Over the past three years, Razorfrog has been hard at work completely rebuilding our website experience and brand story from the ground up. This has been a long journey as the web has significantly evolved since our last iteration launched on October 31, 2014 — well over 9 years ago! (Whoa, has it really been that long??)
We’ve recently taken a closer look at the most notable differences with the web since 2014 in our previous blog post titled Three Major Changes To The Web in the Past Decade. I highly recommend reading that post first as it informs a lot of the changes we’ve been addressing for our clients and our redesign goals.
With that said, it is a great honor and privilege to announce that — at long last — our redesign journey has come to an end, and Razorfrog’s new website is now live! We’re very grateful that our small team of three has stayed on top of it all while simultaneously providing our clients with ongoing service and support. This was no easy feat, and calls for a long-awaited celebration paired with food, music and dancing!
As the lead developer of our site redesign, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our reenvisioned online headquarters and provide you with a tour of the many new and exciting features incorporated into the latest version. There’s much in store, so come grab some bubbly and let’s get this party started!
Our new brand story is inspired by nature.
The foundational concept for reimagining our brand arose during the middle of the pandemic when things were particularly challenging for us all.
One summer day in August 2021, I found myself meditating on a formative memory from my early childhood. When I was six years old, my family lived in a rural part of Michigan. We were fortunate to have access to a large pond within the woods behind our house. My older brother and I would go out to that pond almost daily with our bug nets to catch frogs, tadpoles, turtles, newts, fish, dragonflies and butterflies. We would wear rubber boots and wade in the water, collecting all sorts of critters to examine more closely. These ritualized experiences instilled a deep sense of wonder and awe for the natural world that have never faded.
Deeper meanings
When I reconnected with that memory, I tapped into the same blissful joy and recognized that the pond represented a thriving community comprised of mutualistic symbiotic relationships between many different living creatures. The diverse life within this delicate ecosystem only flourished because it existed together. That’s when it dawned on me that the pond and our communities are one and the same. We’re much more resilient and capable when we’re working together. COVID-19 threatened many of those essential connections and left us isolated within our homes. In a metaphorical sense, our ponds were drying up.
From this realization, I felt an actionable need to positively channel that energy in a visual way. I began sketching out a pond illustration with my tablet (shown below) that incorporated all of the same elements as the one from my childhood. The pond analogy wonderfully aligns with our firm’s accessibility and inclusivity goals. It ties everything together in a way that celebrates life and the vital bonds that connect us all.
A symbol of resilience
The illustration was shared with our team as a beacon of what the future might hold. Our founder Max Elman came up with the amazing idea to print the pond scene on Fellow travel mugs to share this joy with others. The response we received was overwhelmingly positive. The pond motif became a powerful and inspiring catalyst for creating an entirely new web presence that seeks to nurture the connections within our larger communities. It has brought forth significant new meaning to our roles as stewards of the web. Through our close collaborations, the reach and impact of our ideas is seemingly endless.
We have approached this redesign as a means to facilitate the healing of our communities and return to an interconnected and prosperous world. Razorfrog is dedicated to normalizing inclusive design in an effort to make the web an empowering space for folks of all backgrounds and abilities. Our revised color palette features three accent colors — earth gold, rose pink and electric violet — sourced from a water lily, a freshwater flowering plant associated with aquatic habitats. These vibrant colors were selected to visibly celebrate the diverse backgrounds of our team, our surrounding communities, and our shared world.
We’ve updated our core services and add-ons.
One of the biggest changes for our firm is that we now offer web accessibility conformance as a core service. Accessibility lawsuits have been on the rise since 2019, especially within the states of California and New York. Businesses of all sizes across every industry continue to be targeted for WCAG violations. The companies that have not been able to keep pace with these legislation changes may be prone to receiving legal notices about their site’s non-conformance with the ADA. Many have sought quick fixes using overlay services which are not considered to be acceptable alternatives for responsible WCAG conformant design and development practices.
Razorfrog acknowledges the importance of accessible design and is working hard to make the web a better place for everyone. Our team has been revising our design and development processes over the past few years to target WCAG Level AA conformance for our deliverables. This is the most prominent technical standard referenced by the Department of Justice and upheld by the US federal courts. We have also been performing manual accessibility audits and assisting with remediation efforts as needed for our clients with existing sites requiring tune-ups.
