Cage

We’ve been named one of the Top 50 Web Design Tools by...

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:07:46 -0400

We’ve been named one of the Top 50 Web Design Tools by .Net Magazine. We’re humbled and honored…thank you!

You can see the entire list here: http://www.netmagazine.com/features/50-free-web-design-tools-rock

Video Note List Exactly like we have for images, we provide...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:57:41 -0500

Video Note List

Exactly like we have for images, we provide users with two views (that you can toggle between based on your preference) to interact with notes in Cage. We’ve covered how this works here, but here’s some useful things we love about this view for video:

Contextual discussions. Directly on this view, you’ll see the video you’re working on, the communication around it, and tasks that may have been made for you.
Interactive feedback. As you’re interacting with a discussion, it jumps to that point in the video to make it easier for you to playback exactly where the note was made.

That’s the Video Note List inside Cage, a super simple way to interact with your team and clients around video. Just a few more sneak peeks to come. Enjoy!

Video Review This is huge and we’re probably most excited...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:03:00 -0500

Video Review

This is huge and we’re probably most excited about this new addition. Now in the new Cage, you can share, collaborate, review, and approve video. Perfect for agencies doing broadcast and motion graphics, but also for all the studios that work on games, vfx, animation, and 3D.

From a UX perspective, we wanted the experience of reviewing video to be almost the same as an image. Knowing we had to handle a few things differently (and after working with a few studios on the best solution), we built all the interaction around the timeline. Here’s a closer look at the Video Review:

Notes can be made on a frame-by-frame basis for the video and you’ll be using the same notes interface you’re using throughout Cage to make notes, tasks, etc.
Tasks can be seamlessly made just like you would make them on images.
Timeline functionality. In the timeline, you’ll see that the playhead has a “+” to denote “add”. You can click the video or the playhead, at which time the video pauses and gives you the option to make a note. Also in the timeline, you’ll see the option to quickly move between notes (think of this like fast forward, but to skip to the next note). And we have all the other settings like volume, full screen, etc.
Modern web technology. We’ve built everything for this using HTML5 (and CSS, Javascript, etc)…and we’ve spent a considerable amount of time on the new compression and encoding algorithm so that your quality is super high, and the playback is super fast (playback of the video on mobile is pretty nice too).

There’s also another view (much like this for images) and we’ll show that to you guys too. We’re working on some pretty handy little tools for video for version 2, so stay tuned for some continual improvements and enhancements. We’re excited about the new Cage, and really excited about the addition of video. Enjoy!

The video used above is from our recent commercial shoot.Special thanks for our friends at Staplegun for their generosity and help.

Dashboard (Client View) This is a look at a Dashboard in the...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 15:53:10 -0500

Dashboard (Client View)

This is a look at a Dashboard in the Cage (for Client View). One of the biggest complaints we got with the old version was there was zero organizational aspect to it and the ideas of folders/sets was non-existent. So when we set out to build the new Cage, we wanted to make sure this was well executed and simple to use. Here’s a closer look at the new Projects Dashboard:

Multiple Projects for a Client. Now you can have lots of projects all under one client. So in this example, you can see the active projects we have for the OKC Thunder.
Quick ways to upload and create more. All in this view, you can upload more visuals, create more projects, and adjust your settings (team, permissions, client, etc).
Overall Status. This gives you a quick broad view of activity that’s happened that you should be aware of. From new notes, to new tasks, it’s all right there.
You then see the task list on the side. Here you see a look at actual tasks pending for each visual or project.
We display the primary contact for this project here, so you can always see their information, edit or adjust it as needed.
The Stream. Again, this is a way to aggregate all the activity that’s happened so that if you’ve missed a day or need to quickly catch up, you can see all the activity that’s happened here (who, what, when, etc).

Since most of our customers said they often do multiple projects for each client, this approach made sense and was important for us build. We love the straightforward approach, the data that’s available, and the overall simplicity of the UI overall. Just another look at what you’ll all be using soon. Enjoy!

All images are credited to The Oklahoma City Thunder (as Oklahomans, we’re just big fans).

