“They have a unique ability to communicate ideas, with a poetry and romance to the language that’s hard to replicate. They ask great questions, intuitively grasp what we want to say, and then produce copy that is surprising, delightful, and sophisticated. Their work has helped us articulate and evolve our brand voice at prAna. They are proactive, professional, and extremely collaborative and responsive to feedback. Plus they’re fun to work with! They’re one of the first creative teams I think of when we’re cooking up new projects.”
“Working with Alison and Matt is so satisfying! Not only do I have the joy of knowing I’m working with the best content/design team around, but I enjoy the humor, smarts, and passion they bring to each project. We often get requests for high-profile presentations for TED, academia, and industry conferences. We trust them to build them from the ground up and have heard nothing but amazing feedback from our customers. We’ve even hired them to help us with internal projects, because they stand out from other designers: They understand the art of building a story and creating visuals to complement the storyline. I feel lucky to work with them every time.”
“I love working with a team that gets the horse in the barn. They get what we want to say, express it better than we ever could, and really know how to close a project. It’s been a delight to build a partnership with Alison and Matt, who are helping Dreyfus Properties tell our story across multiple platforms — prezi, book, and website. This unique combination of old and new media has wowed our sales agents and prospective sellers. One of our agents used the prezi to close a huge listing with a seller within weeks of adopting the technology.”
“As the CIO for the City and County of San Francisco, I had the opportunity to educate and hopefully inspire others to share in our dream of a more open, transparent, and collaborative government. Since developing new and innovative approaches is key to our success, I am always seeking out new and exciting technologies to help deliver the message. Using Prezi’s unique storytelling capabilities, Matt and Alison understood my vision completely and created a fresh take on the presentation model, inviting audiences to shift perspective with me. They are an amazing collaborative team and I look forward to working with them again and again.”
“Alison and Matt are pure genius. Their brilliance lies in their ability to extract the essence of my essential story — what’s uniquely and authentically mine — then combine it with exactly the right words and arresting images to make it come alive. Their work made it possible for me to put my original ideas out in the world with confidence. The prezi they created is 100% aligned with my story, brought to life with breathtaking beauty. And they nailed it the first time: When I saw the initial design it brought tears to my eyes. I had not known my ideas could command such impact. I knew I could hook my audience, creating a visceral, emotional connection. It made me feel larger than life. I am grateful to have them as co-collaborators.”
“I wanted to create a presentation to expand my business, but the thought of putting my story together was daunting, to say the least. I had my first meeting with Alison, and I was blown away at her ability to listen to my story, synthesize it down to its essence and create a seamless narrative that captured its most powerful and compelling elements. She made this overwhelming task seem easy! Once we had the story structure, Matt worked his magic, using both literal and figurative images to make the story come to life. The presentation so perfectly tells my story, I don’t need notes to deliver it. This frees me to really connect with my audience, which allows my message to come across with significantly more impact! I have never felt so confident presenting as I do now.”
“They were diligent at getting to the heart of what we’re about and what we wanted to express. That attention and time spent on understanding what we wanted to say really came out when they created the presentation. The mechanics are one thing, but flushing out what we wanted to say was outstanding. Not everyone can pull your story out of you, help you organize it, and help you express it. The prezi they created is on the bleeding edge, so we’re doing something that will be relevant for quite a while, not something that we’ll re-do quickly.”
Partnering with Alison and Matt to design a Prezi presentation for my keynote speech was an extremely productive, positive experience. Alison quickly grasped the essence of my message and added creative ideas and quotes that enhanced my speech. They then formulated a theme that pulled the entire presentation together in a way that enhanced my original idea, and Matt produced the perfect poignant images that spoke a thousand words. I was amazed at how quickly they both worked and how easily they produced a superb product that far exceeded my expectations. There is nothing better than working with professionals who know what they’re doing and do it well! My Fortune 500 clients are continually impressed with their work and so am I.
“Alison and Matt are a dynamic team with the ideal blend of communication skills. Alimat, Inc. partnered with Grow Marketing to create a world-class presentation for one of our clients who travels the globe to share his work. Alison was able to perfectly articulate our client’s vision through the written word, and Matt brought the ideas to life through a compelling and innovative design that established an emotional connection with the audience. This team also knows when to gently challenge an idea in order to elevate and enhance the end product. The result of our work together garnered tremendous reviews from our client’s audiences. Whether it’s creating a program from scratch or infusing it with new ideas to keep it fresh, this is the dynamic duo.”
