Hiring an agency to do the landing page/communincation?

[samuelstroschein]

Context

https://www.notion.so/inlang/Update-website-and-documentation-to-better-communicate-what-inlang-provides-b78b018da4664eb98331960c8324a6b0?pvs=4

Discussion

Should we hire an agency to do the landing page for us or progressively improve the website ourselves?

[samuelstroschein]

What speaks for hiring an agency now?

• Inlang receives a polished landing page sooner than later
• Communication of inlang can be improved, an agency could help us

What speaks AGAINST hiring an agency now?

• we are still figuring out the positioning see commits like 58ec063. An agency that does the positioning for us will likely miss the point.
• no design system is in place, the agency would need to create one/inconsistency with the editor is to be expected (minor).

[samuelstroschein]

Let's think about what exactly needs to be improved.

• communicate the components of inlang and what they do
• communicate that components of inlang work independently of each other
  metaframework agnostic i18n library #395 (reply in thread)
• the editor is the next git thesis, the rest of inlang can be used without "buying into the next git thesis"
  metaframework agnostic i18n library #395 (comment)
• no lock in. any TMS can be used with inlang
  metaframework agnostic i18n library #395 (comment)
• inlang is unopinionated/agnostic about syntax formats of messages (ICU, MessageFormat, ARB)
  metaframework agnostic i18n library #395 (reply in thread)
• inlang is cross-platform (JS, Flutter, iOS, Android)

What else?

[samuelstroschein]

Also of interest. What kind of style are we looking for?

I am found of https://tailscale.com/ for its simplicity, allowing us to iterate on the website even after a design agency completed it.

[samuelstroschein]

Aggregating some freelancers/agencies beneath

[samuelstroschein]

https://ueberdosis.io/ - OSS experienced agency, base in Berlin

[NilsJacobsen]

https://interaktionswerk.de/ - Interaktionswerk, base in Munich
Worked with them for two years -> we would know what we get

[samuelstroschein]

Max Claussen recommends https://www.tonik.com/.

[jannesblobel]

List of agencies Transfer from Notion to Github

Notion initiative

https://pizzapizza.io/

https://bb.agency/

https://pixelpoint.io/

https://www.overnice.com/

https://nelson.co/

https://povio.com/

[nikitavoloboev]

I collected some interesting design agencies here.

[NilsJacobsen]

I think it makes sense to hire a agency for some of the work. To be honst my designer heart is kind of crying while giving away fun parts to design, but I would say there are some parts of the process that are less important to be made in-house. The process would ideally look like this:

• Art direction | Gather inspiration, develop a unique and awesome looking look and feel of inlang's frontend.
• Communication & Positioning | Plan what's the strategy for the landing page. How do we want to communicate the different kind of apps, the big idea and inlang's future. What's the best funnel design ...
• Generate UX/UI | Work with art direction and strategy to develop different sections with their visuality
• Code the frontend | Implement the designs

I think it could be beneficial to make the Art Direction in-house in let's say two or three days. Discuss this in GH.

When we found our identity we can hand it off to a agency. But I think the hand off is the hard part. Some agencies don't want to do wording, but some do. Definitely something that need to be discussed beforehand. We have to give them a perfect image of what inlang is and how they can support us with the right wording and communication strategy. Some agencies do a really good job in doing that kind of storytelling on websites.

The generating of UI/UX can be shifted to agencies relatively easy. I don't think we need to focus that much on providing a perfect design system for that, cause design systems are more useful for the editor than the landing page. But through the art direction that should be of the same look and feel. That way we can keep the expenses low and let them work more on the visuals and assets, that we definitely need for the landing page, to bring in a bit more visuality into that kind of dry (non-visual) topic :)

Agencies are sometimes also pretty familiar with coding, so they could contribute to the repo and code the designs pretty well. That way we have less amount of work and can focus more on the editor.

To conclude, I think it makes sense to hire a agency, but would go for one that we trust and know what we get. It is also important that we need to communicate to them that this is an urgent project that is not like a big corporate one. So they know how many workdays we need from them in the near future.

[jannesblobel]

@NilsJacobsen, only for myself in fewer words, and the next steps.
Positions one and two are not fixed and can be changed.

1. find a " perfect image of what inlang is" this includes ( services/apps(editor, CLI, VS code extension, SDK frameworks), vision/ future of inlang( Git SDK, the third dimension,... )
2. define an art/design direction
3. explore some agencies for mainly the landing page, "visuals and assets."
4. best case, they can implement the UI/UX

What are your thoughts about:
2. define an art/design direction
3. find an agency for creating a UI library? More consistent in the ecosystem. (I saw your paragraph, but I'm a bit scared of the UI mix and match/mismatch in the ecosystem)
4. explore some agencies for mainly the landing page

[NilsJacobsen]

What we could also do, when our Art direction is not super far away from what tailwind templates are providing, that we can maybe set it quickly in a few hours. That depends on fanciness I guess. For stage, Niklas Felix and I set the landing page up in one day. To be honest for Inlang I would customize it more, but the templates consist of standard sections that just work.

So I guess we should start with a overall art direction for inlang in generell (website/editor/docs). I could make the first shot today. @jannesblobel we could collaborate or make a feedback round if you want? Then we see if the agency is necessary. Are there any examples that u like?

Concurrently I would say we should work on the communication strategy / positioning of inlang. Where should we do that? Notion, separate discussion?

[jannesblobel]

That's up to you, but I'm happy to give you my opinion if you want it :)

My recommendation is a separate discussion with a tldraw board.

[samuelstroschein]

I am happy to pay for Figma. Tldraw has no "collection"/storing boards yet. I find that boards I created get lost because I don't find the link.

[samuelstroschein]

The landing page will be developed internally by @NilsJacobsen and @NiklasBuchfink to

• avoid overhead with agencies
• have a simple landing page that we can iterate on ourselves