Blog
It’s pretty rewarding to watch one of your designs evolve from a rough idea in the back of someone’s brain to a full-blown site or app. Like watching your kid grow up, develop a personality, and head off into the world, you can’t help but feel proud of what you’ve accomplished.
We’re lucky enough to experience that just about every day with the work we do for our clients here at MetaLab. Being proud of what we create is what keeps us going strong month after month, year after year, and it’s a big part of what makes us stand out amidst all the other noise online.
And when the project is personal, the feeling is just that much sweeter. Which is why it’s with great pride that we’d like to introduce you to the new, improved, and beautifully re-imagined Flow site! By bringing in new features like user stories and a way more in-depth tour section—not to mention a pixel-perfect redesign led by Flow’s product director Luke Seeley—we think it does a great job of communicating to people just how much Flow has to offer, both in terms of function and form.
Go check it out, have a look around, and feel free to give us your feedback anytime. We’d love to hear what you think.
- The MetaLab Team
We’re excited to welcome two fantastic new people to the MetaLab team: Martin Rechsteiner and Jesse Lupini.
Martin has come to us straight from the wilds of Norway (Trondheim) and will be joining the Flow Team to help Luke out with all things design. When not making things look so good you want to burst into tears and then submerge yourself in a bath of ice water, he can be found darning his trademark scarf or wandering the streets trying not to look lost. His impressions of life at MetaLab so far? “Superawesome.”
Jesse will also be focusing on Flow, but on the development side of things as our new Front-end Developer. He hasn’t travelled as far to be here (he’s from Vancouver) and he doesn’t speak with an exotic accent, but that doesn’t mean we like him any less. Jesse’s coming from an extensive background in UX design, so we’re excited to get him working on everything we’ve got planned for Flow this year. And he’s also an international salsa dancer, which should come in handy around the office.
Welcome to MetaLab!
If you’re looking for a little weekend listening, head on over to Founders Talk and check out Andrew’s recent interview with Adam Stacoviak. Andrew shares his thoughts on happiness, fatherly wisdom, Steve Jobs, building a multi-million dollar interface design company, leading a growing team to success and there’s even a teaser to something super-secret on the way…
When I emailed Andrew Wilkinson, MetaLab’s founder, for the first time two years ago, it was on a whim: I didn’t know what I was getting into. I was impressed with the beautiful work MetaLab was producing, but I didn’t know much about the company, and they were 3,000 miles away from where I lived in Washington, DC. I didn’t even expect a reply, but as it turned out, a reply was the first of a few surprises: not long after, I joined the company.
Looking back, I’m amazed by how much we’ve done in that short time. I’m singing our own praises, sure, but it’s true: we built a collaboration tool that has changed the way we and a lot of other people work, we created a new digital goods business, and we continued to grow our consulting business. And we did it all with a small team. More than once recently I’ve found myself wondering: what (besides the great people) makes MetaLab such a productive company?
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that we’re not perfect. But I think that’s actually been key to our success: we don’t spend our time trying to be the perfect company. We focus on products instead: we want to make great things that our clients (and the world) can use and enjoy. That might sound facile or even obvious, but I think it’s the reason we’re so productive. It’s why we enjoy sane work hours and autonomy, and it’s what sets us apart.
As you might imagine, we’re constantly examining and improving both what we make and how we make it. As part of that process, we’ve decided to share some of our behind-the-scenes thinking here at MetaLab in a series we’re calling “How We Work.” Over the course of the next few months, we’ll talk about topics like some of the challenges we face as a quickly growing company, the philosophies that guide what we do, and how we manage everything from coding practices to design decisions. With several people contributing from different parts of the company, there should be a pretty diverse range of perspectives and insights, so make sure to stay tuned!
Happy Holidays from MetaLab
Taken by Antonio at our wonderful office party last weekend. This isn’t even everyone: we’re missing Chris, Geordie, Jake, Jason, Jeff, and Oliver. We’ve posted the rest of the photos on our Facebook page.
