WE LOVE PEOPLE ^™

For a design agency, it's not easy to plan, write, design, and develop your own website—and feel great about the outcome. At least it wasn't for us.  We wanted something that showed the world our portfolio and studio space but at the same time presented the company in as true a form as possible. As a team that's focused on people, it was definitely a challenge to check all those boxes. But, we're pretty sure we got there! 

We've got plenty more portfolio and Insights content to add—this is just phase one—but it's a pretty good start. We're happy with it. We hope you like it. Patting ourselves on the back isn't something we do around here, so we won't go that far. Instead, here are a few interesting tidbits we think are worth sharing:

• We Love People: Our tagline/company mantra has been around since (pretty close to) the beginning. A month or two into the new company (Shields Design Studio and Shotgunflat merged in January of 2022), I spent a few weeks really contemplating the new company, its future, and how we could concisely articulate what it would be like to work with us. The result: three simple words that sum up why we exist.
• The Team Collage: This idea came from the fact that we had a pretty lousy number of employees as far as the design grid is concerned (11), and we wanted to do something just a little different, without being distracting or overwhelming. The puzzle animation is an SVG file, created by Megan James. 
• The Playful Logo: The animated ShieldsSGF logo is achieved with JSON and Bodymovin. The idea was hatched by Lautaro Ferreyro and implemented by Jesse Rykerson.
• CMS: The site is built on ExpressionEngine 7.  
• Confetti: The site was a team effort. It took us quite some time, as we needed to balance it against client work. It's time to celebrate!