Archive for the ‘team’ Category

Here at Noam Design, we’re big fans of keeping teams small and hiring “managers of one“. Here is a fun short slideshow that can help understand how and why many companies grow big teams:

Every time you’re considering working with anyone on a project, ask yourself “why would this person work for cheap?” It is particularly true when it comes to web design and web development and this is something I tell pretty much anyone that inquires about working with us.

You’ll be able to find cheaper companies to work with. But you won’t be able to get the same value. Every dollar you invest here at Noam Design will yield an unbeatable value for your project.

You have a limited budget? Reduce the project’s scope. But don’t try to get everything done under your budget because in the end that’s the more costly road! Instead, reduce the project’s features and be more flexible about the creative process. Brainstorm with your project manager on what can be achieved within your budget. But don’t shop around for the team that’d give you everything on earth within the smallest budget.

Where you can save costs is being smart about using resources. That’s why we created Template Action – you can download a template and setup an award winning website at a ridiculous price. And you can get such a great value because we don’t have to deal with pre-sales discussions, back and forth emails and phone calls during the creative process, time spent in meetings, etc. We created great websites you can easily manage and edit – if you like one of them you can purchase it for less than what a single consultation would cost you. It’s that simple.

This is a very powerful insight from the creators of Basecamp:

“” What’s that mean? A manager of one is someone who comes up with their own goals and executes them. They don’t need heavy direction. They don’t need daily check-ins. They do what a manager would do — set the tone, assign items, determine what needs to get done, etc. — but they do it by themselves and for themselves.

These people free you from oversight. They set their own direction. When you leave them alone, they surprise you with how much they’ve gotten done. They don’t need a lot of handholding or supervision.

How can you spot these people? (more…)

With 2009 coming to an end, I wanted to spend a few minutes looking back at some of the things that had a positive impact on our company this year. Scaling down ended up at the very top of my list.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made developing our company and growing the business is scaling up for the sake of scaling up. In the beginning of the year, we had a team of more than 15 people working on countless projects, both client projects and internal projects. There was a lot of activity, a lot of business, and in general a lot of things happening. It certainly meant bigger revenues, but definitely not bigger profits or better results. A lot of time, energy, and resources were wasted in management, administrative duties, meetings, supervision, client relations etc. (more…)

In just 2 years of doing business, Noam Design has become one of the leading web design companies in New York, has completed hundreds of successful projects for clients of all sizes and industries (many of them won web design awards), and has launched a number of innovative web start-ups of its own. All this while working under the constraints of a small business that made it without any investment. Yes, we have accomplished a lot with our talent, determination, confidence, and lots of hard work!

We launched our web design company blog just about 1 year after it all started – so a year ago (the first post is dated 11/18/08). And this is our post number 100! So over the past year, we published an average of 2 posts per week.

To celebrate we added a couple of additional sharing options on our blog: try them out by clicking on the Tweet button, Facebook icon, Delicious icon, or Digg icon above!

Here is the posts’ count-down per author:

1. Mike – 41 posts
2. Noam – 10 posts
3. Richard – 10 posts
4. Natalka – 10 posts
5. Chris – 4 posts
6. Azeem – 4 posts
7. Gregory – 3 posts
8. Dionis – 3 posts
9. Fernando – 3 posts
10. Atif - 3 posts
11. Justin F. – 2 posts
12. Justin E. – 2 posts
13. Yonatan – 2 posts
14. Kim – 2 posts
15. Lauren – 1 post

Thank you for reading! And make sure to follow us on Twitter.

A quality internship experience is one of the best ways to grow your skills as a budding web designer. Unfortunately, looking for a quality internship at a web design company can be a daunting task. Even once you’ve found a blue-chip New York web design company that you think you’d love to work for, so many companies try to take advantage of interns by giving them grunt work no one else wants to do – data entry, file sorting, et al.

Noam Design is the exact opposite of that.  Having been an intern when I first joined the team, I can attest to the fact that an internship here is definitely not a coffee-fetching position. Interns have a lot of possibilities in front of them, and it’s up to them to choose the direction in which they want to grow.

At the time I submitted my résumé, I had been working for 2 years as a graphic designer for a branding firm in Los Angeles when I decided that I would like to move into web design. Having accustomed myself to a regular paycheck, I wasn’t searching for internships; but after checking out the company’s outstanding web design portfolio, and all the internship program had to offer, I recognized that an internship at here was an opportunity that I couldn’t afford to refuse.

From my first day forward, I had my hands in real projects, and each assignment was geared toward my goals – no mindless paper shuffling! Over the course of the 3-month internship, I amassed a tremendous wealth of new technical knowledge, made outstanding improvements as a designer, and slowly gained greater and greater trust from my superiors and confidence in my own work.

Today, I am a full-time website designer here at Noam Design. Even as a paid employee, my growth as a designer continues unceasingly in a work environment where world-class designers and programmers seek to exchange knowledge and grow from each others experience.

So if you’re looking for an internship just to fulfill a requirement for graduation, move on; you’re not cut out for us. But if you’re a motivated and creative individual who strives to do extraordinary work, Noam Design may be just the thing to vault your career to new and exciting heights!

Fernando is back working with our Web Design Company! For a while Fernando was Director of Web Development and Sr. Web Programmer here but his responsibilities have changed since he moved back to Brazil and he is now focusing on what he does best – cutting edge web development!

With the recent launch of our latest web start-up, Website Temple, we’ve been busier than ever at our web design company, and we are now looking for motivated, passionate, and experienced candidates to join our New York team!

If you would be exited about growing with us here at Noam Design, please review our newly opened positions – (more…)

It is time for a change of pace. We’ve done some great web design and web development work and our blog reflects what we know best, however, none of our achievements would be possible without our dedicated web design team! Today is our staff’s turn under the blog’s limelight, read on to learn more about our team of web gurus! (more…)

Being a leading web design company that specializes in innovative custom web design and custom web development, we are very particular when evaluating new projects and clients. In fact, we are often contacted about projects that are not a good fit for us. So for all of you who are interested in working with us but are not a good match for our web design company, I feel it is our responsibility to help you the best we can achieve your web design project, regardless of whether or not you end up working with our web design team.

If you are looking around for a good web design company to work with, below are the top 5 questions you should ask:

1. Does the web design firm do all of their work in-house (i.e. no outsourcing). This is very important as it makes a big difference for the quality of the work as well as communicating ideas and feedback directly to the web designers working on the project, and making sure the project doesn’t linger. It is extremely difficult to find a good web design company in New York that doesn’t outsource some or most of their work. Also most web design firms (or even freelance web designers for that matter) are not entirely honest and up-front when it comes to disclosing the source of their design and code.
2. How many web designers and web developers work on-site at the web design company? What are their respective areas of expertise? It is important to understand that most web design projects involve a wide array of fields both in the technical, creative, and strategical aspect. Rarely will you be able to find all the skills you need under one roof – for example, SEO is a field that can be particularly tricky.
3. Is it a local web design company and are they conveniently located? You want to make sure that you can easily meet with the team if you want to. Not only with the project manager.
4. Do they work with open source technologies? This is a major point for any web project. Proprietary technologies, systems, or platforms are a very bad idea when it comes to web design and web development projects.
5. What is their fee structure? This depends on what you feel the most comfortable working with – hourly rates, fixed price for the project, payment based on deliverables, etc… I think a creative project must have a flexible payment structure but there are pros and cons with all payment methods.