The ABA’s Division for Public Education is providing the site as a comprehensive collection of images of original documents, public art, architecture, and other depictions of Magna Carta throughout the world and throughout history.

Sealed in 1215 by King John of England to quell a rebellion by a group of barons, Magna Carta (the Great Charter of Liberty) has come to symbolize the ideals of freedom and the rule of law. Magna Carta was an inspiration to our nation’s Founding Fathers, who incorporated the principles of liberty it represents into our cherished founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Today, Magna Carta is one of the world’s most recognized and respected symbols of freedom under law.

The site features nearly a hundred images in a gallery that can be filtered by different characteristics and an interactive timeline tracing the history and impact of Magna Carta through the centuries. The goal of the site is to engage a wide public audience, and provide a rich, rewarding interactive multimedia experience that conveys the significance of Magna Carta as a symbol and promotes understanding of the role of the rule of law in establishing and maintaining free societies.

And while the content of the site was 800 years in the making, the Icon of Liberty website was designed and developed on a tight deadline to take full advantage of the anniversary year celebration.

As a digital development agency, it’s important for all of us to be on the same page for each and every project that is brought in house—which is why we implement daily scrums. As a crucial part of our development workflow, scrums enable our team to stay organized and on top of all projects. Below is a more detailed explanation as to how scrum fits into our workflow, but stay tuned for more on our development lifecycle later! Whether there are designers, developers or project managers, scrums are beneficial to everyone involved. Here, I will explain 5 of the main reasons why we benefit from our morning scrum sessions here at Manning:

1. Because They Keep Open Lines of Communication

The first benefit that scrum sessions provide us is open communication and collaboration amongst our team. At Manning, having a scrum session at the beginning of every morning lets the entire team know where each person is on projects and what they will be working on that for day. I can’t stress enough how important it is for everyone on your team to be on the same page. Being the project manager, I have to ensure all communication lines between the developers, designers and I are open, and that we all hit our milestones on time and at a high level of quality. This leads to a high success rate for our projects and our clients.

2. Because Scrums Are All Around Us!

Our daily scrum sessions enable our entire team to stay in sync. Whether working on many projects simultaneously or only one, these quick meetings provide everyone with a ‘who is where on what project’ so they know what to expect for that given project, day, or week. We love HBO’s new series called ‘Silicon Valley’ that depicts six programmers who are trying to make it big as a tech start-up in Silicon Valley. In the 5th episode entitled ‘Signaling Risk’, they introduce scrums to the developers, which leads to each team member knowing what needs to be accomplished and staying on target of what they’re supposed to be focusing on. They also practice an agile development workflow—so if you’re looking for pointers, “researching” this show may be a fun start!

3. Because They Provide You With Micro and Macro Views

Another benefit we receive from scrum sessions is an opportunity for discussion on macro and micro solutions and clarifications for a project’s lifecycle. With the open communication lines that scrums give us, we are able to pinpoint problems and issues early and resolve them quicker. As the project manager, it’s my job to keep everyone focused on the end goal of a project and milestones (the macro), while my team stays focused on the tasks to help us get there (micro); helping us to maintain a predictable schedule for delivery.

4. Because of Personal Planning

For me, one of my favorite benefits is the encouragement of personal planning. Everyone has his or her own agenda and own goals to reach—from the designers, to the developers. In line with reason #3, personal planning enables us to hit those key milestones on time, thoroughly, and as a team. Outside of project timelines, personal planning at Manning also means setting individual objectives for future learning and interests in order to help inform and expand our work, thus allowing the individual and the team to increase their productivity.

5. Because it’s Within Everyone’s Best Interest

We have always thought of our clients as much more than just cash flow—we consider them our partners. At the end of the day, one of the main focal points of a digital business is to have our partners be happy and 100% satisfied with the hard work we have all put in. Practicing scrums has allowed us to always keep our partners informed about the status of their projects.

We challenge you to implement scrums into your everyday work lives to make your project, or all of your projects, run much smoother. If they can be adapted for rugby teams and tech start ups, we’re confident scrums can work for your team too! If you doubt it, just ask us how.

Monday

AM

Senior Staff Meeting

We start each Monday with meetings designed to help us all get on the same page. The first of these is a senior staff meeting where myself, our senior developer and our owner discuss things like business objectives, client relations, and workload. We’ll plan strategy, use our task management and time tracking software to evaluate performance and generally try to forecast our upcoming week. The goal is to provide a weekly analysis of how the company is running at the most basic levels.

Traffic Meeting

We then move on to a traffic meeting with the full staff to discuss the status of client work, review timelines and set goals for the week. Project managers typically lead this discussion and my role is to be aware of the status of all of our creative work. This allows me to create my own to-do list as well as work with developers and designers to keep their workflow on target.

Creative Staff Meetings

Once the week is planned out on a company-wide level, there’s usually a lot of catching up and planning with other design and development staff to go over specifics. I might review a design, or the latest build of a website. Often times we give each other things to do, ask questions or set meetings for later in the week.

