Happy Cog
Happy Cog is an American interaction design studio headquartered in Philadelphia with a publishing division headquartered in New York and practitioners in Austin, and Brooklyn.
Happy Cog’s influence is widespread due to Founder Jeffrey Zeldman’s well known work on establishing a set of web standards between all browser companies. Their design is heavily influenced not only by what is visually appealing, but also by best practices in web production. As such, Happy Cog’s main focus is to “never lose sight of the human being” using their products.[1]
Happy Cog leads a workshop on standards-based web design called An Event Apart, a three-day event that takes place in seven cities annually with the locations varying each year. Speakers, in addition to offering informative content, must have made major contributions to web design or development in order to qualify to speak at the event.
History
Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing With Web Standards, founded Happy Cog in New York in 1999, with Greg Hoy in Philadelphia serving as CEO and Greg Storey in Austin as President. The company currently employs approximately 18 people; primarily designers, developers, project managers, and support staff .
The studio has a reputation for discovering and fostering talent.
Products
While Happy Cog is primarily known for its web design work and focus on web standards, it also creates publication and service products including A List Apart Magazine (ISSN 1534-0295), a twice-monthly periodical that explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices. They also produce themes for the Shopify e-commerce platform, and until 2013, provided specialized web hosting services through Happy Cog Hosting.
Partial client list
- AIGA
- AMC Theatres
- Arizona State University
- Ben & Jerry's
- Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Books-A-Million
- Coldwell Banker
- Georgetown University
- Groupon
- Harvard University
- Harvard Business School
- Mozilla
- The McGraw-Hill Companies
- MTV
- Nintendo of America
- Papa John's
- Stanford University
- Sundance Film Festival
- Thomson Reuters
- Trek Bicycles
- W3C
- Warner Bros.
- Yale School of Management
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Zappos
Awards
Happy Cog has won a number of awards and accolades for their web design work over the years, such as “Design Agency of the Year” at 2010 .net Awards, a “Best in Class” Interactive Media Award for the creation of VisitPhilly.com, the official Philadelphia tourism site, and the “People’s Voice” and “Best Navigation/Structure” awards for the re-imagining of Zappos.com at the 2011 Webby Awards.
References
- happycog.com
- http://www.thenetawards.com/NET211.f_awards.pdf
- Happy Cog Studios Named Design Agency of the Year
- Old Spice and BBC win at the .net Awards 2010
External links
- Happy Cog
- Happy Cog on Vimeo
- Happy Cog on Facebook
- Happy Cog on Twitter
- Happy Cog Wins Agency of the Year 2011
- Happy Cog Re-designs VisitPhilly.com
- Video: Happy Cog: Design Agency of the Year November 2010, Vimeo.com
- Ravelry.com among winners at Future’s .net Awards 2010
- Happy Cog Talks Webby Win By Craig Grannell on May 04, 2011
- Happy Cog wins Interactive Media Award for VisitPhilly.com
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