Partnering with Creative Agencies

Following a successful year of working with one of the UK’s top 10 design agencies, we’ve been reflecting on what makes such a partnership work so well for a company like DabApps.

Are you the manager or the owner of a design agency? Do you have clients who come to you with great ideas, or internal visionaries with effective but sometimes complex solutions to your client’s problems which you then struggle to implement?

It can make sense for even smaller agencies to employ in-house web development staff. Almost all companies need a presence on-line and a CMS driven website, possibly with an e-commerce solution of some kind. The software that needs to be developed for those kinds of sites has matured over the past five to ten years and high quality sites can now be built simply, in-house and for little cost.

However, if you have an idea or a requirement for something a little different then complexity can escalate quickly. An iPhone game to promote a client’s brand for example, or a data hungry application which allows a client to connect on a personal level with their customers. Even a large agency might struggle to keep a full sized IT team, capable of this type of application development, busy full time. An in-house team that is capable of building a great web app may not also be capable of building a great iPad app – so you need a wide skills base!

One nice option that is commonly used is to hire freelancers to carry out the development for you. Especially in a digital city like Brighton or London there are a large number of capable freelancers who can help. Various websites (Wired Sussex is a great example) can help you find a freelancer with the correct skills and a good freelancer will have plenty of past work and references they can share with you.

Alternatively, it is possible to contract the work out to a development agency. The cost for this may be slightly higher than a freelancer but you are hiring a team with a wider range of skills, from UX design, to coding and implementation that is project managed by one person. Most importantly you can build a long term relationship with a development agency and use them for multiple projects of different kinds, ideally with a consistent project manager you can work with.

One of the founding principles that led to the creation of DabApps was to provide an efficient and cost effective development service to support thriving creative design agencies that are bringing digital media into the mainstream. We are able to partner with design agencies to provide tangible solutions to their creative visions, using standards-driven technology and good technical practices. We can even help with the pitch to a client before the work has been agreed.

So, if you think we can help you extend your offering to your clients to include custom web and mobile applications do get in touch, we’d love to hear from you.