Introducing Revue Themes
In collaboration with Awkward
Every now and then there’s something bigger that happens with Revue. And this is one of those moments, right now. And we’re glad we get to finally share this with all of you.
Revue has come a long way. We started off as a small side project in the beginning of 2015 and look where we are now. There are approximately 2 million emails being sent out through our platform monthly! Our community is growing and we’re getting bigger much faster.
In the past year and a half we’ve done our best to constantly improve our product, grow our user base and engage our community. We’ve worked relentlessly to create a platform where anyone can express themselves by practicing curation. A place where everyone has a voice and is willing to share it. A tool that helps you get your thoughts in people’s inboxes.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we owe our success to you, our users. We listen to what you have to say. We pay attention to what you need. We want you to have the best experience possible. It’s important to me, it’s important to us, it’s important to your audience.
Because of that, we knew it was time to take the next step and evolve by creating something that you’ve requested time and again. We want to let you craft your newsletter in such a way, that it makes your digest “feel” more like you. This idea of ours finally came to life and the moment you’ve all been awaiting has arrived. Today we’re officially launching a new theme for Revue. We’ve seen email change over the years and newsletters are not far behind. There’s an obvious shift in the way that digests are used these days. We want to reflect that in the design by adapting to those changes and taking on a more of an editorial, magazine-like look.
But we weren’t alone in this. We brought this awesome new feature to the table together with the incredibly talented team from Awkward. We had the vision, they had the plan. We had the insights, they had the talent.
It was a perfect match from the beginning. It is not a coincidence we chose to collaborate with Awkward on this project. For us, it didn’t feel as if we were their clients, we were partners. In fact, I go way back with some of the really creative minds on their team. That’s why I knew that Awkward was going to be not only the right choice, but the perfect one at that. And that’s because we stand for similar things and we share common values.
For starters, Revue and Awkward are both Dutch companies that see design as an essential part of their identity. We hold ourselves up to higher standards. By that I mean paying extra attention to detail and emphasizing on simplicity & elegance. The process is something we care deeply for. Every step has a massive importance in what comes out in the end.
Similarly to us, Awkward see the quality of a product as a main priority. Even though their journey started a few years before ours, we seem to have a similar approach to success. Mainly, turning ideas into experiences while focusing on quality. When it comes to goals, you can say the same. Both Revue & Awkward aim towards innovation, whether it has to do with software or newsletters.
So naturally, once we rolled our sleeves up and got down to business, I can say that working together and collaborating was also a lot of fun. For most of the design sprint, we joined them in their bright, spacious office in Rotterdam and you could easily feel the synergy in the air from the get-go. Our days over there consisted of hard work and creative exchange of ideas accompanied by playing Fussball during lunch breaks. Oh, and cake, there was a lot of cake.
Of course, that did not mean that every part of the process was a piece of cake (no pun intended). As developers and designers we know that there are always certain limitations to what’s possible. We all had ideas and some were doable, some were not. We had to find the right balance between design and what’s technically feasible. And even though we approached Awkward with bold ideas, which we weren’t sure were possible to execute in such a short period of time, in the end it all came together in all the right ways. It took a bit longer than expected and it wasn’t easy to set everything in place. During the design sprint, we had to buckle down and really focus on those nitty gritty details that made up the masterpiece we desired to create. We knew that friction between design mock ups and technical implementation of the themes might occur. But in the span of a week we managed to create something that we’re proud of and that met our expectations.
That’s why I reached out to them in the first place. I knew I could trust the Awkward team to understand what we want to deliver to our users and will help us do so by skillfully projecting our identity in the design of the themes. As I expected, joining smarts and skills resulted in creating something beautiful. Just because that’s what we do. As you can see, it worked out quite well. The new theme speaks for itself.
I wanted to tell you the story of how we carefully crafted the theme we’re launching today. Mainly because it was time to make this big step for Revue and we’re happy that we did it side by side with Awkward. But also due to the fact that my team and I wanted to show you what went down behind the scenes and say thank you. We wouldn’t be where we are today without all of you, guiding us towards our next step.
I’d like to thank the incredibly talented and creative people on Awkward’s team. It was a pleasure working with you and we had a blast! I’d also like to give a special shout out to Davey Heuser, the person who’s design skills helped us bring those beautiful themes to life.
