LimeRed Studio

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Great design is just the icing
on a well-planned cake.

What makes the best design?
Research and planning.

The best projects start and end with clear communication. Let's get started!

If you have a project you'd like to discuss, feel free to call us at 312-238-9070, or send the form below.

We'll have a quick phone chat or email exchange. Then we’ll send you a web intake form—it's 4 pages and should take about 30 minutes to complete. We use it to collect basic information about budget, scope, comparison sites, and project goals. From there, we'll talk about your responses to get a clear picture of your budget and the scope for the project.

Then we'll write a proposal outlining scope, process, timelines, responsibilities, roles, billing terms and budget with a contract attached. All of our projects begin with a signed contract and 50% deposit.

What makes the best design?
Research and planning.

We use more than 10 years of design, planning, testing and development knowledge to develop websites, print materials and identity work that performs well and stands out. We prioritize usability over trend and function over flash. Most of all, we focus on meeting our client’s communications goals by listening, thinking, and researching.

Spec Work
We do not design on spec. Any design proposed without full client engagement and a comprehensive research phase would be sub-par.

Content Management and Training
Every site we build has a content management system and our clients have full access. We write user guides describing how the system works and how to do general maintenance tasks and make edits. We teach our clients how to use their websites during a training session, preferably in person. All in-person training sessions are held in our offices.

Restart Fee
Our ability to complete a project on time depends on everyone’s ability to stick to a timeline. If a project pauses for more than 10 business days, we charge a Restart Fee to pick up where we left off. We create a reasonable timeline together, and we all agree to follow it. If client deadlines are more than 10 business days late, the Restart Fee will be sent, and work will commence once that fee is deposited. We take our own project deadlines seriously, and our clients need to have the same level of committment to their project for it to run smoothly and be successful.

Billing
All invoices are due Net 15 from the date of invoice.

A typical project's billing cycle looks like this:

Due On Contract Approval: 50% of total project fee plus any Optional Services.
30 days after approval: 20% of estimated project cost
30 days after second invoice: 20% of estimated project cost
On launch: Project balance

Timelines
While it can take a minimum of 12-24 weeks to build a complex website, the timeline for building a website or doing any project is primarily based on the need to make decisions about branding and content organization, and to develop content that currently needs re-development or that does not yet exist. We are usually accurate on our timeline estimates, assuming timely comments and content delivery.

Travel
Most of our clients are in the Chicago and New York City areas. We’ll travel just about anywhere accessible by car from Chicago, and if we need to fly somewhere we can do that too. Clients pay our travel expenses.

Ongoing Relationships
Your website is a marketing and business tool that should be constantly improved and updated. It's definitely not a "build it and leave it" kind of thing. We are always here for basic questions free of charge, we equip you with the tools to use and maintain your own site, and we are available for ongoing maintenance and retainer arrangements. We want to see you succeed.

Maintenance
We have a Quarterly Update & Analysis service available for all of our sites. It's a combination of regular maintenance with traffic and statistic analysis. Call 312-238-9070 for details.

Client Expectations

One contact person who can make and execute decisions
Availability for meetings and goal discussions
Honesty, trust, communication and transparency
Timely feedback and content delivery

Education is at the heart of
what we do every day.

Speaking

Emily Lonigro is available for panel moderation and speaking. She has spoken at Community Media Workshop's Making Media Connections conference on Online Marketing, Branding for Nonprofits, SEO and Analytics, and Winning Online. Other topics include: Web design and planning for nonprofits and branding for small business.

Workshops

We can lead workshops for your staff on:

Small Business Branding: Thinking Visually About Your Brand
Web Design and Planning for Nonprofits
Web Design and Planning for Universities
Web Design and Planning for Business
How to Use Your Content Management System
Content Strategy and Setting Goals
How to Plan a Web Redesign Using Web Analytics

We do process- and mission-
driven design work.

LimeRed Studio is a design firm in Chicago dedicated to doing work that makes people's lives better. We've been everywhere from heavy industry to luxury cosmetics, but the work that we love—and peforms the best—are the projects that shape communities, connect people, and contribute to making a difference. It's also the work we are most proud of.

When clients come to us with a project, we help shape it and make it into something real by asking questions, meeting in person and researching technology, content strategy, design approach and measurement.

Here are some things that make us different:

Training

We always write a detailed user guide for all of our web work so our clients can perform their regular website maintenance tasks and updates. We believe that clients should own and be comfortable updating their sites. We conduct our website training on- or off-site and, preferably, in person.

Process

We start with goals and content and build from there. We have a 6-part process that we follow with every project, which is thorough and scalable. We prioritize research and planning over bells and whistles, so everything that comes out of our agency looks and does something different. Nothing is cookie-cutter.

Learn more about our creative process

Clients

We’re not going to sell you something that would be a waste of time and energy. We want to know what you have the capacity to manage, what your staff is comfortable doing, where you've been and where you're going. We only work with clients who make the world a better place.

We are also a certified WBE, which means we're woman-owned.

Hang around for a moment,
and learn something new.

We’re small and smart.
Kind of like Yoda.

We like to sleep at night.
So we do good work.

