What makes us special is that we have a big studio approach, but with much lower costs. Take a look at our effective process to achieve world class results every time.
We pride ourselves on being able to deliver what the big boys do at a fraction of the price. When we set up Freebird over twenty years ago our aims were simple - we wanted to cut through the proverbial of the Emperor's New Clothes syndrome. It boils down to our belief that you don't have to pay extortionate, city agency prices to get world class design and development - it may mean we're not as rich as we could be, but we're as busy as busy things. And our clients love the combination of first class work and a healthy bank balance!
1. Discover
First, we listen to you. Successful engagements always involve clear communication and a deep understanding of the client's business situation and needs. Defining the budget can be a painful but necessary process, but we can work through this with you and then put together a plan which will deliver exactly what you're after once we've taken any budget constraints into consideration. Then we'll double check it with you and get you to sign it off, just so we know we're singing off the same wire. Which takes us nicely to the next picture...
2. Planning
The next step is to produce a design brief with you, and during this process we ask lots of questions, learning about your industry and figuring out between us exactly what you're after. The goal of this phase is to gain a deep and intuitive sense of your needs and requirements, your competitors, and your business plan. We also define the timeline, technology, and deliverables such as a sitemap and a rough content outline needed to complete the project.
3. Design
This is where the design and overall concept begin to take shape. We present our strongest ideas based on your brief and subsequent discussions, and you work on a one to one basis with your own designer. The relationship built up during this process allows you to be as involved as you want to be in the project, and gives you a real insight into the way we work. The more input you give, the better understanding we'll have of what you're after. Of course, if you want to leave it entirely to us that's fine, but the process may ultimately take a little longer and cost a little more. But we're cool with that if you are.
4. Copywriting and Search Engine Optimisation Research
Now listen up! It doesn't matter how fabulous your website looks or how beautifully it's designed, if nobody can find it you might as well be singing "happy birthday to me" at your own party. So when our time-served wordsmiths create your fabulous, bespoke copy (that's the words) they'll take those all important search engine results into account, so your website will be as organically optimised for said engines as it possibly can be. Which means your site should be your main marketing tool.
5. Development / Build
Now that we have our vision and solution nailed down, we can start executing. In this phase, all the pieces fall into place and only now can we build all templates and pages based upon your signed off artwork. Our developers take great pride in replicating the design exactly, with beautifully written search engine friendly code, breathing life into the beast like a modern Prometheus. Well, as much like one as a developer nerd can be.
6. Deployment
The next stage is to deploy your website onto our servers, where we populate it with the various images and copy (either supplied by you or, of course, produced by our team). Once it's up there, we test the site, test it some more, then test once again. When we're sure all development is complete, we unveil the final version to you in our live testing environment. Once everyone is happy, we go for launch!
6. Take Flight
It's not always possible, or smart, to do everything at once. We'll work with you to make changes that will have the biggest effect first, and then provide a sustainable solution for future growth and development. Moving forward, we'll help guide that growth, by continually evaluating the effectiveness of designs and building on their success, as well as recommending a monthly Flightplan where appropriate, thus increasing your return on investment.
