10 Things We’re Most Proud of Accomplishing in 2017

2017 was an important year for the Herman-Scheer team, and we’re really proud of how far we’ve come in the last 12 months. We’re excited to keep the momentum we’ve built going strong, but before we start making moves to crush the goals we’ve set for 2018, we want to take some time to reflect on and honor ten of the accomplishments we’re most proud of from the past year.

1. Established Ourselves as Thought Leaders in the Industry
One of the main goals we set for ourselves in 2017 was to dedicate ourselves to creating and distributing high quality, worthwhile blog content that others in our industry would find valuable. We wrote and published more than 30 articles on The Juice this year, and a number of those pieces were picked up and shared by well known publications like Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Startup, and Upwork:

Upwork:
5 Things to Consider When Creating Your Logo
How to be a Brand People Want to Hang Out With

The Startup:
Breaking Down the Perfect Pitch Deck

The Huffington Post:
The Key to a Successful Co-Founder Relationship
4 Ways to Create a Stronger Company Culture

Forbes:
The Two Characteristics All Disruptive D2C Brands Share

2. Launched Our Beautiful New Website
As many of you may already know, 2017 was the year we fully committed to repositioning our company to focus our expertise on branding. We spent the first two months of the year working tirelessly to build our new website, which is the largest manifestation of this new effort. Then, in April we launched it.

3. Our Site Was Named One of the Top Ten Agency Sites
As die hard design nerds, we’re always looking for sources of inspiration, and Creative Bloq has been one of our favorite venues for years. Needless to say, when they included us on their list of the top ten design agency sites of the year, we were really pumped.

4. Interviewed by Business Rockstars
Business Rockstars is an Entrepreneurial Business Show that features interviews from the world’s biggest and most accomplished CEO’s (such as the CEOs of DocuSign, IKEA, and FUBU), as well as successful small business owners and entrepreneurs. They approached us this spring to interview us about the birth of our business, and we had a blast taking a walk down Herman-Scheer’s memory lane. You can watch the interview here.

5. Entered the Traditional Retail Market
This summer, we began working with Rudolph Foods, the largest manufacturer of pork rinds in the United States. We’re helping them reposition their popcorn brand, which will be our first project working with a company on both their D2C and traditional retail efforts.

6. Work Featured on Multiple Design Award Sites
The website we created for Rock Shrimp was awarded Site of the Day by CSS Winner on the 27th of February, and our personal site was featured on The Best Designs and CSS Design Awards, among others.

Here are just a few of those features:

• Rock Shrimp on Design Nominees & CSS Winner
• My Cupcake Addiction on Awwwards & CSS Winner
• Herman-Scheer on CSS Winner, Awards Jo,Best CSS, and Design Nominees.

7. Giving Back through Advice & Mentorship
Giving back to our communities is important to us, and now that we’ve been in the game for a few years, we feel confident sharing our experiences and advice with others. This year, Chapin was asked to join the Forbes Agency Council and John was invited to join the Young Entrepreneurs Council. John also became a board member for AIGA, which was particularly meaningful to him as it was one of the first places he turned for advice and inspiration when he began pursuing a career in design.

8. Portfolio Featured by Muz.li
Muz.li is a popular publication on Medium with over 264k followers that shares articles related to design and design inspiration. One of their contributors included our portfolio in their article, “Thirty Portfolio Designs that Will Impress Any Client.”

9. Created a Trademarked Term for our Clients
In our work with Cupid’s Charities, which hosts the largest undie run in the world in an effort to end NF, we coined a new term for their specific brand of philanthropy, which pairs doing good with having an absolute blast. That word? Thrill-anthropy. Look for it in the dictionary in a few years.

10. Became Ingrained in the Silicon Beach Startup Scene
As we made our pivot to branding, we set out to create a network of contacts and establish our company within Silicon Beach’s thriving startup scene. This year, we continued our work with Lensabl, who was included on BuiltinLA’s top 50 startups to watch list at the beginning of the year, and we began a new partnership with Vetted, an at-home veterinary care provider that recently received a major round of funding from Amplify, one of the leading VC firms here in Los Angeles.

Looking forward to 2018…
We’re excited to build off of 2017’s success as we begin setting new goals to tackle in 2018. From our team to yours, we wish you a happy new year full of happiness, professional success, and personal fulfillment. Cheers!