Connecting people through great design since 2004

LimeRed Studio was born in Brooklyn and raised in Chicago. We're proud of being visionary, always learning, taking calculated risks, and working with clients who do good work.

We plan, design, test and build websites, print materials and logo systems for established small businesses, nonprofits and universities that actively make the world a better place. Our clients sell products that give back to their community, they provide a needed service, or they actively pursue improving people's lives.

We are not fancy pants art directors; we are business specialists who happen to be highly creative, which is why we are still in business (and growing) today. We believe that mission-driven business and organizations can change things for the better in people's lives and communities. We volunteer, we teach classes, and we work closely with our clients to propel their success.

We’ve been in business since 2004 and have consistently delivered work that gets results. We work with inventive, engaged and visionary clients to deliver smart design, great ideas, and long-term plans. Our clients have increased sales, gained board members, generated high response and won awards.

Emily Lonigro, the owner and Creative Director, is a conference speaker and panel moderator on the topics of design, SEO, measurement and marketing. She also teaches classes for nonprofits in web design, content and planning for Community Media Workshop. Emily is actively involved with Women Employed as a member of its Marketing Committee. She is also involved with an area charter school and volunteers at the Garfield Park Conservatory.

What makes the best design?
Research and planning.

We're not a bunch of fancy pants art directors—We're smart, talented and strategic communicators.

Design work can be intimidating. Many design firms approach it with the Magic Curtain philosophy—that designers are mad geniuses with special, secret skills and no one can know what goes on behind the scenes.

We don’t think so. Sure, we have mad design and planning skills, but we also have a well-defined process to take the fear and guessing out of the work. We want you to be a part of the process because engaged clients are the best clients, and we’re as transparent as possible with that process.

Some of our clients come to us knowing exactly what they want: A Website. A print campaign. An Intra-net. Sometimes, they come to us with a situation like: We have a report and we're not sure how best to communicate the information—should it be a PDF, or a book, or a website? In every case we use a process to shape the project. Most of the time it starts in an in-person meeting to talk about possibilities and budget.

Our Process

Great design is just the icing
on the planning cake.

We promote the ideas, programs & people that make communities better. We also help build communities online. We do this through a thorough process that combines research, design, and measurement.

We’re not always sure where we’ll end up once we start on a project. Depending on the goal of the work and the audience, sometimes the project ends up being a news site for residents in a particular neighborhood. Sometimes it’s a massive database-driven website with lots of moving parts. Other times it’s a mircosite, book and event signage.

The answer comes from our process. Here’s more on that.

Our Projects are a Combination of These Components:

Web Design and Development

We design, test, and build websites. All of our sites are editable, researched, custom-designed and built for the long term. We can build just about anything, so the important piece is planning.

Print Design

Print is very much alive and well. It's an essential part of your marketing collateral and, when done well, brings depth and staying power to your online materials.

Identity Design

It’s more than a logo. We guide our clients through a process to define their brand and communicate that visually. It’s a really fun process that we have down to a science.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

We can help get more qualified traffic to your site. It's not about volume; it's about relevance and accuracy. Google’s rules change all the time, so the thing to remember is: don’t be a jerk.

Web Analytics

It's not just for nerds anymore! Everyone wants to make better, data-driven decisions. Let's get to measuring, and we can base our decisions on what your users actually do!

Testing

Stuck on a design decision or don't know where to start with a redesign? Ask your users. They really do know best. Then we can make some real decisions about organization and style.

What makes the best design?
Research and planning.

Even more important than the creative process is the planning process.

LimeRed Studio prioritizes the planning phase of every project. This helps to not only troubleshoot content, timeline and fulfillment issues, it’s also a great way to get everyone on board and headed in the same direction. We use BaseCamp and Google Docs to manage our workflow, with a healthy dose of in-person meetings and check-ins. Our clients are invited to be a part of our internal process—we have nothing to hide.

We outline at the onset of every project through a comprehensive Creative Brief or Website Intake:

Who is the project for?
Why is it important?
What is the budget?
What is the key message?
How will we measure success?

After we figure this out, we begin the project process. Here's more on that.

User Guides and Training

We always create a visual user guide that describes how a website's Content Management System (CMS) works and how to complete administrative tasks. We're committed to teaching our clients how their site works so they can intelligently and confidently expand that site in the future. Your website is yours, not ours! We have a problem with firms who lock up data and access to content. There's just no reason to hold a site hostage.

We also conduct a training session to review the user guide once the site is launched, which takes about a half-day in person. Depending on the size and number of staff members, that could change. This is all included in the cost of a website, just like analytics installation.

Deliverables and Project Management

We deliver timelines, reports, moodboards, copy, design and other deliverables through our project management  system, to which our clients have full access. Clients have deadlines to meet, as do we, so everyone involved can see how all of the pieces fit together. We keep records of time and progress for everything we do—it helps us become more efficient over time.

All of our projects are detailed in writing in a Scope of Work with everyone’s responsibilities, program plan, deliverables and process outlined as completely as possible. Every project starts with a detailed intake process, and the more honest information we collect upfront, the smoother everything goes.

Here's more about how to become a client.