By Natalie Rohde
Way Back When
When we started 10,000ft in 2012, we were just getting our sea legs after officially spinning out of design firm Artefact into our own company. We had three employees, a product roadmap long enough to wrap around the world twice over, and a small customer list of mostly fellow creative-industry businesses.
We’ve come a long way since then. Over the summer, 10,000ft made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the US. We’ve checked off many big items from that very long product roadmap (like the new project management experience, API updates, and calendar syncing with project assignments) and we’re continually adding improvements to the tool.
We’ve also expanded our 1,000+ customer list into industries ranging from international real estate companies and software development houses to major retail brands, IT firms, and global consumer electronics makers.
Design Is Still In Our DNA
As we’ve grown over the last 6 years, the 10,000ft software has evolved to support the needs of our customers as they find the best teams for the job, plan and manage packed project portfolios, execute endless deliverables, and make sure all the moving parts are running smoothly. It’s been our unwavering pursuit to keep the design of our software simple and the capabilities powerful.
To help package up all this exciting progress into a refreshing, cohesive brand experience for our long-time customers and newer visitors alike, we partnered with the good folks at Seattle-based agency Civilization, who recently won the prestigious Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Communication Design from the Smithsonian Design Museum.
A Fresh New Logo
Our goal was to revamp our identity system while honoring our name and original balloon icon (below on the left) that illustrates the high-level nature of our software approach.
A Simplified Home Page
The website design process was all about getting smart with our content structure to effectively communicate our product values, philosophy behind our software, and company vision. I’m sure every marketer can relate to the dreaded “But there’s just so much to say, and it’s all just so important!” feeling, so we followed the guidance from the experts at Civilization: Focus. Simplify. Rinse. Repeat.
To make it quick and easy for website visitors to get where they’re trying to go, we completely removed the top navigation bar. The entire site content outline now resides behind the beloved hamburger menu, and expands into a full-screen experience so visitors can both quickly find their spot and discover new areas of the website that might have previously been a bit buried.
A Cheeky New Blog
We unveiled a new blog brand that reflects the type of content we’re focused on publishing — content that helps people do their jobs better, strengthen their teams, deliver better project results, and run their businesses more smoothly.
But we also recognize that there’s no cookie cutter answer to some of the challenges our customers face.
So, introducing the brand new Hot Air Blog, by all of us here at 10,000ft. It’s full of perfectly reasonable, thoughtful advice to help you better manage your projects and teams. We’ll also continue to bring you new Two Beers interviews and thoughts from our CEO in The Status series.
For your reading list:
These 9 End of Year Reports Will Help You Start 2019 Strong
Two Beers with 10up: Practical Advice for Building Productive Virtual Teams
How to Convince Your Boss to Endorse New Software
Creative vs. Creative: How Can Designers and Developers Collaborate Better?
The Status: The Hard Part About Soft Skills
How to Create More Accurate Project Estimates
More to Come
We’re excited for this next chapter of 10,000ft, and all that’s still to come. If you haven’t yet tried out our software, there’s no time like the present :)
Sign up for free here. And if you have any questions along the way, we’re here to help.
Originally published at www.10000ft.com.
