Latest Updates: Winter 2020
As we approach the spring solstice we'd like to take a look back at everything DesignHammer accomplished this 2019-2020 winter season. Including but not limited to recent awards-winning redesigns, informative blog posts, and some new internal happenings at DesignHammer.
Featured Blog Post | In Production | Recent Projects | Featured Client | New Employee Spotlight | Awards and Recognition | Community Involvement | Conferences | Professional Development
Featured Blog Post
The New California Privacy Act Explained
Some of you may remember the article I published two years ago explaining Europe's GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), well as of 2020 there is a new player in the internet privacy game, and this time it's on American soil. The California Consumer Privacy Act went into effect on Jan 1st of this year and a number of corporate websites still aren't CCPR-compliant, leaving them at risk to legal recoil. If you own a business website that collects personal user data, I encourage you to read my recent blog post which details everything you need to know about the CCPA; it's main purpose, who it impacts, and how to update your website to meet the new legislative standards. As for residents of California, this article will provide you with knowledge as to what kind of data the internet is currently collecting on you, as well as how to protect and reclaim that personal data under the CCPA legislation.
In Production
Coming Soon: New DesignHammer Website
With each Drupal upgrade DesignHammer is given numerous opportunities to upgrade our existing clients' websites. Not only is this positive for our business as web developers, but it's also a good reason to upgrade and redesign our existing website. We are very excited to be taking advantage of this new shift from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, and have been working hard to roll out a completely new refreshed version of our website. The goal of the new design was to think of better ways to display our content quickly and with clarity. The new DesignHammer site redesign is planned to launch in mid-spring of 2020, so keep your eyes peeled for some new content!
Recent Projects
Railinc Industry Website Redesign
We recently collaborated with Cary NC-based transportation IT company Railinc to rebuild their website. An extensive assessment project preceding the project helped our team design a beautiful new industry website that optimizes user experience (UX) for Railinc customers. We launched Railinc's new website in December of 2019, and have subsequently published a case study outlining the challenges, goals, and final results of the project. We'd now like to invite our readers to take a look at our recent work, and also to stay tuned for our secondary, commercial Railinc website redesign that is set to launch later this year.
Featured Client
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
The annual Full Frame Documentary Festival is one of the Triangle’s most celebrated events. Held in downtown Durham, it is heralded internationally as one of the premier independent film festivals in the world. DesignHammer has built and supported Full Frame’s web presence since 2015 and is also a proud sponsor of the festival. With the festival quickly approaching (April 2-5th of this year) we'd like to thank Full Frame for being such a valuable client and partner, and remind our readers that it's not too late to purchase your passes to the festival. If you are unfamiliar with the festival, filmmaker R.J. Cutler's quote sums it up best:
"The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is a vital, vibrant, essential institution in the American cultural and artistic landscape. It is not only the most important festival of its kind—it is, in fact, the only festival of its kind."
We hope to see you there!
New Hire
Dave Shepley
DesignHammer is proud to announce our newest staff addition, Dave Shepley, who was brought onto our operations team in late 2019. As DesignHammer's first "Development Strategist", Dave actually wears several hats in the office–but is mainly responsible for project management, assisting in sales and marketing activities, and participating in business development and networking initiatives. here is a link to the introductory blog post he wrote in late December. We are very excited to have added Dave to our close-knit team and have been very pleased with the experience and enthusiasm that he has brought DesignHammer's operations over the last few months!
Awards and Recognition
Final 2019 Awards List: DesignHammer Brings Home 8 Awards
2019 was another standout year for DesignHammer, with international recognition from four juried competitions. DesignHammer’s work brought home trophies for four clients, including the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), Duke University Health System, Highland Industries, and Railinc. The awards represent excellence in design, development, marketing, and communications, standing out in international competitions above thousands of other entities.
Last year’s recognition includes:
Community Involvement
AIGA's Thrive Conference 2020 Recap
DesignHammer had the opportunity to participate-and sponsor-the annual Thrive conference, presented by the Raleigh chapter of AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts). Nearly 350 artists, designers, brand experts, exhibitors, sponsors and more attended the event at The Fruit, a unique event space in Durham, NC.
As a Thrive sponsor, DesignHammer helped the conference be more eco-friendly by providing some cool, reusable Nalgene-esque water bottles for the attendees. We hope these are a lasting memory of the conference and also allow folks to continue to be eco-friendly instead of going through paper or plastic cups at work. Additionally, several DesignHammer staff attended the event and have offered their insights and thoughts. Stay tuned for my full recap blog post detailing the event specifics in the near future!
Conferences
AENC 2020 Spring Conference
We are looking forward to a fun, networking-filled AENC Spring Conference this week. Although the conference is only 3 days away it's not too late to register. Outside of exhibiting and networking with attendees, there will be several concurrent roundtables on a variety of topics. DesignHammer is particularly interested in Thursday's Roundtable 2: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Sides of Strategic Planning. As this interactive session aims to highlight various approaches towards the development of strategic consulting plans, covering topics such as: which strategic planning approaches are "tried and successful" and which approaches are not, which steps in the planning process are challenging to accomplish successfully and how to overcome them, as well as best practices for the development of a plan and its implementation.
One or more DesignHammer employees will surely be attending this session; hopefully gaining some useful insight into how we can better align our strategic consulting to the association market in addition to building upon our consulting expertise in general.
Professional Development
T-Rex Summit 2020
It was on a last-minute whim that I decided to attend the 2019 T-Rex Summit, but this year it will definitely be on purpose. Last year's Summit hosted by The Revenue Exchange included some fantastic topics. My favorite presentation was by Brad McGinity the CRO of 15Five; an employee engagement and performance management software solution for businesses worldwide. He spoke about the steps his own organization takes to keep employees engaged, satisfied and productive, as well as the importance of managerial feedback when it comes to professional development. His ideas seemed both perceptive and useful, so I took notes and was happy to share my newfound knowledge with the office the following day. Multiple DesignHammer employees will be attending the 2020 T-Rex Summit alongside me on April 21st, 2020 and we are certainly looking forward to having our high expectations met at this year's event.
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- Vega Digital Awards Centauri Award (Railinc Industry website)
- Vega Digital Awards Centauri Award (CED website)
- Vega Digital Awards Arcturus Award (Railinc Industry website)
- Summit Creative Award Bronze Award (Duke Health Referring Physicians website)
- The Communicator Awards Award of Distinction (Duke Health Referring Physicians website)
- The Communicator Awards Award of Distinction (Highland Composites website)
- Hermes Creative Awards Gold Award (Duke Health Referring Physicians website)
- Hermes Creative Awards Gold Award (Highland Composites website)
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