• company overview
• our mission
• our team
• our philanthropy
• our process
• our clients
• press room

Our Strategic Process

Our Marketing Workshop
Each new client starts with our Marketing Workshop. We ask the hard questions to get to the core of why you are investing in your brand. The end result? A creative marketing strategy and a clear understanding of your brand to make the most out of your marketing investment.

Requirements Gathering & Research
We gather information from the business, your competitors, industry resources, and your customers and/or prospects. Marketing and research tools may include competitive analysis, in-depth user research, persona development, and usability testing.

Our Approach to Project Management
We schedule projects by working backwards! Starting with your final due date, we coordinate with your staff, our staff, printers, and any additional resources and work backwards to fit in the initial design time, rounds of revisions, copywriting, final production and final approvals to ensure that we make your deadlines.

Once a project is underway, your project manager determines with you the best form and frequency to present status reports to keep you updated on the project or projects we are working on. Project parameters are tracked through a web based project management tool to make sure that estimates, expenses, billing and requirements changes are accurate and up to date.

The Creative Process: Iterative Design and Development
From initial wireframes and paper mockups to fully executed creative, each concept is evalutated on strategic alignment, look and feel, functionality, usability, message development and layout. At Sandstorm, our entire team is well-versed in the best practices of web site usability and user-centered design. Our print and web work will be well designed, easy-to-use and effectively communicate your message.

QA
Its the step that always takes longer than you think and always gets compressed in a timeline. To help mitigate project delays, our entire team is well versed in our streamlined QA process, so there is always someone who hasn't been working on your project who can take a fresh look. In the case for this site, it's Lisa. (Hi Lisa!)

Job Complete!
So what would you like us to work on next?

Why Sign Up For the Sandbox?
Because you want to learn about new marketing ideas.
You want to get inspired by our latest exciting projects.
You want insight on user-friendly sites, products, and more.
All of the cool kids are doing it.

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Sandstorm Design Adds Web Usability Lab Chicago web design and usability firm adds on-site usability lab to faciliate usability testing quickly and efficiently.