to Web Gap.

The Content Design process is great for ensuring the web is a user-centered place at the page level, but it can also help brand thinking translate from strategy deck to online experience.

Philosophy

A UX Perspective on the US Election

If the Founding Fathers Were Content Designers, What Might They Do?

Americans don’t seem to agree on much right now, but there’s one non-partisan sentiment that holds true no matter whether you bleed red or blue: The electoral system in the United States is hardly user-centered. We wondered, how could smart Content Design help?

Philosophy

What is Content Design?

Let's Talk About the Value of Words on the Web

On the web, the best writers have always been designers at heart, defining not just what words might solve users’ problems, but how to use them on the page. Content Design gives a name to what great digital writers have been doing for ages, and it’s why for us, the web just keeps getting better.

Philosophy

The First Wave of No-Code Was For Designers. The Second is for Writers.

Making websites got easier. Making them say what they need to didn't. So, what now?

What happens when technologists don’t hold all the keys to the creation of the web anymore? We think the answer is that more chairs are going to get pulled up to the digital table. And that writers and other authors should claim a whole mess of them.

Philosophy

No Code Conf 2019

Celebrating Visual Development in the Golden Gate City

Our week in San Francisco at Webflow's first conference gave us a peak into what we believe to be the future of the web, where authorship is democratized and marketing websites are placed in the hands of designers and marketers.

Philosophy

Content is King

But is it the ruler we want, or just the one we deserve?

Listen Up: We've got something to say about content. Introducing The Brand Journalist, a Podcast from Edgar Allan.

Philosophy

Futuristic Vintage Digs in Modern Time

Prioritizing the visitor experience, TWA Hotel offers a unique impression

From the larger architecture themes down to the smallest details, Eero Saarinen's terminal-turned-hotel engages the human dignity of each visitor who walks through its doors.

Philosophy

Hooked on a Feeling

How hotels can push their brands to make the feeling of “away” something guests can take with them when they check out.

That unrelenting, human craving for the release, recharge and rarified air of an unfamiliar setting is something we all want more of, whether we’ve loaded up the suitcases and booked flights...or not. It’s also something hoteliers can and should think about extending—and capitalizing on.

Philosophy

The new hospitality: On selling place not space.

The hotel room isn’t necessarily the primary product anymore.

We’ve been thinking about different trends happening outside of the hotel industry, and questioning how they could have immediate implications inside it. And while researching —and dreaming of far-off places to travel —we eventually came back to what was right in front of us... work.

Philosophy

How A Suitcase Brand Became a Modern Traveler’s Touchstone

Building a travel brand beyond the ordinary.

The story of Away is less about selling suitcases, and more about embodying a lifestyle. It’s a great example of how brands can use more than just what they physically make to raise their capital in the consumers’ messaging-packed world.

Philosophy

Selecting a CMS based on... user needs

How to select a Content Management System based on user needs instead of just technology capabilities.

The selection of a CMS for an organization can be challenging, but the process for choosing doesn’t have to be complicated. The key: focusing on user needs and how the system can empower users to meet those needs.

Philosophy

Team Building via Brand Sprint

If Brand is a reflection of culture, then the brand sprint is a great way to get everyone together talking about what makes the brand work.

Putting everyone together to be a part of essentially one big team working toward one common goal is intensely uniting, and it’ll help your employees connect both to the company’s mission and to each other.

Philosophy

Finding a Fit: A Look at our Organic Hiring Philosophy

The infamous face-to-face interview is only a small percentage of the entire hiring process – at least that’s how we see it.

Take a glimpse into our hiring philosophy, and how getting from applicant to employee starts long before you ever set foot in an interview. 

Philosophy

Content vs. Brand Journalism

A quality-over-quantity death match.

Content Creation is something we do here, but we've come to be less than thrilled with what "content" has come to mean in the world of marketing, inbound or otherwise. So, we came up with something better.

Philosophy

Unopologetically Basic

And You Should Be Too.

Everyone loves the latest and greatest shinny digital tool or technology but more often than not, most companies are still struggling to get the basics right.

Philosophy

Nobody Goes to the Gallery to See the Frames

An argument for function over form in responsive web design.

Have you ever just wanted to get the website out of the way of what you are actually trying to read or search for? Yeah, we have too.

Philosophy

Great Products Have Great Stories

And other things we’ve learned about brand.

