Some of the staff at Sandstorm, literally showing upward growth!

2012 is proving to be yet another award-winning year for Sandstorm Design! In March we were named as a Top B2B Interactive Agency by Crain’s BtoB Magazine. And this week, our Principal Sandy Marsico traveled to Boston to attend the awards ceremony for the Top 100 Fastest Growing Inner City Companies in America. We are so honored and humbled to have landed at the #43 spot, with a 33% 5-year annual growth.

With our Chicago marketing firm’s move to a larger space last year and hiring a number of new employees, we’ve been steadily and strategically growing. We couldn’t be more excited about this achievement, and we thank Fortune, Harvard, ICIC and all of our amazing partners who’ve worked with us to create impactful work!

We’re on the hunt for the ideal candidate that will embody UX design and be the user advocate. We believe designers make great IAs since they can think about the user experience as well as interface design while integrating the client’s strategic marketing objectives.

You will be responsible for the creation of wireframes, user flows and sitemaps. (We use Axure for wireframing.) Also, you will design user interfaces that balance the user and business requirements. Projects can include, web site design, video storyboards, and the design and storyboarding of interactive experiences. At times, will be asked to create logos, brand boards, ads, brochures, etc. You can be involved in user research, persona development and usability studies (we have a lab on site).

Our office is extremely collaborative and everyone’s opinion counts. If you are lone wolf, this is not the place for you. You will report to the creative director, but often you will be working closely with the director of technology, dev team and other IAs.

Qualifications for this role include:

• 3-6 years visual user experience design
• Strong Color Theory, Typography, Layout and Grid system design skills
• Proven experience designing customer facing interfaces
• Strong understanding of UX/IA/UI principles and best practices
• Knowledge or familiarity with user research, usability testing a plus
• Excellent visual and oral/written communication skills
• Passion for and demonstrated knowledge of user-centered design
• Excellent Information Design skills
• Attention to every detail
• Understanding timelines and working within established budgets is a must

Sandstorm Design creates powerful brand experiences with our unique blend of strategic marketing, web design and usability services. Located on Chicago’s north side, we help companies identify, craft, and clearly communicate their marketing messages in a creative, intuitive and strategic way. We’re a creative bunch with a witty sense of humor. Why it’s awesome to work here: paid day off and free lunch for your birthday, you don’t have to dress up, you get all the traditional perks of a big company (401K, healthcare benefits, etc.) without the politics, free snacks (and COFFEE) all day. Lots of growth potential, too!

To apply send your cover letter, resume, samples and salary requirements to jobs@sandstormdesign.com. Include “UX Designer” in the subject line. NO phone calls.

Sandstorm Design is a growing interactive agency! We are looking to hire someone to help us grow our existing accounts. This position is absolutely incredible as you will get the opportunity to work on some really innovative interactive work for some great people and high profile brands. Plus, you will continue to grow, mentor and lead our account team. Be prepared to be part of an internal usability study or user research project, and live, breathe and sleep our user-centered methodology.

Now there’s a few things we need to see from you: Significant B2B and B2C agency experience, digital/interactive expertise, strategic thinking, unsurpassed motivation and drive to learn new things, detailed project management skills, and the ability to write really well. To apply, send your cover letter, salary history and resume to jobs@sandstormdesign.com. Please include “Account Director” in the subject line. NO calls please.

Sandstorm Design is on the lookout for an Interactive Project Manager. If you have at least 3 years of experience managing interactive and web development projects in a fast-paced agency environment, this might be the job for you.

To be the successful candidate, you will need in-depth understanding of creative development, interactive development and project management processes with the ability to manage multiple projects at one time. You will need to put in practice and enforce these project processes and standards. All of this requires excellent organization and time management, which are fundamental to project and client management success. Strong leadership abilities in addition to outstanding written and public speaking skills are a must. (You will be presenting complex information to both technical and non-technical audiences). You would need experience managing comprehensive web development projects, creating and managing Statements of Work, status reports, project timelines and resource projections. In addition to the management aspects you will need a strong understanding and experience with web strategies and online technologies, including web site development, SEO, social media plus knowledge of web analytics and how to apply them. Familiarity with Drupal (Sandstorm’s preferred CMS) and BaseCamp are definite pluses.

Our Interactive Project Manager will coordinate and lead design, copywriting and development teams through all stages of project development. This includes building and maintaining relationships with clients and project teams to deliver project objectives, on time, within budget and to the full satisfaction of the clients. Estimating budgets and creating project plans is key. Also, you will effectively communicate project scope and milestones to clients, vendors and agency team members and identifying and explaining the budget and timeline implications of project scope changes.

Sandstorm Design creates powerful brand experiences with our unique blend of strategic marketing, web design and usability services. Located on Chicago’s north side, we help companies identify, craft, and clearly communicate their marketing messages in a creative, intuitive and strategic way. We’re a creative bunch with a witty sense of humor. Why it’s awesome to work here: paid day off and free lunch for your birthday, you don’t have to dress up, you get all the traditional perks of a big company (401K, healthcare benefits, etc.) without the politics, free snacks (and COFFEE) all day. Lots of growth potential, too!

If you think you’d be a great addition to our team, please submit a cover letter, resume, 3 URLs of web sites that you were the lead project manager on and a salary history to jobs@sandstormdesign.com.

We thank all applicants for their interest; however only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

Local candidates only. No phone calls please. No recruiters.

