Interactive Agency - Haneke Design

[In the Wild] 0:00 [Allison] Treehouse is officially out in the wild. We've made our trek to Tampa, Florida 0:03 where will be visiting Haneke Design studio, an interactive agency. 0:08 Let's go! 0:11 [? music ?] 0:14 [Jody Haneke - Haneke Design President] Welcome to Haneke Design. It's pretty much the open plan, if you will. 0:20 The majority of the work all happens right out here in this big room. 0:26 [Allison] Yeah, this is a great space. Do you have the designers and developers all working in this common area? 0:29 [Jody] We do, primarily, and it works out pretty well. 0:34 People are able to collaborate on the fly—get up, walk right over— 0:37 designer and developer can really do some innovative work working this closely together in the big room. 0:42 The company was founded in 2002, so we're in our tenth year. I founded the company pretty much by myself. 0:47 I started just working on contracts, and it just snowballed from there. 0:55 [Jesse Curry - Development Director] I'm predominantly self-taught. 0:59 I've got a long list of majors that I switched through in college—everything from biomedical sciences to philosophy, 1:02 chemistry for a little while. 1:12 And I tried computer sciences for about a semester and it was way too slow, and I realized I could just learn the stuff on my own. 1:14 [Jody] Projects are varied as far as the starting point, if you will. 1:22 We have large companies with technology departments and business analysts, 1:27 and they'll put together detailed requirements that say, 1:32 "Hey, this is a mobile application that we need built. These are all the features and functions that need to be in it." 1:34 [Jesse] And then we have people that come in with a really vague idea, and they just say they want something that deals with photos. 1:39 We'll actually do a consultation session. 1:47 We'll sit down with them and really make them sharpen their idea and actually develop the entire product during that. 1:51 [The Development Process] 1:57 [Andrew Thomas - Designer] It's always going to start with a client kickoff meeting— 1:59 sitting down, strategizing with the client on what the requirements of the projects are going to be, 2:01 what type of features will be involved with the application. 2:06 This particular project was from a start-up. It's called TieTheKnotApp.com. 2:10 It was a group of people that came together and thought it would be a really great idea 2:17 to be able to put together a mobile app for brides and grooms and wedding parties and wedding planners 2:22 to have a certain central location where they can communicate about events and things going on with the wedding. 2:29 We generally just try to give a working idea of what the navigation would be like, some of the content on the page, 2:37 any content entry text fields, buttons, and things like that. 2:45 So we're really just calling those out and getting a general idea of what the placement and functionality on that page might be. 2:50 This outfit didn't really have an identity when we started, so we wanted to give them a visual identity and strategize around that. 2:57 So we worked on developing a logo for them along with all of the color palettes and everything that would help give this website a brand itself. 3:05 [Jody] When we look to hire anyone, whether it's designer or developer, one of the most important things in my book 3:16 is not necessarily—yeah, it's great to have the prerequisites as far as the technology is concerned, 3:23 but technology is moving so quickly on both the design and the development side that it's really important 3:28 that the folks that we hire are passionate about learning. 3:35 [Jesse] Reading books about things, visiting user groups locally, it's a constant process because the industry's always in a state of flux, 3:40 and if you're not keeping up with it, you're stagnating and you'll eventually end up working on dead technology. 3:50 [Andrew] A lot of the designers here are always sending back and forth different links that they find for tutorials or different online classes 3:57 or, "Hey, I found this today. Check it out." 4:07 [Allison] So what can a new developer expect to make as far as salary goes? 4:10 [Jesse] It really depends on the skill set. 4:16 I could see an entry-level developer walking into a $60k job, or I see them walking into a paid internship or a free internship. 4:20 The skill set is really going to be what matters. 4:30 [Andrew] Going and looking at job descriptions out there, a lot of them are going to tell you to have knowledge in HTML or even Flash. 4:32 They may not be looking for you to do that, but as they say in the job descriptions, it's a plus to have those. 4:41 [Jesse] We don't want people to be too needy. 4:47 If somebody encounters a problem and immediately asks for help, they're always going to do that. 4:50 So we like people to be able to try to solve problems on their own. 4:55 [Andrew] Coming into it with a really good knowledge base of what types of codes are being used, 4:58 a basic knowledge of how to wireframe up a website—just some of the current industry standards that are being used. 5:05 [Jesse] In general we want each developer to know one native mobile framework or STK— 5:13 really know either IOS or Android. 5:21 We have some people that know some Blackberry as well and some Windows phone, 5:24 although we're not really getting too many requests for either of those. 5:28 [Andrew] There's always a variety. You're never working on the same thing. 5:30 In some cases you're not always working in the same role. Sometimes your job role will change from project to project. 5:35 Every day working at an interactive agency is different. 5:43 [In the Wild] 5:46