Yeah, yeah...everyone’s a storyteller these days. But more than just telling a story, we think of this approach as embodying a back-to-basics philosophy as story is the first communication method we encounter as humans and the way we come to know the world.

Process

Knockout: A CSS framework for Webflow

Created by the folks at Edgar Allan

For the past few years we've been stuffing all of our Webflow learnings into a framework that we use as the basis for all of our Webflow projects. Now we're ready to share it with the world.

Process

Why we love the un-presentation.

Don't present (every time). Perform a little.

Decks can be boring — your work is not. We won’t come right out and say we don’t make them anymore, but we have figured out a more dynamic, meaningful way to do the obligatory presentation dirty work than the typical deck. We call it the Un-Presentation.

Process

CD Chronicles 4: Bridging the Gap with Notional Copy

The great debate: Which comes first… design or copy? We choose neither. And both.

In the world of digital creative, there’s a never-ending battle about what should lead the way when creating a web experience — UX/design or copy? Wireframes or word docs? If you're embracing content design, it can't be an either/or.

Process

CD Chronicles 3: Embrace a Blank Slate

Why what you don't publish is just as important as what you do.

By all means, do a site audit. But don't let it blind you to what could be if you'd never done one at all.

Process

CD Chronicles 2: Why We Stopped Presenting Site Maps

How to use Content Design to get to wrong faster.

When we started creating a culture of Content Design at EA, the info-gathering, discovery-workshopping, collaborative, "question everything" stuff came pretty easily. What didn't was figuring out how to show our work in that very first client-facing readout meeting.

Process

Introducing The Content Design Chronicles

CD Chronicles 1: "How in the World are We Gonna Make this Work?"

We’re building a culture of Content Design bit by bit at Edgar Allan. Every day, we discover quirks, problems, and then come up with even more questions. We’re pretty sure the stuff we’ve figured out can help other UX folks and Content Designers. So, let's collaborate. We'll start.

Process

The Greatest Campaign You’ll Ever Work On

Your design portfolio

We spend tons of time looking at design portfolios, even when we’re not hiring. We’re curious who’s out there doing what, where. Here’s a short list of things we look for.

Process

Content Strategy Isn’t Working.

Content Design Will Remake the Web.

The job of Content Strategist has got to go in the interest of creating a web that truly works for users. Here’s why.

Process

Why Our Copywriters Are Now Content Designers.

In the no-code era, a site’s story belongs to everyone.

If anybody did business cards anymore (Ah...simpler times.), we’d have to do a reprint right now. Our copywriters, content strategists and content creators now have a new job title: Content Designer, and boy, are we happy to finally start calling our work what it is.

Process

Digital Transformation: How Can No-Code Change the World?

Cultivating a Human Centered Approach to Digital Change.

The coronavirus is forcing businesses to focus on their digital transformation stat, but the key to coming out on top is understanding that the shift is really less about technology, and more about the people it will affect.

Process

Distance Working Tips for the Long Haul

Because remote working may be the new normal.

Even as social distancing restrictions start to ease, working from home is still encouraged for those organizations who are able to conduct business from home. The new reality? Your team needs to be remote-ready for the long term.

Process

The Five Dirty Words Creatives Don’t Want to Hear (But Should)

Inspired by Adam Savage’s "Every Tool’s a Hammer"

Adam Savage of Mythbusters offers a new way of thinking about how to tackle the most difficult parts about being creative in his book "Every Tool's a Hammer." We have a few more thoughts on how those often frightening subjects are actually beneficial to the process.

Process

Six Principles of No Code Stewardship

With great power comes great responsibility.

No Code developers benefit from the ease and access tools like Webflow provide. But without a considered approach to development, that ease and access may not survive through the client handoff.

Process

Game of Phones

Heads up: Your site can be mobile-friendly without being mobile-first.

The growth of mobile traffic is one of the biggest trends impacting the digital marketplace, and while you need to ensure your website is optimized for phones, designers should consider a holistic multi-viewport experience in terms of the overall customer journey.

Process

Microcopy & the Rise of UX Writing

These little words can have a big impact.

Unlike, say a print ad, digital products are inherently interactive, which means there’s more to worry about than how something looks and what it says. Enter UX writing: well-crafted microcopy that guides people through their online journey, providing answers, encouraging action and more.

