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  • Made For Humans

    A Digital Manifesto

    Featured imagery + artwork by Paul Octavious

  • “We are more connected than ever before, but we don’t recognize it and don’t live it.” via Michael Wesch

    Living Connections

    Everyone shares the basic need to connect, but we see that our collective ability to truly live our connections is in flux. We create things that nurture and instigate living connections in both the digital and physical world.

  • “Designers think they’re in the artifact business; but they’re not — they’re in the consequence business.” via Allan Chochinov

    Human by Design

    Design is a way of life and of improving lives, a timeless process of observing and adapting. We recognize and embrace proven examples from nature and human experience to find new solutions for the digital world.

  • “Never in our history have we known more people less.” via Michael Lopp

    Idea Networks

    The true value of digital social experiences will be found in increasingly nuanced worlds; platforms that celebrate the individual and address the subtle yet critical differences between niche communities. We don’t build social networks. We build idea networks.

  • “For me context is the key – from that comes the understanding of everything.” via Kenneth Noland

    Context is King

    Computers and the things we design for them must be adapted for the natural environments in which they are used. Context is ever shifting, infinitely complex, yet brutally simple from afar. Our digital solutions must follow suit.

  • “We need to use the internet to get off the internet and form a 21st century civil society.” via Scott Heiferman

    The Straddle

    Technology should exist as a means to facilitate and enhance real-world interactions and behaviors, and should not be treated as an end in itself.

  • “We cannot help but believe […] that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself […]” via Barack Obama

    The New Local

    Local is no longer expressed only in geographic terms. The ‘new local’ is a metaphor for like-mindedness. Without the restrictions of proximity, we come together through shared interests, actions and beliefs.

  • “There aren’t many things you use as much as a toothbrush, so you should be working on those things.” via Larry Page

    Massively Simple

    The world is filled with massively simple problems that must have massively simple solutions; massive in their scope and impact, simple in that anyone can understand and be affected by them. We seek to find and address massively simple problems.

  • “We’re all blindsiding ourselves and one another with trivial obligations.” via Khoi Vinh

    Humans Need Filters

    We are assaulted by a neverending stream of stuff to consume. We face a constant paradox of choice, but often choose not to make any choice at all. We need better filters.

  • “In the end, we’re all trying to make machines more rounded, more curved, more organic, more human. More us.” via Naz Hamid

    Made For Humans

    We believe in the promise of technology, understanding that digital worlds can and must be made for humans. We share a responsibility to create things that are both necessary and meaningful. And we strive to also make these things beautiful.

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Who we are

We are internet makers, creative strategists and content creators. We strive to build and curate meaningful digital worlds. To light up ideas that light you up.

Photo-who-we-are

Comprised of creative talents in design, technology, film and music, we work with global brands, bite-sized startups and just about everything in between. The web is our playground but we know the real world too. We create content and technology that connects people, and more importantly, gives people something meaningful to connect about.

Read more about us

People + culture

  • Matt Blanchard

    Matt Blanchard Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer

    Twitter / Home

  • Nathan Heleine

    Nathan Heleine Co-founder, Chief Creative Officer

    Twitter / Home

  • Jina Bolton

    Jina Bolton Interaction Designer

    Twitter / Home

  • David Cann

    David Cann iPhone Developer

    Home

  • Michael Karnjanaprakorn

    Michael Karnjanaprakorn Strategy

    Twitter / Home

  • PJ Kelly

    PJ Kelly Chief Technology Officer

    Twitter

  • Michael Maloney

    Michael Maloney Developer

    Twitter

  • Lisa Maya

    Lisa Maya Interaction Designer

    Twitter / Home

  • Rachel Musquiz

    Rachel Musquiz Senior Project Manager

    Twitter / Home

  • Benjamin Reece

    Benjamin Reece Director, Deltree

    Twitter / Home

Building Our Brands

Many of us have personal brands that help compliment our work at Crush + Lovely. We support and encourage the development of these brands through speaking, writing and ‘love’ projects.

4 + 1 Schedule

Crushers spend an average of one day per week building original, hand crafted ideas and products for a more (human) web, which occasionally blossom into a Crush + Lovely Venture.

Education & Volunteer Days

Every Crusher receives brain-filling goodness (like conferences, workshops and books) and volunteer days (in addition to sick days).

Responsibility

Our people do great work and they do it their way. We don’t care when or how, we just care about what and why.

Clients

  • Coca-Cola
  • ABC
  • Comcast
  • Deloitte
  • Disney
  • Essilor
  • Hennessy
  • IMG Artists
  • Mark Morris Dance Group
  • Médecins Sans Frontières
  • Meet the Composer
  • Pfizer
  • ReMIND
  • Salesforce
  • Wyndham

Recognition

Awards

Recent Press

  • New York Times — The Anti-Social-Network Social Network

  • Urban Daddy — Perfect Strangers: The Future of Social Networking

  • Veer — Fifty People One Question, Redux

  • USA Today — Fifty People Answer One Tough Question

  • GOOD — Eat Cookies, Help Nonprofits

The Buzz

What we do

We run projects like our lives depend on it, because they do and yours does too.

