If you can’t find the answer to the question you’re looking for below, reach out and we’ll be happy to help.
Absolutely. We can make space for you to share your thoughts over coffee/tea in Philadelphia or via phone or Zoom/Google Meet call.
Since 2011. Check out our fun anniversary timeline from 2022 here. Our CEO & Partner Jenn Richey Nicholas has over 15 years of experience in the graphic design field.
We require a signed agreement, a 50% deposit, and any initial content you may have already (if applicable).
We’re in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA in the 2424 Studios building at 2424 E York Street. We frequently work with companies and individuals throughout North America. For more information, check out our Contact Page.
Certainly. We generally have enough bandwidth to make most rush projects work, and in the rare case where we sense the timing may be impossible, we’ll let you know upfront. Rush projects may require additional charges, but this is on a case-by-case basis.
The amount of time needed varies depending on the project type (e.g., a small icon set, an identity system, a large website overhaul, etc). We provide estimated timelines along with all our proposals.
Our studio is open 9 AM-6 PM EST, Monday through Friday. Our studio recognizes the following holidays and will be closed: MLK Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving (2 days), Christmas (2 days), New Years (2 days). Out of respect for our employees and their families, our studio does not respond to any form of communication outside of our business hours. Feel free to send emails at any time, we will happily respond in the next business day.
Due to the duration and complexity of most website projects, large print projects, or campaigns, we recommend all communication be consolidated into a single project on Basecamp. All design, development, and management team members will be added to the project as well as primary client contacts.
This consolidation of communication will allow the client to see a single project calendar, progress on tasks, changes, and overall project status.
Typically, almost anything can be accomplished via Basecamp, email, phone conversations, and the occasional video conference. Our team communicates with one another and with clients via phone, video conference (Google Meet/Zoom) email, and Basecamp. We will present our work via screen share or in person and will follow up with a Basecamp post that includes links to files, PDFs, and prototypes for markups and review.
We enjoy spending time with our clients. If we can meet safely, we think in-person meetings are not only fun, but are also very productive, especially at project kick-off, wireframe or concept reviews, and for site visits and graphic installations.
We prefer to schedule in-person meetings in advance with travel expenses and itineraries in mind, with sensitivity to budget since this type of meeting can tend to inflate a project budget. Unplanned in-person meetings that require our team to travel off-site will be billed hourly for time spent at the meeting and travel.
You know your mission, product, services, programs, and goals best. We invite you to take an active role in the design process to ensure a successful outcome. In order to make steady progress, we expect you to provide timely feedback when reviewing deliverables. Deadlines and expectations are laid out clearly in our communication and through the project management software Basecamp. Every project begins with a Kick-Off Meeting where we outline the process and invite you to ask any questions. We will set the stage at the onset of the project by inquiring about goals, audience, budget, and time constraints and plan accordingly. Pixel Parlor will provide an environment that maintains an open dialogue throughout the process, and enough flexibility to make your life easier. If you are not using our writing, editing, or proofreading services, we expect you to deliver quality content that has been reviewed for quality by you, your team, or your writer(s).
Information architecture is the relationship of how all the different pages of a website are related to each other. This is communicated visually through a sitemap.
We complete the information architecture set by developing a “blueprint” of the site using wireframes. Wireframes are similar to an outline, they are devoid of design (color, typography, design elements) but document the placement of content (photography, text) and interactivity.
While nearly any web hosting can support WordPress installs, we have our favorites that we like to suggest for our clients, which bring the power and speed of cloud hosting to an accessible control panel. If you prefer to use a different host, we’d recommend that they offer complementary SSL, and have WordPress oriented tiers.
Once your website is live, we will provide 30 days of support to make sure any bugs have been ironed out and that you are confident using your new website.
After 30 days, you will need to subscribe to one of our ongoing website care plans to make sure your website is looked after and maintained. These website care plans include updating your software, regular backups, security checks and making sure your website is online. More information on our website care plans is available upon request.
