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37signals Year in Review
26 Dec 2003 by Jason Fried
2003 was a good year for 37signals. We got back on track after a challenging 2001/2002 “post-bubble” season. This year we completed a wide variety of interesting projects for new and repeat clients alike. Further, we completed our first book Defensive Design for the Web (due out in Feb 2004), launched 37express, designed and developed Basecamp (launching January 2004), added Ryan Singer to our team, moved into a new office, switched from Sprint to Verizon and back to Sprint, ate Italian food 3 days a week, and more. Thanks to everyone who made it possible.
This year we completed the following projects (that I’m allowed to mention):
- Summit Credit Union intranet redesign
- Meridian IQ active shipments redesign (37express)
- Performance Bike Supergo redesign
- Panera Bread usability anaylsis & recommendations report
- Panera Bread bulk bagel ordering restructuring
- TurtleTrader cleanup and CSS restructuring
- SRA.org redesign
- Meetup “tab and bubble” and “Meetup Plus” designs
- FindAccountingSoftware.com form redesign (37express)
- Shopping.com redesign
- Clear Channel cc.com analysis and recommendations
- ERNI various page redesign (37express)
- Kinja design
- Gawker Media CSS/XHTML template
- ULINE my account and order history redesign (37express)
- Compass Bank home page redesign (37express)
- …and more (we’ll be updating our work section soon).
We also presented/spoke at:
- HOW Design conference in New Orleans
- Reboot 6 in Copenhagen, Denmark
- BloggingWorks in Chicago
- 37signals Contingency Design Workshop in Chicago
- ForUse usability conference in Portsmith, NH
- SEEK AIGA & Northern Illinois Conference in DeKalb, IL
- Ragan Web Content Management Conference in Chicago, IL
We’re really looking forward to 2004. Keep an eye out for our book, more offerings from 37express, a new “Inspiration” research report series, the launch of Basecamp, more from BloggingWorks, and something tentatively called “The Deck” (a collaboration between 37signals and Coudal, among others). We also have some interesting ideas planned for Signal vs. Noise so stay tuned. And, speaking of SvN, thanks for everyone’s comments and contributions — SvN would be boring without all of you.
Thanks again everyone!
14 comments so far (Post a Comment)
26 Dec 2003 | dmr said...
Panera Bread bulk bagel ordering still has a problem when selecting more bagels then you orderedyou select 15 bagels when you only ordered a dozen; guesswork is needed to determine how many bagels you are over. Surely a simple line of text could display the difference.
I'm really nitpicking, eh?
I can't wait to see Basecamp, 37express is the best service on the web for the web and the new book is bound to be great! What a year for the 37crew. When are we gonna hear more about Ryan?
26 Dec 2003 | mephisto2002 said...
Good job guys - I hope more companies hire you - they need it!
26 Dec 2003 | Mike said...
Great year in review! Almost as good at the ESPN Top 100 Plays of 2003 ;)
Now, regarding Kinja, isn't that the top secret project co-lead by Meg and Nick? I've been waiting for more details about it for months... but I guess I'll have to wait even longer ;)
Also, I had no idea you guys worked with Nick on some Gawker designs. What is your take on the Gawker template controversy that has been creeping around the past few weeks? Just curious...
Can't wait for your work in '04, you guys are my heroes.
27 Dec 2003 | Joe Schmoe said...
How come we haven't heard enough about Ryan Singer?
28 Dec 2003 | JF said...
Ryan has chosen to remain elusive and mysterious. And he's into that voodoo stuff so I dare not cross 'em.
29 Dec 2003 | broadway said...
is this ryan the same ryan from hairspray at the oriental theatre?
29 Dec 2003 | Gambit said...
Looking forward to the books, good luck for the new year, 2 days now...
29 Dec 2003 | Monkey said...
Why does the UK edition of 'Defensive Design for the Web' have a different cover to the US version?
29 Dec 2003 | Darrel said...
so, how is the 37express thing working out?
29 Dec 2003 | JF said...
Why does the UK edition of 'Defensive Design for the Web' have a different cover to the US version?
The cover isn't finalized yet. The UK version is the old version which we ditched. The US version is closer to the final version.
29 Dec 2003 | Sigh said...
Personally, I'm disappointed in both of the covers, but I guess what matters is the content of the book.
I'm just hoping the book isn't a rehash of older 37signals projects in the form of "this is what we did on this project, so look at our pretty screen captures."
29 Dec 2003 | JF said...
I'm just hoping the book isn't a rehash of older 37signals projects in the form of "this is what we did on this project, so look at our pretty screen captures."
I don't believe there are screen captures of any of our projects. The book is not about us at all.
29 Dec 2003 | Sigh said...
The book is not about us at all.
Good to hear! The recent trend of design bureau books focusing solely on eye candy is becoming tiresome.
06 Jan 2004 | portable said...
How come we haven't heard enough about Ryan Singer?
