1 October 2012
More About Gaslight, Less About Software
by Peter Kananen
Today we’re launching a new identity for Gaslight. We’re dropping ‘Software’ from our name, and we’ve created a new mark, thanks to our design team. We’ll continue to roll out these changes as our new website takes form. We’re excited for this change and the things that have happened over the last year at Gaslight that have led us here.
Good design is essential
Since its beginning, Gaslight has primarily been known as the top Ruby on Rails shop in Cincinnati. Our team originally consisted almost exclusively of developers, and this software-heavy focus was evident in the type of projects we worked on, and the work we produced. We often relied on our clients to provide design for our web applications, or we just added new features with the existing look and feel. However, it increasingly became apparent that we needed to add competent designers to our team. This was most obvious to us as we planned for QCMerge this past spring. We talked about a theme for the conference, but as soon as we had a book of branding concepts, our ideas really came to life. The same is true for the work we do internally, and the work we do for our clients. Good design is essential, and it’s hard to bolt on at the end of a project. We want to treat design as a primary concern on every project that we work on, and our team is now able to do this.
Refining the Process
Over time we’ve learned the level of communication with our client is the best indicator for project success. We’ve designated a guide to help facilitate the engagement between the client and the rest of the team. Joe Cope, a whitewater rafting guide, says about his job, “I just try to give people the most aggressive, intense ride they can handle, while keeping them safe, of course.” We want our clients to have the same experience with projects they bring to us.
Our designers, developers and (most importantly) clients are all on the same team. We value the happiness of our whole team. Like whitewater rafting, our Project Guide is deeply vested in the success of the overall trip but is mainly there to make sure everyone has a good time.
More than just Rails
Lastly, the projects we’ve been working on often use tools other than Ruby on Rails. Currently, we’re building solutions with Backbone.js, embedded systems with Ruby, and mobile applications for iOS devices. We still love Rails, but we’re mostly interested in solving the needs of our clients the best way we know how, and having more tools at our disposal allows us to build the right thing.
Let’s Build Great Things
We’re excited to share more about what we’ve learned during our rebranding process. We’ll be posting more about the creative process of developing our new logo. Expect to also see posts about the workflow decisions we’re making on our projects, and lastly, how we integrate design into our project workflow.
Better yet, bring us your projects and we can level up together.
