Insight Designs launches Crocs corporate website

July 29th, 2010 Beth Krodel

Pardon us, but we at Insight Designs are having a hard time containing our excitement about the fact that we’ve added Crocs™ to our stellar client list.

We just launched a new site for the Boulder-based shoemaker, most known for its colorful, hole-covered, lightweight boat shoes.

We had a ton of fun working with this innovative and clever brand. In our custom design, we integrated both their Feel the Love™ campaign and their Croslite™ characters (personified versions of their trademark shoes) with a lively color palette and a look that is in keeping with the Crocs feel-good image. We handled all of the details, including the photo shoot to get unique full-body shots of the newly-anointed Crocs ambassadors, five lucky folks who get to blog to the world about their love for Crocs via the site’s new Vitamin C blog. Thanks to photographer Rick Cummings (our friend and another Insight Designs client) for the awesome pix!

On the backend, we set up multiple blogs and features, and we integrated the site seamlessly with two other vendors — Taleo who handles the corporate careers search and Thomson Reuters who handles the investor relations content.

In the process, we learned a lot about this revolutionary company. They’ve sold more than 100 million pairs of Crocs in their less than 10 years in business, and since 2007, they’ve donated more than 2.5 million pairs of shoes to people in impoverished areas as well as areas affected by natural disaster, including Haiti.

And their styles go far beyond boat shoes and sandals. They offer more than 120 style for men, women and children. Check them out online. Or the next time you’re in Boulder, stop by their new flagship store at 1129 Peart Street and then come by and say hi to Insight (our office is just a block away at 2006 Broadway)!

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First Centurion a success - two more to go!

July 21st, 2010 Beth Krodel

Nico Toutenhoofd and Jonathan Baker (the eventual winner) crest the "Super Jamestown" climb on the final lap of the Colorado Centurion.

This week, hundreds of cyclists — professionals, enthusiasts and casual riders alike — took to the roads in the foothills of Colorado for the Centurion Colorado.

The event is both a race and a ride that features 100-, 50- and 25-mile courses so that participants can choose the level that’s best for them. They put the racers at the front of the giant peleton and the folks who are riding just for fun further back. The goal is to get create a mass participation event that celebrates cycling.

We at Insight Designs are proud to have created the website for Centurion Cycling, the organization that put on the July 18th event and has two more Centurions scheduled for this summer (Wisconsin - August 8, 2010 and Canada - September 18-19, 2010).

We’re also excited that our very own Nico Toutenhoofd took second place (finishing just one second behind winner Jonathan Baker of Boulder) in the 100-mile event, and Insight designer Keith Harper finished 16th. See the full results.

Congrats to Nico and Keith. And congrats to the staff of Centurion Cycling for putting on a fabulous event. Best of luck in Wisconsin and Canada!

And if you’re a cyclist - whether you’re a beginner or seasoned amateur - you should consider planning a vacation around one of these events. The Wisconsin event takes place in scenic Dane County. And the Canadian event will be in the picturesque Blue Mountains in Ontario. Find out more at www.centurioncycling.com.

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Dorje Designs making headlines again

June 29th, 2010 Beth Krodel

At Insight Designs, we always love to see our clients succeed.

Dorje Designs is doing just that - and getting lots of attention along the way.

The Boulder-based jeweler, run by the wife and husband team of designer Anna Holland and businessman Mark Holland, focuses on original, antique and ancient ethnographic jewelry and beads from around the globe.

Dorje is featured in the July edition of Denver Magazine under the heading “Vintage is the New Green.” And for the second time in two years, Dorje’s creations will adorn the models in Sports Illustrated’s illustrious 2011 swimsuit edition.

Mark is kind enough to give Insight a little bit of credit: “I don’t think we ever could have made Dorje Designs such an international success without such a great website!”

Thanks Mark and Anna!

And congratulations!

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Know PHP? We need you!

June 8th, 2010 Beth Krodel

We at Insight Designs are glad to report that we’re expanding our staff.

We’re looking for a PHP programmer who can work full-time in our downtown Boulder office.

If you’re interested in the job opening, please send your resume along with links to five PHP/MySQL projects you’ve completed to: info@insightdesigns.com.

Spread the word!

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Gearing up for the Tour de France

May 27th, 2010 Beth Krodel

Just five weeks to go before the start of the 97th Tour de France. And as usual, the programmers here at Insight Designs are busy helping code cool features for the Versus website and other yet-to-be-disclosed ways to follow the tour. Keep your eyes peeled. Don’t miss the Versus Tour Tracker. Details below.

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We’re back on the list!

May 11th, 2010 Beth Krodel

So it took a year longer than we had hoped, but we just found out that Insight Designs made it onto the Mercury 100 for a seventh time.