Task List Much like our alternate view for notes that we just...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:38:08 -0500

Task List

Much like our alternate view for notes that we just showed in a previous post, we wanted to carry the idea of giving our community two options in viewing tasks in Cage. You can view all your tasks in the Calendar view (more visual, grid style) or you can view them in a list view (where it’s all about the content. Here’s why we love the Task List view:

We pull a thumbnail of the visual you’re working on so that you have context (you can click to enlarge).
Smart filters all you to reorganize your tasks based on due dates, project, and person.
You can create new tasks directly in this view (that will update everywhere).
The interaction is really nice (as you mark each task for done, it animates down to the bottom, do you can still see what you completed.
When you click “MORE INFO”, a modal opens that provides the designer all the information they might need. It is a copy of the discussion that took place on the visual, shows the highlighted area that was drawn on the image, all the people/times all associated with it, and when the task was create and by who. This way, if you’re left wondering, “what does that mean”, you’ll get clarity within seconds. Context, clarity, and easy communication is what this new version of Cage is all about.

That’s the Task List in Cage. We’re excited about this and are using it all the time. We think you’ll find it extremely useful. Again, if you’re interested in getting involved in the early access, let us know (hello [at] cageapp.com)

Note List With the current version of Cage, you only see and...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:51:24 -0500

Note List

With the current version of Cage, you only see and create notes on the actual image you’re viewing. We think this is great and we love the visual approach to providing more context to what you’re discussing. But that’s not for everyone and sometimes you just want to see the discussion. Often times (especially during those marathon discussions with your team or clients) people just want to have the discussion and the visuals take back seat, we know we this from our won experiences too. So we decided to build two views for you to toggle between (this is your preference, use which ever you prefer). You can still see and make notes directly on top of the work, but if you prefer having the discussion in a forum that’s more about the content and less about the visuals (we keep referring to “visuals” cause we have a surprise for you all), you can use the Note List. Here’s what you’ll see:

Contextual discussions. Directly on this page, you’ll see the visual you’re working on to your right and all the discussions and different notes on the left. From here you can still create notes and tasks (both update in each view, so it doesn’t matter which one you use).
Interactive feedback. As you’re interacting with a discussion, it highlights the area of the visual where the note was drawn and we also show a small thumbnail that you can click to see a larger view the highlighted section of the work. As you scroll down the page, the visuals follow you to each section you’re working on.

That’s the Note List inside Cage, a simple way to interact with your team and clients around creative work. A special thank you goes out to Foundry Collective and Paul and Scott for submitting some of their work to us for inclusion in the new demos we’re doing. You can see more of their work at Foundry Collective (great guys, who happen to have native roots in Oklahoma). More to come soon.

Address Book We hinted at this feature in an earlier sneak peek,...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:10:44 -0500

Address Book

We hinted at this feature in an earlier sneak peek, but again, this is something we thought was absolutely needed for one big reason…a better experience. We personally hated having to copy and paste links and bounce in and out of Cage and email, and wanted to make it a seamless experience (as it should be). In creating a better experience, one that’s simple, easy, and useful, we built an internal Address Book in Cage. A central place to add contacts, edit contacts, send/resend invites to a project, and a way to track if they have logged in and when. Now when you share a project (you’ll see how easy that is soon too), it’s as easy as checking who gets access…all in Cage. Inside this section, you’ll see:

A list of all your contacts in Cage (client or team) and their email/company.
A quick and easy way to edit/delete and also add more contacts.
A way to see if your client ever logged in or got the link.

Simple, straight-forward, and useful. This is going to make life so much easier for you all and is going to give you a better experience using Cage in production. Thanks and enjoy…more to come soon (don’t worry, we’re almost done with sneak peeks and will be able to give you all access soon). Thank you all for the awesome emails, we’re excited too.

Calendar & Tasks This is one the new features we’re...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:16:00 -0500

Calendar & Tasks

This is one the new features we’re most excited about. For a long time now, we always talked about adding a Calendar inside Cage to help designers stay on track and manage their projects, deliverables, revisions, and approvals. Now, you have all that and more! Here’s a quick breakdown of the Calendar in the new Cage:

Alerts. We alert you once you’re logged in if you have any overdue tasks. If you click “view all”, a nice little interaction happens and you’ll be able to see more details and also check them as done. Speaking of alerts…we’ve also added email notifications (another big request).
Calendar Views. You can see the Calendar in a monthly (more visual) view or you can see your tasks in a list view (which all have filters so you can sort them by Dates, Project, Overdue, and by Person).
Tasks. You can quickly add tasks directly in this view. You can see some general details about tasks in the Calendar and if you hover over one, you can get a detailed look at the task. In the task detail, we provide the file that task is associated with, along with some metadata to provide more context (Client, Project, File Name, number of Tasks, number of Unread Notes). You can check tasks as done directly in this view too.