The first step in identifying an issue with your site is to call the hosting service to see if they are experiencing downtime or if there are any security issues that need to be addressed. We recommend that our client take this first step before engaging our team since in general, the hosting service can alleviate most general errors.
If, upon calling the hosting service, it is determined that there is an issue that needs a designer or developer to resolve, our team will be happy to assist with fixing the issue on an hourly, as-needed basis.
As part of every website project, we provide our clients with a user manual and a training session to help our clients make almost every essential site update.
At times our clients want to do something more complex or something goes wrong. Our team is always happy to help on an hourly, as-needed basis to make your life easier and to put out any fires.
At times our clients want to do something more complex than what we’ve covered in the user manual and training session or something goes wrong when they are making an update. Our team is always happy to help on an hourly, as-needed basis to make your life easier and to put out any fires. For any website update, improvement, or fix requests, please click here.
Google’s algorithm favors two primary things: determining which site is the most appropriate expert on the search topic, and coding best practices (semantic markup, page load speeds, etc.)
The time it takes for your website to appear on page 1 of Google depends on a number of factors. It depends on the search phrase people are using to find your website and the number of other websites that are also available for those search phrases. No one can truly say how long it will take for your website to appear at the top of search engine results pages (including people who actually work for Google), however there are a number of factors that can improve your chances.
Building your website on WordPress is a good start as WordPress has some great Search Engine Optimization best practices baked in. Creating unique and interesting content on a regular basis for your website is also critical to increase your visibility amongst search engines. Launching your website and then forgetting about may allow your site to get lost amongst the noise.
We are happy to talk more about your search engine strategy if we haven’t already.
We will install Google Analytics software on your new website and can show you how to log into your Google Analytics account where you can see a wide range of statistics about your website including number of visits, pageviews than the amount of time people are spending on your website.
While we like to be flexible and responsive to your needs, we also like to deliver what we promise within the timeframe and budget we have agreed upon. If you ask us to add new features to your website while we are building it, we will most likely ask “why?”.
If we all agree that your new request will help us achieve our objectives then we will be more than happy to oblige if the ask is within the existing project scope.
If this new feature is something you would like to add to your website but is not part of the original objectives and scope, we will likely suggest launching that feature in a second project phase after launch. We will provide you with an estimate for the additional scope and a schedule for the new feature after launch. For any website update, improvement, or fix requests, please click here.
Our team guarantees our work for 30-days post launch and will fix any bugs that may pop up within those 30-days. Any new requests to design or interactivity with a launched website will be assessed and provided as a new estimate and scope.
A bug is a coding or display error that was due to our team missing a certain scenario in testing. For example: on a mobile device, the logo is getting cut off, or the header is displaying the incorrect time-zone.
We aim to fix all bugs during the pre-launch and 30-days following the site’s live date. Any bugs that arise after 30-days will require engaging with our team on an hourly basis to fix the issue. For any website update, improvement, or fix requests, please click here.
New scope can take several forms that include:
All of these requests set the project schedule back, increase workload, and create double-entry all of which impact the project budget.
If during the site design and development process any of these requests occur, the client will be alerted to its impact on the budget and the request will be either estimated as an additional scope of services or will be converted over to an hourly engagement through completion.
This can range from updates for security, plug-ins, core WordPress versions, to updating content across pages. We are happy to assist on all of these items on an hourly, as-needed basis.
We provide the tools to empower our clients to update their own sites, but there are times where a practicing design profession can make the task quicker, easier and more confidently executed.
In general, the internet changes on a daily basis, and we recommend quarterly updates to assure that your site is secure and functioning up to its potential.
A project recalibration is a meeting that compares the project estimate to the project roadmap to assure that all elements are in scope and the implications of the team’s decisions are discussed and considered before moving further along in the process.
This allows our team to check on the project budget, project requirements, and technological details and how they impact the overall goals of the project.