The Mercury 100 is a list of the 100 fastest-growing private companies in Boulder and Broomfield counties. The list, which is based on two-year revenue growth, is compiled annually by the Boulder County Business Report. This year’s list is based on growth from 2007 to 2009.

We don’t yet know where we are in the rankings. BCBR won’t release those details until May 27 during the big shindig at the Hotel Boulderado. But we don’t much care.

We’re just excited to be a company that continues to grow with age. (We turned 11 in March.)

And thanks to all of you for your continued support!

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Helping put community back into theater

April 21st, 2010 Beth Krodel

There’s a new non-profit in town called FLIC (food, libation & independent cinema). And Insight Designs is excited to be one of the organization’s first corporate sponsors.

FLIC’s co-founders, Emily Lawrence and Dan Spiegler, believe a movie-going experience can be about more than box office receipts. FLIC’s mission involves community-building through art, film and personal connection to both.

While most movie theaters bring people together but discourage interaction with a sit-down, shut-up, watch-this & get-out ritual, FLIC plans to encourage interaction by hosting cocktails and cartoons prior to each movie and discussions afterward. They’ll also be featuring local artists and live performers as well as serving local food, wine and beer.

FLIC’s premier event is Wednesday, April 28 at BMoCA (the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art). They’ll be showing the film “A Town Called Panic” and featuring food from A Spice of Life and Boulder Popcorn. Cocktails and cartoons start at 7:15 pm, and the feature film begins at 8 pm. Tickets are $12 ($8 for BMoCA members).

Hope to see you there!

And if you can’t make this one, check out the FLIC website for upcoming films.

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In award-winning company

April 2nd, 2010 Beth Krodel

Today the Boulder County Business Report named its inaugural group of Remarkable Women, and of the 11 women and 1 young girl honored, three of them are Insight Designs clients. We’re proud to be in such good company:

• Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, won in the “Science and Technology” category.
• Debi Baydush, founding principal and CMO of BSW Wealth Partners, won in the “Enterprise” category.
• Helen Forster, co-host and co-executive produce of etown, won in the “Arts and Culture” category.

Kudos to the three of you and the other winners, including Susan Ruh, who works for my husband’s company Rally Software Development Corp. and won in the “Behind the Scenes” category.

For details on other winners and the April 29 award ceremony, see the BCBR article.

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The Death of IE6?

March 4th, 2010 Mike Kohn

Google dropped a bomb (albeit a relatively quite one) on Monday when they began their phase-out of support for Internet Explorer 6 and announced that YouTube will follow suit in a few weeks. For IE6 users this means that certain parts of these site won’t work quite right, and you’ll get a pesky pop-up from time-to-time reminding you to upgrade. For web developers, this (hopefully!) means that it’s time to celebrate, because IE6 might finally be dead.

You see, IE6 is the grandfather of modern web browsers. Not the old, wise kind, though. More like the grumpy kind that yells at you to get off his lawn. It’s an old fellow: it’s been around for almost 8 years in a world where brand new technology becomes obsolete every day. This is the main cause for web powerhouses like Google to drop support for it: the latest-and-greatest web technologies simply don’t work on old browsers, and trying to accommodate for this would only hold Google back.

One of the biggest challenges as web developers is trying to work around IE6’s quirky and illogical behavior. Every website we create at Insight Designs is tested on no less than 8 different browsers including IE6, and IE6 is the one that single-handedly causes the most problems.  Because about 10% of all web surfing is done on IE6, though, it’s impossible to ignore the old browser. But hopefully Google has the kind of clout to change this by strong-arming IE6 users into upgrading.

As if there weren’t already a million reasons to make the switch (including speed, reliability, and security), maybe Google’s announcement will finally convince the last handful of web surfers still clinging to this sinking browser to jump ship.

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Eleven years and counting!

March 1st, 2010 Beth Krodel

Insight Designs is 11 years old today. Hard to believe that Nico and I have been at this almost as long as we were in elementary, middle and high school combined. (Yes, I know it’s weird that I still measure time in that way.)

Since starting this web endeavor, we’ve both grown up, gotten married (not to each other), had two kids each, bought houses and thoroughly enjoyed our lives in Boulder. We’re also both thankful that we left newspaper journalism when we did. And since our jump from journalism to the web in 1999, we’ve helped create more than 300 websites for our wonderful clients, without whom we obviously wouldn’t be here.

Thanks to all of you for your business and your support and encouragement along the way. Thanks also to all of our employees and interns past and present — Monica, Alan, Cathy, Kohsuke, Tiffany, Keith, Clint, John, Ellie, Zack, Carlos, Evan, Kelly, Danielle, Ethan, Clay, Graham, Mike.

Oh, and today our firm was featured on oncemany.com - a hip site promoting a unique business or individual each day in the year 2010. Check it out!

(Photo credit: Shane Rich)

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