Process

Take Your Shoes Off (Before You Try Walking in Your Customer’s)

...and other batshit-sounding things digital marketers should regularly tell each other.

Sometimes, when you’re immersed in your own work world, it’s easy to forget to pop your head up for air and remember that we don’t do this all for us, but for someone else: our customers/audiences.

Process

Exploring "Pull" In Concurrent Design Processes

Understanding iterative thinking across disciplines on a project level instead of a task level using concurrent design and development.

Understanding iterative thinking across disciplines on a project level instead of a task level using concurrent design and development.

Process

Responsive Grids Are Fun!

The design tool for bridging the gap between static design & responsive development is your noggin.

There's always been some translation involved in turning statically designed page layouts into functionally responsive web pages, & a number of design tools have tried to bridge this gap. But with a little understanding about responsive behavior, static comps can translate seamlessly to development.

Process

Creating a Project Estimate with Wrike

Demystifying the project estimation process

In all honesty, we haven’t found any product that is perfect for our management needs, but Wrike gets us the closest. It’s great at building out project timelines, managing timelines and reporting status, but it’s missing a key piece of project planning: building out the actual project cost.

Process

Webflow for Teams

Building for Scale and Stability in Webflow

Our guide aims to be more than just a how-to, though (Webflow University has got that covered), here we've started to outline our philosophy on why we approach certain aspects of a Webflow and how to create sites structured for stability and scale.

Process

Alexa, design for ambient voice interactions…please?

Why designing for voice is different (and how it’s not).

We recently took a stab at designing and building our own Alexa Skill — one that would walk people through a project review using our Retro Cards as a template. Along the way, we realized we knew a few things about talking but that we had some stuff to learn about how to design for voice.

Process

Baby Steps to Content Personalization

A Crawl, Walk, Run Approach to Content Personalization

The unfortunate reality is Artificial Intelligence is not going to make content better through personalization.

Process

Fully Responsive Images

Using Object Fit to optimize image display in Webflow

What if I told you images could be cropped by their parent div omni-directionally, behaving like background-size: cover, but retaining the feature set of an IMG element? There's object-fit for that.

Process

Making Collection Sliders Dynamic In Webfow

Suppressing slides with conditional display

A shortcoming of Webflow’s Slider component is that slides can’t be created or deleted via the CMS system. So when we wanted to display team members in a slideshow for our case studies, we needed to figure out a workaround for dynamically displaying slideshows with varying numbers of team members.

Process

Our take on The Google Ventures Brand Sprint

A Running start to building brand strategy

Brand strategy is generally the very first thing we want to talk about when we start a project with a new client. Is there a strategy in place? You’ve got a logo and some colors? Hey, that’s great…but what else? How’d you choose those things?

Process

How We Dressed Up B2B Like B2C (and why it was a smart move)

Simplicity begets Solutions

What do you get when you take a deck of cards, the yearning to turn traditional B2B marketing on its head, and an affinity for some healthy risk-taking? Our Retrospective Cards project!

Process

3 Resources to Help Visual Designers Break into User Experience Strategy

Making the shift from designing for views to users

Breaking into user experience design can be a challenge because the typical designer’s playground — the visual artifact — is really only a tiny part of the process. We have collected a list of resorces to get visual designers started on thinking about user experience strategy.

Process

WordPress vs. Webflow: Common Considerations, Advantages and Challenges

Looking at the strengths and weaknesses — and ultimately frustrations — of each platform

The answer to this question, like many technology questions, really comes down to what do you want to do with the platform. A more realistic answer isn’t should we use one of these tools but when should we?

Process

A Retro on Our Sprint Retrospective Cards

Why’d We Make a Retrospective Deck?

In the spirit of working on ways to improve the work, we created a set of Retrospective Cards. “Look back to look forward” is our new mantra, and it can be a part of your post-project rituals and routines too.

Process

A Response to Responsive Design

The web is evolving, the way we design should evolve too.

After wrestling with how to best design for multiple viewports and then how to work along Agile development teams we took a step back and said... how can we improve our overall approach and even the tools. Webflow has been part of that answer.

Process

All the screens. All the time.

Or why we don't use print software to make responsive websites.

Over the past four years, Edgar Allan has worked to create a process that would scale for design teams, provide the detail needed for developers, and meet the velocity needs for Agile focused groups.

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