All tasks in Cage are associated with projects and files. We’re not a general task or project management system tool, we simply built a task management tool for creative work to make collaboration in Cage even easier. This feature is extremely useful and we’ve kept it as simple as possible so that it’s easy to use (the reaction so far has been amazing). Stay tuned for more!

Archives Out with the old…in with the new. Ever wanted to...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:36:24 -0500

Archives

Out with the old…in with the new. Ever wanted to put a project on the back-burner or archive it for awhile but weren’t able to in Cage? Now you can archive projects as they are completed and you can reactivate projects whenever you like. A really handy feature, especially when you’re working with clients that have a tendency to make last minute changes or even after something has already been approved. Enjoy!

New Projects Here’s a quick look at the new “Add New...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:43:41 -0500

New Projects

Here’s a quick look at the new “Add New Project” modal inside Cage. You can see this has been heavily revamped to allow for some of the new functionality we’ve built. Here’s a quick breakdown:

Projects now have more organization and structure. One of the most requested features in the old version was “sets” or “folders”, so we’ve built that. Now a Client (like “Acme Corp” in the screen shot above) can have multiple projects within it. We like to stay organized…this is going to make it easy for you to stay organized too.
Client contacts are now stored directly inside Cage (more on this soon). This now makes it easier to share and set permissions to projects where you are working with multiple decision-makers and contacts at one company. A nice little addition is that as you start to type the name of the Client, we automatically populate any contacts that are associated with that Client. You can add more from this section too (in case you’ve missed someone).
Drag and Drop Upload. Hands down the biggest complaint with the old version of Cage was the inability to upload multiple images at once. Uploading one by one was tedious and since we were making bulk upload available, we also opted to make life even easier with the ability to drag and drop files directly into Cage. We listened and built a better experience.
Team permissions are not only available now, but we’ve completely revamped the entire user system and the on-boarding experience (more on this soon). We automatically pull all your team(s) into the New Project Modal since this is where it makes most sense to check who gets access and who doesn’t.

More to come and hope you all enjoy. If you’re interested in early-beta access, be sure to email us directly at hello [at] cagepp.com. We’re adding more to our internal test team each week.

Login Screen Here’s another sneak peek (you can see the...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:50:41 -0500

Login Screen

Here’s another sneak peek (you can see the first here). This is what your clients (or anyone you’re sharing a project with) will see when they click through the email that’s sent. You’ll be able to share projects directly inside Cage. Yep, this means no more copying and pasting links and bouncing in and out of Cage and your email to send (more on this soon).

The screen will automatically display who is sharing the project, your client’s first name, and the name of the project. As an added bit of goodness, we also pull images (the actual mockups in that project that they’ll be previewing) and tastefully animate them with a little CSS.

We’re excited to keep sharing more of the new product with you all! Stay tuned!

Notes, Tasks, and So Much More We’ve gotten an...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:51:00 -0500

Notes, Tasks, and So Much More

We’ve gotten an overwhelming response to the upcoming release of Cage. Lots of you have asked about what we’ll have in the new version here’s the first of several sneak peeks at the new Cage.

There’s a lot of new features in just the Notes Modal, so here we go (let’s start with the biggest addition…TASKS).

Cage now has task management. Directly from the notes modal, you can switch effortlessly from adding a Note, to adding a Task. That Task can be assigned to someone on your team (or you) and can have a due date associated with it. Once a task is added or assigned, the user gets a notification via email and in the app (yep, we’ve added notifications too). Even better, we give you the option to let your clients do some of the data entry for you and create tasks for changes that need to be made (since project management can be tedius and time-comsuming, this lets you focus on the work and those revisions…oh yea, we’ve got that too covered too).
Cage now gives you the ability to upload a “mini-mockup” directly in the thread. This lets you see more context to what a change might be like and/or provide you the ability to offer critique and suggestions if you’re working with your peers.
We provide administrative options for you so that you can delete, hide, and even email a specific person in the threaded conversation.

That’s just some of the new things we’ve built (we promise, there’s a ton more). Stay tuned for more sneak peeks. Email us (hello@cageapp.com if you’d like early access).