Kyle Lamble is the latest addition to Sandstorm Design, adding to our stellar Drupal developers. He’ll be supporting our Drupal development team with both front-end and back-end database development. He’s experienced in javascript, PHP, MySQL, ASP.NET, C++ and has even done video game programming. Kyle uses his professional skills in his personal life too, and in his spare time built and maintains the website for the Loosey Goosey Art Zine that he and his friends created. In addition to loving life in front of the computer screen, Kyle is also quite comfortable on the big screen and has acted in several films.

Welcome, Kyle. We’re excited to be working with you!

So, you’re going with Drupal, eh? Let me be the first to pat you on the back! You’re joining the likes of The White House, National Association of Realtors, Forrester Research and Harvard, all of whom have web sites built in Drupal. This open source content management system is a developer favorite because of its robust and flexible capabilities for managing large amounts of content.

As with all things, the first step you probably took was a Google search to learn the basics of Drupal. But that quick search may bring up some overwhelming results as a lot of the information out there is actually for the thousands and thousands of Drupal developers who have made this content management system what it is today.

But you’re not a developer, and no one expects you to be! (That’s what we’re here for.) You’re what we call a content administrator. And we’ve put together some of the Drupal basics you’ll need, without all that developer mumbo jumbo.

CONTENT TYPES

There are three main types of content on a Drupal site – Basic Pages, Articles, and Webforms. Each type has its own set of fields and purposes:

• Basic page – Just what it sounds like, a basic page. This content type will usually have fields like a main header, sub header and body content and is used for most of the pages on your site (like About Us, Products, or Services).
• Articles – These can be used for blog entries or news items. They have fewer fields than a basic page and include special fields like author and date.
• Webforms – This content type is for the forms on your site, like Contact Us.

MENUS

Every site needs some form of navigation. The menus let you take the different pieces of content on your web site and organize them in an outline. The main menu, for example could be made up of a few basic pages like About Us, Products, and Services, and a webform for your Contact Us page.

BLOCKS

Blocks are smaller chunks of content that might show on a page but wouldn’t be part of the content type. For example, you might have a callout on all the pages of your site. If this callout is a block, you can edit it once and the changes will show on every page.

CONTENT + MENUS + BLOCKS = YOUR WEB SITE!

When you take these different pieces and add them together, they make up your web site! Look at the example Drupal web site below and see if you can identify the different elements:

BASIC PAGE CONTENT

Although we call it a basic page, not everything on the page is part of the basic page content. Notice in the image below that the basic page content only takes up the center of the page…

MENUS

That’s because the rest of the information on the page is either a menu or a block. There are three menus on this page—the main menu on the top left, the secondary menu below that and a utility menu in the upper right corner.

BLOCKS

Finally, the callout on the right is a block. It would be edited separately from the basic page content in the center, and the changes would be carried over to any other pages on the site that include the block.

There you have it, now you understand content types, menus and blocks! The basics of Drupal are easy to grasp, and once you log in and start updating, you’ll love the ease and flexibility of it. Of course, if you ever need more than content updates, our Drupal developers would love to work on your web site!

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Our Chicago web design firm is looking for an experienced web developer with solid HTML, CSS and jQuery chops to join our team. Our immediate needs are for front-end development and we expect this position to grow into PHP, MySQL, AJAX, etc. You’ll also contribute to strategic discussions about websites, mobile deployments and other technology decisions.

Required skills include 2+ years programming experience with HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and JQuery (XML and AJAX a plus), as well as experience developing web pages and front-end solutions from provided wireframes and designs. You should also have a strong understanding of web standards and web browser peculiarities and the ability to create cross-browser and cross-platform compliant pages. Proficiency in the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop and Illustrator) is important, and having advanced knowledge of content management systems such as Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, etc. will be key.  Sandstorm is a collaborative environment. So, in addition to doing great work independently, you will a member of a team for most projects. Overall, the ideal candidate should have a strong commitment to excellence, usability, and coding standards, all with an intense attention to detail.

The successful candidate will need to be flexible in day-to-day activities and embrace change as required, working both independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment with many projects, priorities and opportunities.

Sandstorm Design creates powerful brand experiences with our unique blend of strategic marketing, web design and usability services. Located on Chicago’s north side, we help companies identify, craft, and clearly communicate their marketing messages in a creative, intuitive and strategic way. We’re a creative bunch with a witty sense of humor. Why it’s awesome to work here: paid day off and free lunch for your birthday, you don’t have to dress up, you get all the traditional perks of a big company (401K, healthcare benefits, etc.) without the politics, free snacks (and COFFEE) all day! Lots of growth potential, too.

If you think you’d be a great addition to our team, please send your cover letter and resume to jobs@sandstormdesign.com. Please include “Experienced Web Developer” in the subject line.

Local candidates only. No phone calls please. No recruiters.

We are so excited to announce that not only is our web design firm one of Brill Street’s Top Chicago Gen-Y Employers for 2011, we’ve also moved up the list of 50 since last year—to the top 20! With freedoms to define our own culture, opportunities to give each other praise and recognition, and traditions around holidays and events, we’ve got a workplace fit for any Gen-Yer.

And it’s not just the fun (although, yes, we know how to have a good time), it’s the collaboration, teamwork and team-building activities that allow us to grow together and work better together so that at the end of the day we can kick our feet up and appreciate every aspect of our jobs—the people, the work, the environment, the culture…oh, and of course the food!

Truth is, Sandstorm is a great place to work no matter who you are. Read more about our Chicago web design company on Brill Street’s Top 50 Chicago Generation Y Employers List.