Lastly, we have also included an assortment of add-on services available for all of our web design projects. One add-on service that we’d like to mention in particular is our legal policies which includes setting up automatically updating privacy policies and terms of service policies. California’s recent privacy laws are now requiring business owners within the state to include compliant policies on their websites. In a similar vein, we have also begun to assist businesses impacted by the GDPR with opt-in cookie consent solutions.
Shopify has been added to our e-commerce services.
Those who are interested in our e-commerce stores services will be excited to learn that we’ve added Shopify as a primary e-commerce platform alongside WooCommerce. We are happy to help determine which platform is right for your business and get your shop fully designed, configured and selling with style. Our team is grateful to continue assisting our clients with their online storefronts and answering any questions they might have along the way.
To provide our Shopify-oriented clients with the best possible service, we have introduced Shopify support plans in three tiers: Starter, Pro and Premium. We understand that running an e-commerce business is stressful and have created these support plans to make every aspect of managing your store easier for you. When it comes to routine technical matters and optimization efforts, allow us to assist so that you can focus on selling and growing your audience.
Our site is WCAG 2.2 Level AA conformant.
As a reputable San Francisco Bay Area web design firm assisting clients with their web accessibility conformance goals, it is imperative that our own site be conformant and follow the same high standards. We’ve approached every aspect and detail of our redesign to conform with WCAG 2.2, the latest technical standard published by W3C on October 5, 2023.
There are many notable ways that our website has been designed to assist those with diverse abilities. Our new website features an updated color palette that meets Level AA’s 4.5:1 minimum contrast ratio criteria. All page content has been specifically designed and prepared to be navigable via keyboard. Links can be tabbed to and include appropriate focus styling. Web forms have been carefully constructed to follow the latest guidelines and display validation messages for incomplete required fields. Portfolio lightbox content may be navigated by clicking arrows or using arrow keys. Modals can be closed via clicking X buttons or tabbing to the X and selecting it.
Cookie consent is now GDPR friendly.
Our new website uses GDPR Cookie Compliance to serve our own tracking services which are outlined within our Cookie Policy page. We take our visitors’ privacy seriously and wish to be respectful of the many existing concerns around this topic. This cookie consent solution is also fully accessible and includes a settings panel that can be controlled via keyboard.
Give your eyes a break with our new dark mode.
Our team has implemented a comprehensive dark mode to provide users with an option to reduce eye strain, decrease battery usage and cut back on exposure to blue light to promote quality sleep. If at any time you would like to switch between light and dark mode, you may do so via an accessible toggle within our navigation menu, mobile menu or footer.
We’ve configured our site’s dark mode to follow your system settings. When you visit with dark mode enabled on your device, you’ll be served the dark version by default. We’re all about providing our visitors with accessible options to empower their browsing experience, and dark mode is no exception!
Our firm has been recognized by the top B2B review platforms.
Over the past decade our design team has been very fortunate to work closely with a multitude of San Francisco Bay Area businesses that are changing the world every day. Razorfrog has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades from the leading B2B review platforms in recognition of our reputation and craft. We have been graciously placed on lists of the top San Francisco web design and development firms, as well as logo, graphic and print design firms.
We’re absolutely thrilled to partner with many of the local businesses in our communities and provide them with the five-star support that is necessary to stay ahead in a competitive marketplace. Our steadfast dedication to making the web a better place for everyone has only strengthened over time. It is important to us that our clients have exceptional experiences while working with our dedicated web professionals.
If you’ve enjoyed working with us, we’d love to hear about it in an online review on Google, Clutch, UpCity, Yelp or even Facebook. Your feedback is greatly appreciated as it helps us to further improve upon our services and build trust with businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area, the state of California and elsewhere in the US.
Thanks for celebrating this milestone with us!
Our website redesign is the culmination of over fifteen years of experience in assisting clients with their web design and development needs. It is a major overhaul from our previous version launched almost a decade ago. After multiple years of working on it behind the scenes, we’re so incredibly grateful to share it with you!
Razorfrog’s mission is to craft beautiful, inclusive and memorable web experiences that foster community and cultivate trust. We’ve been at it since 2008 because we love WordPress and helping kind folks like you. Moving forward we will continue to provide our San Francisco Bay Area clients with the same level of exceptional service they’ve come to expect from our team.
As always, thank you so much for your continued support of our work. If there’s anything you are particularly excited about by this redesign, we’d love to hear about it. Additionally, if there are features you’d like to see added that we may have missed, we’re receptive to your suggestions.
Now, let’s create something entirely new and change the world together!