Strategy

Everything we make begins with a healthy dose of strategy. As things take shape, we align and evolve the thinking, endlessly. Strategy aims each project squarely for the moon and beyond.

Content

Since content lies at the heart of everything we make, we conceptualize and create the content before we push a pixel or write a single line of code. If design is the singer, then content is the song.

Design + Technology

If it can live in digital then we can create it. Our design and technology teams work in tandem to create highly polished experiences for the browser and mobile devices, for screens large or small.

Photo-workflow

View full capabilities

    • Creative Strategy
    • Design Strategy
    • Content Strategy
    • Community Strategy
    • Positioning
    • Audience Personas
    • Stakeholder Research
    • Competitive Analysis
    • Behavior Testing
    • Measurement
    • Film / Video
    • Copywriting + Screenwriting
    • Concept + Ideation
    • Editorial
    • Content Curation
    • Content Licensing
    • Post Production
    • Music
    • Photography
    • Web Sites + Applications
    • Brand + Identity
    • Interface + UX Design
    • Information Architecture
    • Mobile (iPhone, Android)
    • Content Publishing Platforms
    • E-commerce
    • Social Media + API Integration
    • Usability Testing
    • Hosting + Systems Admin

Portfolio

We are what we make.

  • Médecins Sans Frontières
  • The Body Image Project
  • Healsa
  • Baking For Good
  • Pictures Reframed
  • ReMIND
  • Hopkins
  • Portable Light
  • Mark Morris Dance Group

View our full portfolio at crushlovely.is »

Ventures

When you see the Made For Humans label it signifies an original, hand crafted idea or product — created by Crushers (that’s us), sometimes hand in hand with our mighty family of strategic partners.

Photo-ventures

Call them our signature brands. Call them love projects. The point is that we like to make things. And when it comes to making things, we look for ways to connect people and light up their lives — to enable the stuff on these screens to be just a bit more human, and to bring the romance back. Because let’s not forget, everyone needs a little romance.

Fifty People One Question

Fifty People One Question

Exploring human connections through people and place.

Learn More

By/Association

By/Association

We know someone you should meet.

Learn More

Sustainable Party

Sustainable Party

Where your green event planning prowess begins.

Learn More

Field Guide

A semi-frequent installment on design, technology and various web miscellany for you and yours. Consume. Consider. Enjoy.

Photo-field-guide

Latest Article

Lost and Found by Nathan Heleine

Part 1: The art of getting lost is almost lost.

I get lost all the time. On my better days, I get lost intentionally. Lost can be much more than a step in the wrong direction or an act of aimless wandering. Lost is not necessarily dumb, blind, confused or misguided. Lost is not a ship without a rudder. Surely, to be lost should not imply that one is forgotten, and it should never be mistaken for mere absence.

Continue reading this article »

From the Archives

Connect

Crushing occurs on a daily basis at our headquarters in New York City and via outposts in San Francisco, New Orleans, Tustin (CA), Brooklyn, Holiday (FL) and Salem (MA).

Photo-connect

Work With Us

We are currently accepting new projects to begin Spring 2010.

If you’d like to work with us, we kindly request that you take a few minutes to fill out our project planner. This enables us to review and respond to project inquiries efficiently, and will also help get your project rolling in the right direction.

Download our Project Planner »

Submit your project inquiry in three simple steps:

  1. Download our Project Planner
  2. Fill it out
  3. Send it back to us at

And we’ll respond with:

  1. Initial recommendations
  2. Our availability
  3. Initial estimate / budget range

General Inquiries

1.646.863.4688

Want to join the crew?

We are always seeking remarkable individuals who care as much as we do about creating meaningful digital worlds and experiences. If you can offer value to the things we make, and believe you are the right match for our team culture and chemistry, then please contact us via .

Coda

On Behavior

Behavior can and does change through design. People respond to their environment.

On Physical

There is no substitute for the richness of the physical world. Go out and play.

On Digital

Digital remains in its infancy and will evolve for better or worse. Make it better.

“The rest of the human race — the struggling journalists, the embattled authors of books, the makers of music, the normal folks who have been robbed of their individuality by today’s web — should expect its digital world builders to build them beautiful, honest, nourishing worlds.”

Jonathan Harris

The adventurous images featured throughout this edition of the site were created and contributed by photographer + storyteller extraordinaire, Paul Octavious.

You just touched bottom at the deep end of the pool. Impressive. Now pop back up if so inclined.