Review: This was our year 2023.

Looking back at 2023, we reflect on an incredibly productive year. We conceived and executed many projects for our clients and also continued to develop our own platform, TutKit.com, very intensively. Here we want to provide a content-rich and visually diverse insight into a selection of work from this year.

Agency Relaunch with Headless CMS Strapi

One of our own highlights was the relaunch of our agency website. The previous version saw the light of day in 2016 and lasted an unimaginable seven years for an agency. Even in its final days, our old website was still able to compete in modernity and design against many other agency competitors. It was based on WordPress. Here it is still available online:
https://web.archive.org/web/20161002134225/http://4eck-media.de/

Here it is as a screenshot:

We have remained true to our minimalist style, which has been refined with small animations that support the user’s interaction paths through our content. The competencies have been consolidated from eight to four, and a new, visually appealing layout has been designed for the references as well.

The new website also marks a realignment in the way we design websites. Instead of using WordPress, we now utilize the headless CMS Strapi with nuxt.js based on node.js for our own agency. It is thus more of an app than a website. The frontend and backend are indeed completely separated from each other.

A novelty is that we are consistently using modern image formats. The images here on the agency’s website – as well as on TutKit.com – are displayed in browsers as AVIF image format. If a browser cannot display this, WebP is loaded as a fallback. AVIF is the currently most modern image format that requires the smallest file size while maintaining good image quality – making it a clear recommendation in Google’s PageSpeed Insights as well. As of today, less than 1 percent of all websites use AVIF. We are among them. It is simply puzzling to us why other agencies still use JPG or PNG for their clients. Even WebP, as a modern image format, is already 13 years old and is twice as resource-hungry compared to AVIF, which negatively affects performance. We have indeed looked into AVIF more closely and have published a blog post about it here:
AVIF image format for websites

Another innovation on the agency side is bilingualism. Our content is now available in both German and English. For us, it is part of our own positioning, as we are also an international team that communicates internally in English. On the other hand, it was also a nice exercise for our developers to set up the connection of our German content to the DeepL API for translation. This is just about a “normal” translation of the frontend content… a fairly straightforward matter from a developer’s perspective in preparation for a truly challenging task we are currently working on: the multilingual roll-out of TutKit.com in up to 100 languages thanks to the connection to two translation AIs.

Two large shop projects based on PrestaShop

As a completely new project, we conceived and developed Wald-zu-Tisch.de, an online shop for game meat for Lenz Wild GmbH. In addition to a custom, modern design and a user-centered user experience, we also took care of search engine optimization. The online shop was directly nominated for the Shop Usability Award this year.

The greatest reward for us is when a new project truly learns to operate. In this case, it means that the shop also generates online visibility and ultimately significant sales. The trend is very positive, and even after just a few months, the impressions in the SERPs were showing five-digit daily values.

At the same time, we are working this year on the relaunch of Fischkaufhaus.de from the Müritz fishermen. The goal was to bring the shop into the current year, both in terms of design and user experience, as well as storytelling. Here too, it meant investing a little more for improved search engine optimization. The shop went online after the Easter holidays.

Despite the generally unfavorable economic environment, the online shop is growing compared to last year. A relaunch is always risky. Therefore, we believe we did our job well. The Müritz fishermen have a modern online shop that works well and is even better received by customers than the old one. We are pleased with the result. Here is the entire story about the relaunch.

Several projects in the areas of tourism, real estate, and health.

With our new agency website, we have also refined our focus sectors, where we are particularly strong and experienced, and where we mainly see our target customers: Healthcare, Real Estate, E-Commerce (Online Shops & Booking Portals).

One of the larger projects at the beginning of the year was the design of the WordPress MultiSite system with booking integration to DS for four tourism websites of K&K Ferienimmobilien GmbH & Co. KG.

We were also allowed to develop the corporate identity and the new website for the new hotel brand Sea You. A nice project all in all. There is also a separate blog post on this: Positioning of the hotel brand Sea You.

As an agency in a tourism region, we are repeatedly employed in this industry. We are currently working on the redesign of the website for the Ecktannen Lake Hotel here at Müritz and have also been commissioned as SEO consultants for a larger relaunch project of a holiday apartment platform.

