After awhile even the best descriptions can, well, stop describing. Making lists of adjectives never speaks as highly as simply seeing, and experiencing, the work. And it's our work that best describes what we can do. Whether an extensive, complex, international e-commerce online shop, a multi-layered Flash site with sophisticated data mining, or a single-sided business card, the goal is always the same: to communicate your message effectively and creatively. How does this happen? Our experience, our hard work, and our understanding of how important it is to have robust, honest, and thoughtful communication with our clients, all the while keeping an open and relaxed atmosphere. Put all this together and you have the enjoyable experience of putting your project online or in print, and the satisfaction of knowing your project looks and works like a million bucks.
"What, little ol' me? I can change my website?"
To quote the zeitgeist, Yes you can! Adding a page, changing a phone number, uploading a photo ... if you can use a browser (which you're doing right now) you can control the content of your site. The majority of our sites are built on the open-source Drupal system. Without going into 1's and 0's jargon, it means we build your site in a way to grow with you, keeping your message fresh and up-to-date. By using Drupal, we're also able to help you expand down the line with more features, like adding a blog, a web gallery, or more. If Drupal doesn't meet your needs, we can also build you a custom backend tailored to just your project.
If You Build It, They Will Google You
As the number of sites grows everyday on the web, having clean, well-executed code for search engines to peruse and catalog is tantamount. We take pride, as only geeks would do, in the quality of our code. It's standards compliant across all major browsers, as we understand the importance of giving your project every opportunity to be found through searches. And, once the users reach your site, we help you keep them coming back. We offer an email newsletter integration where you can easily manage your subscriber list and send snazzy, graphic-rich emails to keep in touch with your users. With your newsletter and site, we also give you access to seeing all web traffic, referrals, hit count, etc., with Google Analytics. It's pretty amazing how much you can find out about your visitors with this exceptional service. We love it and bet you will too.
Wait? Beauty AND Brains?
It's one thing to make something pretty, it's another to make it work, and work right, with every visit from your users. Over to the right is a list of the services we offer. Different projects have different needs and we are happy to consult with you to find the quickest and surest way to get your project up, running and humming along. Don't see something you're looking for? Like what you see? Drop us a line and we'll be glad to chat with you about it.
Post Script: We believe in open source software
There's something about source code that is produced by passionate programmers because they want to, not because they have to. Drawing from a large pool of talent, open source has the ability to grow -- and keep itself in check -- much quicker than most private developing. And it's a big, big plus that clients are not locked into a proprietary system. Lastly, open source underscores the whole communal idea of the Internet. We're into that because, you know, the Internet ... it ain't a big truck, it's a ....
The Good Goods
Identity Materials (logos, business cards, etc.)
Web/Print Layout and Design
Drupal Theming and Development
Drupal and Flash integration
Flash | Flex | Actionscript 2 and 3 development
Hosting (for clients)
Email Newsletters
Some things that are just a given:
Standards compliant XHTML and CSS
Search Engine Optimized code
Support for all major browsers: (IE6, IE7, Firefox Mac / PC / Linux, Safari)
This by Them began as a collaboration between two successful freelancers who realized the whole was greater than the sum of its parts, or, at least, wanted to create some kickbutt websites and designs. Though the principals, Scott Matthew Nelson and Lance Alton Troxel, each have their little section of the West Coast, California and Oregon respectively, the foundation of the company is strongly centered on quality, creativity, and originality. Of course it also doesn't hurt to have a great time, a little fun, a hearty bemusement, even a grand milk-out-the-nostrils chortle while creating work we take rather seriously. And yes, we're a small firm. But with that comes a great flexibility; not like we're web ninjas, necessarily, but pretty darn close.
One of THEM: Lance Alton Troxel
Lance has worn a few hats before entering web world. A self-taught designer, he came to it rather by accident while pursuing degrees in literature and creative writing. Then one thing led to another, and that thing lead over to those things, and many, many photoshop filters later, he's found great joy in pushing pixels around the screen for hours and hours on end. When not having is face lit by an Apple-ish glow, he can be found finding the odd LP in a thriftstore record bin, collecting way too many irregular, hand-cast ceramic bowls, making a rock-and-roll video with his good bud, or making a short film. Lance's films have shown in a few festivals, including this one, and can be seen here, with other moving image odds and ends.
One of THEM: Scott Matthew Nelson
Scott picked up the web bug early, in his teens, and right out of high school co-founded a web design company. It had an office and desks and a coffee maker; the whole shebang. While the brick and mortar shop lost steam, his passion (yes, passion) for learning and mastering code raved on. This included diving headlong into the world of Flash, and not long after connecting Flash to his other favorite pursuit, the Drupal CMS. From this code-mance came the Drupal Services Module, a plugin of sorts that allows Drupal to talk to Flash and vice versa. Boy, was it a big hit, with thousands of installs. When Scott isn't playing Macbook alchemist, he might be cookin’ up something spicy, jamming the bass, adding a new idea to his long list of "new ideas", or traveling very very far away from home.
One of THEM: Blake Lucchesi
Blake started out with web design while in high school, loved it, but decided to pursue a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, at Irvine. While in school he relied on his internet savvy and enjoyment of the web to bring home some bread. Blake got his start in Drupal when the community accepted his project proposal for the Google Summer of Code program. And so began his work a Fuzzy Search Engine Module. Following his summer long romance with Drupal he was able to further his knowledge and experience from an overwhelming amount of Drupal contract work. Over the following two years he participated in Google Summer of Code once more, helped relaunch www.sag.org, and built a social media experience for REM. Now, Blake enjoys his continued pursuit of binary zen and teaching that knowledge to others.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you! Still working out the specifics of your project? Drop us a line. We’d love to use our experience to help with the organization process. Have a general question or comment? Don’t hesitate to give a shout. We like that whole communication thing.
