Since our name is Fenway Creative, a lot of people think we’re located just in Boston, when in fact we’re based in Boston and Portland, Oregon. Being a bi-coastal company is pretty great because our community extends to both New England and the Pacific Northwest. Of course, we also love to work with clients elsewhere, but so many of them also have ties to the communities in which we live.

In a couple of weeks, Stephen will be coming out to the West Coast so that we can work together for a few days in real life. With all the time we’ll save by not having to type all our conversations out, and by being able to point to each other’s screens rather than drawing on screen shots, I’ll get to show Stephen the city and all the lovely food spots I’ve discovered since living here.

We would really love to work with more small businesses here, so if you’re a Portland small business owner in need of a website shoot us an email and we’ll buy you a drink. Artisan beer and small businesses helping small businesses — it doesn’t get more Portland than that!

Stephen and I met while we were both temping for a communications agency just outside of Boston. He was working on developing websites and I was doing…well, whatever they needed me to do on any given day (edit videos, write, copyedit, code). We ended up becoming friends, and when I got hired for a contract at Pearson Education, Stephen came too. Over the years, we began helping each other with various website projects. I moved to Portland and Stephen is still in Boston, but we’ve continued to rely on each other’s strengths for projects. We decided to make our partnership official, and that’s how Fenway Creative came to be. 

I think it’s important to tell the story of how we met so that you can understand why we’re so committed to building websites for small businesses and organizations. We know what it’s like to be the little guy, and to have an idea that you hope to find success with. Like the “eat local” movement, we believe in living locally, and small businesses are the path to that kind of community strength. 

The small businesses we work with understand that having a web presence is vital to survival. A website is online real estate; it needs to convey the look and feel of your business to someone who hasn’t had the opportunity to set foot in your brick-and-mortar office or storefront. For those who run online businesses, web presence is even more valuable. We love working with small businesses and organizations so that we can develop an online atmosphere that’s pitch perfect. 

My mom likes to joke that she taught me everything I know about web design and development. She’s joking, but it’s true: Mom, you did teach me everything I know. I witnessed your interactions with difficult pre-school parents and your patience with school politics. You never lost your cool. That’s how I learned to interact with my clients.

Dad, I learned a lot from you too. As a CPA, your most stressful times were the first four months of the year. You, too, never “lost it” with a client — or anyone, for that matter — even when work was at its craziest. You always worked for your family practice, and from you I learned the benefits of being your own boss. Your clients were the only people you have to answer to, so flipping out on them never even occurred to you. 

Mom and dad, even though we are in totally different fields, I did learn everything from you. The reason I have what others call “the patience of a saint” is because of the both of you. Thank you. 

Web design is all about helping people get the information they need in an intuitive, visually appealing manner. In this way, web design is no different from graphic design, except that it goes deeper, becomes more expansive as the pages link together. That’s why we believe it’s important to identify our clients’ goals at our first meeting. Then we can work toward building a website that speaks to our clients’ clients.

The first lesson we learned when we started building websites for people was that the most important thing we can do is listen. Actually, it turns out that this is the most important skill no matter what you do! This simple act sets us apart immediately, and in return we get to learn so much from our clients.

Through listening, we learn about the aesthetic nature our clients want to achieve, what functions they want, and about any frustrations they may have had with their websites in the past. Sometimes we can even identify solutions that our clients have never heard of.

It’s this collaboration that makes what we do so much fun!