PM

Research

My philosophy is that no great work is done in a vacuum — which is to say that to be an effective creative, you always need to be keenly aware of the world you’ll be bringing your work into. That means doing your best to stay on top of technical advancements, design trends and a whole host of cultural factors. So I try to devote some time each week to reading blogs, websites, Twitter feeds, etc. that keep me informed or inspire me. These resources represent a variety of fields including design, fine art, technology, video, food, music and fashion. Hopefully, diligent attention to research of this kind translates into better ideas down the road.

Design

As the Art Director, I am responsible for the overall direction of our design work regardless of who it is completed by. But, because we are a small company, I do actually roll up my sleeves and do a good portion of the actual design work myself. So during the afternoons, I might spend a few hours working on a website design, or a logo or a storyboard for one of our clients.

Tuesday

AM

Information Architecture/ Wireframe Meeting

Our belief is that good designers work as much with their brains as they do with their mouse, and so we place a great deal of importance on the work that takes place before one pixel is moved in Photoshop. One of the key points of any interactive project is the process of outlining the information architecture and translating it into wireframes to be used for creating comps.

There are myriad fancy digital tools created for this purpose, but I like to just gather the PM, developer and designer in a room and work through ideas on a large chalkboard. It allows us to work in a loose and collaborative way that seems to let people be less precious with ideas. Any idea can be erased or modified easily, and people can physically share the space in order to work together. At this stage, I try to facilitate the discussion and lean heavily on the perspective of each of the other people in the room to guide the work.

PM

Business Development Meeting

Another part of working for a small company is that there’s rarely someone dedicated to business development. At our company, this responsibility is primarily handled by our owner, but I am occasionally brought in as a sounding board, or to help provide ideas. Meetings like this may also include discussing spec work or marketing efforts.

Motion Graphics/Animation

As a designer/art director working in interactive, there is a much greater emphasis on animation and motion graphics. All of our design staff are capable of doing motion work, and this leads to a high level of integration between things like content, video and interface design. For many projects, I create the animation or motion sequences. This may include things like video titles or animation for an iPad app.

Wednesday

AM

Web Analytics Strategy

For a lot of our work, creating it is only half the battle. We often have a role in the promotion or outreach. One of the things I do most frequently in this vein is analyze web traffic in order to develop SEO or paid search strategies. This involves evaluating user behavior, goal performance, traffic sources and other metrics. We use this data in order to help us do things like write copy, optimize web pages, or allocate PPC funds.

Content Development/Copywriting

I did a lot more work with copy when I was working in advertising, but it does play a critical role in much of our current work as well. In terms of message development, the two are similar. However, the interactive component adds some significant differences. People tend to read interactive content differently, and as you write, you must make sure to provide an experience in which users can navigate coherently. You must also account for things like SEO, dynamic content, page scrolling and other interactive-specific factors.

PM

Design Review

We review and discuss design work internally before sharing it with clients. Sometimes this may just be myself and another designer. In other cases, it may involve developers and project managers. We try to evaluate the design against the project goals and other documentation as well as recommend modifications.

At various points in a project, these review sessions also involve presenting designs to clients. We try to walk them through our decision-making, then take notes and discuss feedback that will inform the revision process.

Front-End Development

Our developers are wildly talented, so this is not something I have a huge hand in. But I do try to actively participate in ensuring that our working sites/apps are as close to the original designs as possible. So I may go through a site and touch up CSS or make slight modifications to HTML. In other cases, I may be working to optimize media or helping to create graphic effects.

Thursday

AM

Client Meeting Prep

A global client list and the marvels of modern technology mean that most of our communication is via phone or internet, but we do meet in-person whenever possible. Since face-to-face time can be limited, we try to be as organized and efficient as possible. This means planning and creating notes or meeting agendas. Occasionally we will use tools like Keynote to build presentations.

Design

Even in off-peak periods of projects, there is still usually enough design work to require a few extended sessions per week. Because uninterrupted time can be difficult to come by, I usually try to split this work by a period that involves another member of the team or a client. For example, I may finish work on a few designs Monday, share them with a client on Wednesday, and then work on the revisions on Thursday.

PM

Client Meeting

Occasionally we host meetings at our office, but most often we are trying to catch up with busy people. So meetings usually involve travel to the client’s office. A lot of the time this means travel within the Chicago area, but there are also times that we may fly to places like New York, San Francisco or Washington, D.C. Meetings can range from a casual lunch to lengthy presentations or brainstorming sessions. We really value this time as it often gives us insight that we use to significantly improve the quality of our work.

Friday

AM

Proposal Development

In many ways, this is the single most critical thing that we do at Manning. A proposal contains the kernel of an idea that has the potential to shape our work, our relationship with a client and the direction of our business. Every project has to start somewhere, and it’s essential that it’s given the best chance to succeed. Creating a proposal involves research, brainstorming with the rest of the staff to develop concepts, outlining objectives, audience profiles and budget projections.

PM

Video Shoot

Our company has its roots in video production, and it still plays a significant role in much of our work. We shoot a variety of places and subjects such as military vehicles in the Nevada desert, factory workers in Indiana or interviews with scientists in Philadelphia. Each shoot has its own unique challenges, but my role is typically to oversee that the video we’re capturing matches up to the concept developed back in Chicago.