

Who do the Y Combinator companies go to for design? - mhidalgo

I have been curious about this for a while, many of the ycombinator companies have decent to great design/logos.  Maybe all these companies are that talented to do both backend and frontend work but I doubt it.  Where do you guys go for design work and what do you look for?
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eb
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9256>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30387>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18026>

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webwright
MOST of the teams in the current crop that I know of (ours included) have
someone on the team who is a fair shake at design. Another way to say this is
that "most startups don't have room for specialists".

If you want my opinion, design is not a "coat of paint" to be applied after
the fact. User experience (UX) design should be baked into how you make your
product.

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michaelneale
"If you want my opinion, design is not a "coat of paint" to be applied after
the fact. User experience (UX) design should be baked into how you make your
product."

So true ! Since the web came along, design has been hijacked by graphic
designers - "coat of paint" - whilst important, its really just one part of
design (perhaps the easiest) - UX is sooo much more.

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symptic
I'm a designer myself and I lean towards very simple layouts focusing purely
on the text/content and using it as the framework of the site, not shoving
content into the framework. It tends to be better from a usability standpoint,
SEO, and even aesthetically. Less is more.

This is probably my favorite article on the topic:
[http://informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-
typogra...](http://informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-
period/)

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joergbattermann
you don't by any chance work with me on a new venture? Less -is- more and I
need someone who can help me/us there ;)

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symptic
Your name doesn't seem familiar, but I am open to new ventures if you'd like
to contact me. My email is in my profile.

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aneesh
Just FYI, I can't see your email in your profile. The "email" field is not
public by default. You could put your email in the "about" field.

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symptic
Thanks for the heads up.

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jexe
We're not a YC startup, but we found a designer who doesn't typically do web
sites -- he specialized in storefronts, t-shirts, skateboards.. In other
words, someone who didn't have any predefined notion of what to do on the web,
someone whose core skill is to get a message across in milliseconds and to
draw people in.

It worked out really, really well for us; it may be worth your while to look
outside typical web designers. That said, we already knew what the application
flow would be like, so it was a matter of 'skinning' for us -- color scheme,
iconography, etc.

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rms
I'm curious to see your design, are you ok posting your URL here?

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jexe
Sure: <http://outalot.com>

Incidentally, we did get some proposals from other, more experienced web
designers, but they all looked too formulaic and, er, web-site-ey.

dkokelley may have some good points, too.. It could've gone very wrong,
especially if our site interaction was much more complicated (and surely
someone else will think our design is a train wreck anyway ;) ), but I'm very
glad that we took a chance on it.

In the end, the key was really that we were all just seeing the vision of what
we wanted the same way.

And the site's artwork was designed by: <http://nish.net>

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stillmotion
Not sure about YC, but it seems like a lot of my friend's startups I know of
used Electric Pulp (<http://electricpulp.com>) to design/build their system.

Also hiring freelance designers is very cheap and easy to do.

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PStamatiou
They (Electric Pulp) also did Truemors and Alltop, which I can't speak highly
of for the amount it cost.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134252>

~~~
amentele
Paul. Electric Pulp didn't charge to build Alltop. This is the second time
I've seen you weigh in like this. And by "like this" I mean "in ignorance."

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boredguy8
<http://www.zeitstudios.com> does a good job adapting to the feel one's
attempting to achieve. (I don't work there)

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pibefision
<http://www.cuoma.com> does good jobs too. They are very professional.

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nonrecursive
logoworks.com does good work