Special kudos to the fine folks at Digital-Tutors. They provided us with some amazing artwork to use throughout our sneak peeks and demos.

All New Branding *Reader’s Note: You can view more...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:42:00 -0500

final logo

sketches

sketches

explorations

type options

typeface edit

logo on screen

All New Branding

*Reader’s Note: You can view more images by hovering outside the right side of the image and clicking.

Before we got started redesigning the new product, we also decided that we desperately needed a better logo (the old one was more of a placeholder). So, we thought we’d share some of the explorations, design decisions, and lengthy conversations that took place to get to our new branding. We think the new logo accurately represents the new product and the new company.

What did we want in our new logo? It had to look gorgeous and function well in the application and on new business cards (these letterpresses cards are going to be pretty rad). It had to be fun, approachable, and polished (something our current one wasn’t). I think the exact conversation went like this, “the new identity should pretty much be awesome”…which was followed with “and should play on the word ‘cage’, be fun, clever, and have some color.”

After looking at several designers’ portfolios we landed on Mauricio Cremer (SGNL Studio). His work is fantastic and well-rounded, and he also happens to be a local designer and good friend. He moves seamlessly from print and illustration to web and interactive, so we knew he could handle the project we were about to throw at him.

Explorations of the Mark

Challenge: With a name like Cage how do you brand it without using a literal cage? Cage is so much more and we wanted the viewer to understand that in the first few seconds.

Solution: It had to be something clever that fit our mission (simple collaboration for designers). When considering this mission, we kept coming back to a pencil because it is one of the most fundamental tools used in designing, sketching, writing notes, signing off on approvals or crossing to-dos off your list. The angled position demonstrates the pencil in action. Back to the logo needing to be clever, the shape, lock and lines also depict a traditional cage. We went through several iterations to get to this and we feel like the new mark is a great representation of everything we wanted in this re-brand.

Choosing the Typeface

The typeface we opted for in the new Cage logo is a slightly modified ITC Avant Garde. Because we wanted to stick to lowercase and a heavier weight, this font worked perfectly for us. The shapes (lots of circles) worked well together and felt cohesive. Mauricio modified the “a” and “g” by adding the points (to emphasize the point of the pencil).

Inside the “app” we’re using Proxima Nova, which we’re equally excited about. With its multiple san-serif weights, we feel that Proxima Nova is a really nice compliment to the logotype.

So there you have it. Here’s a few pics we took along the way and what we arrived to. Enjoy! We certainly do. Stay tuned for the all the new Cage - coming super soon.

Invite-only?

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:58:39 -0500

Yes, we’re now invite-only…but only for a small period of time. If you’re already using Cage, you may have gotten an email from us, but we wanted to let you all know that we’ve made Cage invite-only now and in doing so, have launched a new landing page. This won’t effect your account or your ability to access the current version (we just didn’t want you to be shocked when you saw the change). Simply click the “Sign in” link at the top and you’ll be able to access your account there or you can also use your sub-domain URL.

We stopped access to the current version of Cage since we’re so close to launching the new version and would hate for new users to have a bad experience or have get used to wonky nature of the old product right before we launched a whole new Cage. We’ve been hard at work on a new version of Cage (it’s really a whole new product) and it’s almost ready (some of you are already helping test). Soon, you and your team will be able to manage projects, organize deliverables, track revisions, and get client approvals all inside Cage (and a plenty more).

Thanks again and stay tuned.

A WHOLE NEW CAGE

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:02:32 -0500

The title of this post is fitting on a number of levels. Over the last few months, there have been tons of things going on behind the scenes at CAGE. We’ve seen a lot of success, from glowing customer testimonials and 10/10 reviews to adding thousands of new users and getting some great press. We managed to build a simple application that makes sharing and collaborating on creative work easier for designers and designers love what we built. That’s really awesome!

A WHOLE NEW PRODUCT

We’re excited to announce that we’re well underway on an entirely new version of CAGE. This means all-new code, new design, new branding…new everything and we think you’re going to love it! We’ve reached out to many of you over the past few months to learn what you have been missing, and we’ve put together a plan for how to fill that void with CAGE. Our philosophy remains intact: Make software that solves common problems and is easy to use. Everything else is new. The UI is more intuitive. We’ve added new features that make collaboration even easier. We’ve fixed the bugs, and we’ve carried out several infrastructure upgrades to make the new CAGE faster, more secure and more reliable.

