Every new year tends to start more or less in the same way; an empty page, a clean slate, a blank canvas ripe for creating new memories.
A new year brings new opportunities and plenty of excitement—and although we are certainly very excited for 2019, 2018 was a very special year for us. We got to work with some some amazing clients who challenged us, collaborated closely with our team, and enabled us to put out some pretty cool (in some cases, award-winning) work. Last year also brought us new team members and traditions that have helped make our company culture even stronger.
So as we march into the year ahead with optimism and open arms, we wanted to take a quick look back and share some of our favorite memories of 2018.
Fun Events We Attended & Hosted
We wanted to be more active in attending events in our industry this past year. So, our Marketing Department kicked off the first quarter of 2018 by attending Digital Marketing Masterclass & 20th Birthday Do & Brew At MightBytes.
As a way to connect with our community Solid Digital hosted an agency tour for Designation.io.
Giving our team the opportunity to host a cohort of designers in their UX/UI Bootcamp and introducing them to our Creative Team for them to learn more about our agency, and our process.
One of the biggest events of the year for us was the EO Chicago’s 2018 Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, where we were honored to sponsored and participate along with many other influential organizations.
A New Home For The Portland Team
For our Portland team, moving into a new space designed by our COO has been a game changer in the way we do things. Our space gives us the ability to work independently in quiet areas, and also come together to collaborate in many areas in our office. It has also provided a nice gathering place for lunches and team events.
New Faces in Each Department
Throughout 2018 each department had a new addition to their team, as we welcomed 4 talented individuals into the Solid Digital family.
Pete Ziegel joined our Creative Department as the team’s UX/UI Designer, Sarah Achler joined our Marketing Department as the new Marketing Support Manager, Amber Stansfield joined our Production team as Director of Production, and our newest addition is Mike Le-Reiver, joining the Technology team as a Web Developer.
We Created New Traditions
Our passion for music opened the door to 2 new traditions for our team. On a monthly basis, our team curates a playlist of themed music to share on Spotify. Our second musical tradition is Project Playlists, our project managers work together with the team to put together a playlist for the day of the project’s launch. We share these with our clients and play them at both of our locations on launch day to celebrate the project.
We also created #SolidDailies on Slack, a channel dedicated for daily questions that allow our team to get to know each other, have some fun, and on occasions earn points. #SolidDailies has become one of our team’s favorite daily activity because it’s simple, it doesn’t take to much time, and we can all participate and have fun.
We Won Some Cool Awards
Our team is extremely proud of the awards that were received throughout 2018, We were named One of Chicago’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work For, along with being named Leading Agency in Portland.
We also received two gold W3 Awards for the work with did for our clients at MSCI and Edlong, along with receiving a silver Davey for the work we did for Edlong.
What’s To Come
We anticipate that in 2019 will be just as productive and exciting as 2018 (and with any luck, even more-so). Our team is thrilled with what we were able to accomplish in 2018, we can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store.
Happy New Year!
