They do design for 4001$.
Interesting concept. They claim to have worked for 15 years.
And say that they don’t want to bore the visitor(website) but putting up their awards 
EDIT: I also don’t understand what they mean by this phrase: “Being […]near the beach you can rest assured that you’ll get the results you want from us”
Anyway, I’d like to hear what other people think about this.
prob an inexperienced one person operation
web site is crap
Looks like a creative way of advertising lowcost piecemeal(?) freelance service. If you look at the requests they say they typically get on the site, it appears to be just the type of thing a company would use a freelancer for (short term). Looks like those types of requests they’re fullfilling are 1 week jobs, 2 max.
Not wanting to bore us with awards is a funny one though.
Very unprofessional and outfits like these kind of screw up our industry.
To be honest you get what you pay for in this case. I have lost a small client to this company, thought they would get a good VALUE, came back three weeks to a month later with the same program, all they recieved were flighty concepts and nothing that fullfilled thier project specifications or expectations.
I agree, this is a freelancers way of doing buisness, but they are only offering limited, very limited deliverables for the $4001 price point. Basically styling sketches of intent sketches. Basically what I have seen some companies include in proposals…this is what we could do with your product deal. I think this model works well if this firm is aiming at the clients who are marketing/branding managers looking for cheap, quick, not well thoughtout concept sketches to take to the board to convince the company to spend some R&D money on new/revamped products. But they are still bottom feeders!
I agree with Skinny, if you take the time to read it, it states that often several $4001 jobs are rolled together, i.e. a $4001 research phase, a secon $4001 concept phase, a third $4001 model phase… it good go on and on.
They are carving out a niche for themselves in a feild crowded with Frog and Asto wannabies. It sounds like a few people that have banded together to do some design and are not getting bogged down with a lot of other stuff. If you read, you will also find they split off from another older firm, so I think they’ve been working for awhile.
I think I know who these people are,…and they are not near the beach. ok within five miles, but the beach is not gonna influence them in Los Alimitos, northern inland OC.
I agree that its seems more like a Wal-Mart marketing hook to generate work for group of freelancers who have experience. If it is who I think they are (and I will respect their anonymity here thanks) its is good group of business oriented designers with manufacturing contacts.
Thta being said the blase website seems to be targeted to start-up companies which would fit nicely with their packaged cut rate design services. And the beach thing is just tconnecting trhemselves to the california lifestyle…maybe they could advertise and sponsor an episode of “the OC” or MTV’s “Laguna Beach”…
What makes me question their credibility is this one liner, “We won’t bore you with our awards, clients, projects and resources but just want to say that we’ve been doing this for 15 years and we know what we’re doing.”
That, seems very scammish to me. If I were a company that “knows what we’re doing,” I’d promote the fact that I won awards, that I have big corporate clients, the projects that blew through the roof. It’s marketing their reputation as not only a credible, or valid firm, but also shows their talent. Maybe, they are actually doing piecework, or are a small start up firm.
Looking back at this line, “Being in the epicenter of the west coast design community and near the beach you can rest assured that you’ll get the results you want from us.” with “near the beach you can rest assured,” emphasized…it is ironic how they phrased that though. Seems like once they get a job, they can go rest assured.
But hey, the only way to find out is to e-mail them or call them up and ask them for a contract of services for $4001. i wonder why $4001…what an odd number
LOL.
I think it’s a great idea.
That said, they need to re-think their pitch–it’s definitely not selling me on their value.
It seems like a bargain-bottom price might appeal to mom-and-pop inventors or very small businesses, but even then, would I want to focus on bargain prices or bankable results? I’ve worked with startups who’ve gone straight to IDEO for design!
At the end of the day, this probably most appeals to small businesses who know EXACTLY what they want, and just need to hire some people to execute their visions for the lowest possible cost.
I think these guys fall into the ‘anti-design’ category that has been talked about here in the past. These guys act very un-pretentious precisely to appeal to the ‘mom & pop’ inventor types who think design firms are ‘too artsy’, ‘too intellectual’, and ‘too expensive’.
A lot of products out there would not benefiet from the investment needed to hire a Product Development firm to research, design, develop, and engineer. This is the niche these guys are chosing to pursue-- is it a noble one? Not so sure. Is it making them money? I bet it will.
business is business. more power to them.
this got me tho - “pick up the phone and talk to a real live designer”. anyone’s palms get sweaty reading that?
if you do no research and do not have to work your design until it is ready to go down the production line (many big firms will not do the latter) then your time spent and billable hours are minimal…you can take the rest of the day at the beach…sounds honest to me…perhaps too honest for california…mmm, now i’m skeptical
$4001 buys you a bagle slicer that looks as though it was pulled out of the space station
all of you have a lot to learn about the product development business.
try getting a few corporate clients for yourself and then talk about marketing strategy.
Is this the state of our industry, your opinions?
I think it is dumb. It cheapens design.