“Matt is a phenomenal graphic designer with a broad range in style and technique. He is really good at bringing that out-of-the-box flavor to even the most standard projects, and then seeing those ideas through to production reality. He has flexibility and speed, and he’s comfortable working in a variety of brand contexts. He works more creatively than the average designer, even under challenging external constraints.
He’s great at coming up with lots of different concepts quickly, drawing from incredibly wide personal and creative influences. He can concept both visually and in short and long-form copy, then mock up his concepts with a depth and richness often missing in creative pitches. In other words, he can work inside the box, but lives outside of it.”
“Working with Matt is easy and enjoyable. His ideas are lucid, his work exemplary and the results surprising and effective. My existing customers have been impressed with the imagery and design Matt has provided, and new customers have told me how original, unexpected and delightful our visual materials are. With Matt’s work, my company’s message is stronger and clearer than it’s ever been. He’s been instrumental in communicating our mission and quality of work, and a key component of our rapid growth and success.”
“We have worked with Alimat, Inc. for three years and it’s our hope that the relationship continues indefinitely. They have been exhaustively involved in multiple facets of our business—web site and e-newsletter design, label and collateral design and copy editing. They are incredibly responsive, flexible, versatile and handle changes in design or direction quickly and efficiently. As a result of their harmonious team efforts and skill, the quality of our branding is consistent and impressive. It’s a privilege (and fun!) to collaborate with them.”
“I’ve worked with scores of creative and art directors over decades. Matt is an exceptional talent in his ability to work across so many media—illustration, photography, fine art, video, and web. Matt brings a tempered, seasoned energy to all his business engagements. As deadlines and frenzy are so often the norm in professional creative, Matt delivers on multiple levels, all the while maintaining a big-picture perspective and measured professionalism, even in the most demanding situations.”
“Opts Ideas had the lead creative agency role in one of Microsoft’s most important global product launches. Through a referral from a trusted colleague, we discovered Alison midway through a critical stage of the campaign. She hit the ground running, quickly integrated herself into the team, added much-needed structure to the process, and was instrumental in helping us complete the job on time and on budget. The client was thrilled with the outcome.”
“Alison worked with me as a managing editor on a 176-page book that was translated into 19 different languages. Not only did she effectively wrangle two writers composing 76 different stories, she managed three proofing stages and tracked all of the translations. All under a very short deadline. She was a pleasure to work with—professional, polite, always in a good mood and willing to go the extra steps—I wouldn’t work with anyone else knowing there is an Alison Macondray out there.”
“My partner and I hired Alison and Matt to create a sales package for our company. They took the time to familiarize themselves with our vision before launching into a carefully thought out plan. They took on everything with heart: from the overall vision, to the small (but important) details. They gave us a reasonable timeline, which we were able to shorten by two weeks thanks to everyone’s hard work and smooth communication. They came in on budget, and were completely reliable and available throughout the entire process.
We ended up with an eye-catching, informative and succinct sales package. And thus far, response is outdoing previous years. I highly recommend Alimat, Inc.”
“Matt and Alison are a delight to work with. They quickly took our high-level specs and turned them into mockups, then working prototypes, then live-site pages, and continue to work collaboratively with us on usability and further iterations. They are creative, attentive, reliable, and have always delivered on time. I love the clean and simple design they’ve created, and their editorial skills in coming up with the right copy for the site content and terminology. I look forward to a long and fruitful partnership.”
“Matt delivers great creative, period. He is consistent and fast—two things that are important in any marketing organization. Regardless of the industry, size of company or target audience, I know Matt will immediately understand what I’m trying to accomplish. He always impresses me with his ability to translate marketing requirements into compelling, relevant and impactful creative. I’m always looking for an opportunity to work with him—he’s that good.”
“I had the pleasure of working with Alison when she was General Manager of Wired.com. At that time, Wired.com was a property of Lycos where I served as VP Digital Media Services, focusing on ad operations. In addition to being the consummate professional as an editor and GM, Alison had an uncanny knack of being able to balance the needs of all stakeholders in the publishing process. Where others may have been parochial and focused solely on their corner of the corporate office suite, Alison was open, engaging and ultimately a consensus builder when it was most needed.”