Too often, companies strip out features for the sake of being simple. But that’s not simple, it’s frustrating. So we spent some time carefully finding a balance between useful new features and the simplicity that has made CAGE so easy to adopt. You could say we’ve been on a mission to make every detail perfect and to limit the number of details to perfect (thank you, Jack).

So what does this mean for you and when can you expect to see it? We plan to provide active users with early “Alpha” access to the new version for initial testing. The rest of our community will receive access to CAGE soon thereafter. We expect to initiate this rollout by the end of the year. CAGE will continue to be completely free while in beta, but we’ll also have a free version once we launch. We’ll also be offering a sneak peek at our design process and new CAGE iterations in the coming weeks.

A WHOLE NEW TEAM

Startups are hard, both mentally and emotionally, and whoever says they aren’t is lying. It’s about relentless hustle, laser focus, strong product iterations and world-class customer service. The reality is that you never really stop thinking about it, and that can be hard. To quote our good friend Micah Baldwin, “This shit ain’t easy”. However, things are easier when you have the right people onboard and many will agree that the most valuable part of any startup is the people, not the IP. It’s about team.

Our team is evolving and I’m excited to announce that everyone at CAGE is focused on and dedicated to building CAGE and supporting our users (we’ll soon be hiring, too). In addition to a stronger team, we’ve also added a few advisors and will add more in the coming months. We’re excited to have these guys onboard, their collective wisdom and creativity has already made its way into our product and our company. We’ll make proper introductions soon, so stay tuned for that. Onward and upward.

A WHOLE NEW YEAR

It’s a little early for a 2011 retrospective, but since we’re already halfway through November, I thought it was fitting to add. We’ve had a big year and we’ve had some big things happen (big for us, at least). Many of them you can read on this blog, but here are a few we haven’t mentioned:

We received invitations from two of the top accelerator programs in the country (it was a bittersweet decision, but the timing kept us from accepting). We started work on a new version of our product (OK, we’ve mentioned that one before). We watched thousands of designers adopt and use (and love) our product. We weighed acquisitions and had several discussions about taking on outside investment (for any small team, this provides a ton of reassurance for what you’re doing and the problems your solving). For a small team in a small city in a small state, it’s been a lot of fun…and we’re just getting started.

We’ll be attending and sponsoring several events in the coming year, so stop and say “Hi” if you see us at SXSW, An Event Apart, LessConf, AIGA events, Refresh events or any other conferences around design and UX.

So from our entire team, thank you for your support! It’s been an amazing 2011, and we’re looking forward to making next year even better than the last.

Sandip Patel, Co-Founder

Little Hometown Love

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

A big thanks for Mary Jane, Tom, and The Oklahoman on doing a great story on us. We appreciate it. Read more: http://bit.ly/uYrLc1

Server Update

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:24:06 -0400

So our update problem turned out not to be resizing our server. We always try to do one thing at a time but this time we decided we’d upgrade and add memcached at the same time. The memcache install turned out to be the root of the issue.

We’ve resolved this for now and we’re planning on having scheduled downtime to reconfigure it and get it up to speed. We apologize for the inconvenience and we’re dedicated to continually improving and providing the best service possible.

Growing Pains

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:38:55 -0400

We’re growing at a rapid pace and we’re adding more and more images every day. With this comes scaling up our servers to accomidate our new and existing users. Today we upgraded our servers again to give them more storage and make them twice as fast. With this update you may need to delete your cookies to get it to work properly.

Thanks for using CAGE and we’re working on some exciting things we know you’ll love.

Update

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:00:00 -0400

After the server switch we’ve had a couple of reports that people are not able to see previously uploaded images. If you’re having issues please try clearing your cache and deleting your cookies. If this does not resolve your issue email us at hello [at] cageapp.com.

We apologize if this has caused any issues.

Server Updates

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 16:46:21 -0400

The server updates were successful and we’re now in a much better environment to provide all our users with the most reliable performance possible. The best part is we did this without any downtime.

We moved Cage to a faster server in an environment that will allow us to scale as needed.
As you may have experienced, in our old environment some of the emails that our system sent were not delivered or marked as spam. We’ve implemented a system that will hopefully resolve this in the future. There could still be a few delays for the next couple of hours.

We appreciate you using Cage and stay tuned as we announce some exciting things coming in the near future.