Two more website projects in the real estate segment are waiting to go online. On one hand, we have developed the website for the Pötenitzer Wiek holiday park, and on the other hand, the website for the island quarter in Malchow. Currently, only the pre-launch pages are online. The full websites will be launched with the start of marketing.

Furthermore, we are currently working on two website projects in the medical field, one of which will also be a larger multi-site solution. So there is still a lot in the pipeline for 2024.

Various one-pagers: the best value for money for smaller projects

It doesn’t always have to be a WordPress site that presents the content on multiple subpages. For many companies, a one-page website is often sufficient, clearly showcasing services and competencies as well as information about the company, its values, and the career section. Therefore, for us, one-page websites are often the best websites in terms of value for money for clients. This year, several more one-page websites went online, including for:

• a mason
• a GmbH for wind energy project planning
• a real estate developer
• a restaurant
• a yacht charterer
• a nursing service

The one-pager for the care company just went online last week.

This clearly demonstrates why we believe that our individually designed OnePager, tailored to each company, is the best choice especially for small businesses with a clear range of services. The advantages of our landing page concept are:

• modern and clear design with fine micro-animations
• everything clearly displayed on one page (just scroll, no clicking necessary)
• sectionally structured and visually and content-wise tailored
• the OnePager loads extremely quickly despite the video loop and other animations
• modern image format AVIF (with WebP as fallback) instead of outdated JPG/PNG
• individual icons and unique map material in the client’s corporate design, thereby foregoing the use of images with third-party rights and also foregoing Google Maps (and cookies)
• Onepager is cookie-free and therefore without cookie annoyance banners.
• SEO-optimized for (local) search terms related to the client’s topic.
• safe and maintenance-free, as no CMS is used

Illustrative and design skills

When people ask us what makes our agency special, it’s truly the successful balance between a strong affinity for design and a nerdy tech vibe. With our website solutions, we always work with the latest technical solutions and actually achieve impeccably crafted designs that our design team conjures up from the digital realm. Here, I would like to present a small selection of works that have been created this year to showcase our design and illustration expertise:

Icon design: illustrated individually for clients

Logo design: with homage to local topography

Cartography: individual map designs for clients

Illustration / Vectorization of family coats of arms

Creating a family crest can also be an exclusive idea to give heartfelt birthday wishes.

Digital paintings with regional motifs

3D visualizations for architecture

In the field of 3D visualizations for architecture, we also had several projects that encompassed the full spectrum of our 3D competencies – ranging from floor plan visualizations to spatial concepts, exterior visualizations, and urban planning renderings. Here are a few visual impressions:

Space concept for a restaurant in Waren (Müritz) tailored to the client’s specifications:

Floor plan rendering for a new construction project in Neubrandenburg:

External visualization for the same new construction project in Neubrandenburg:

Urban visualization for a new construction project on the coast.

Actually, aerial photographs of the entire construction area with over 40 objects have been the essential achievement. However, since the project is not yet in the marketing phase, only a street view can be presented here. We will showcase the entire project in a separate blog post sometime in 2024.

Further development at TutKit.com

Exactly one year ago, we set 16 goals for our company. Most focused on the further development of TutKit.com. Thus, we placed a strong emphasis this year on new features and improvements in our e-learning portal. Overall, we were able to achieve 13 goals. Not a bad performance, considering we reformulated our goals again midway through the year. But more on that in a moment.

What have we achieved?

The main goal was to provide the option to purchase our products and individual content without a subscription, in addition to the flat rate. We have now integrated the shop function on TutKit.com for packages and individual content. Additionally, another goal was to introduce a voucher and discount system, which was implemented in the fall.

We have also made optimizations to the user interface, improved the presentation in the tutorials, increased the font sizes, optimized the contrasts for better readability, expanded the blog, streamlined the categories, and much more.

We reported on most updates and developments in a separate blog post here: https://www.tutkit.com/en/blog/133-design-ux-technique-performance-when-your-portal-gets-even-better

With the ongoing development, we have also updated the tools, frameworks, libraries, etc. to the latest versions, conducted a security sprint, and completed a second major SEO sprint. During the SEO sprint to improve on-page quality, we also simultaneously conducted a PageSpeed sprint, during which we converted over 50,000 images to the modern image format AVIF.

As a result, we have a super fast portal. Google loves fast websites. The SEO sprint with the improvements in PageSpeed was also rewarded by Google with a significant increase in visibility. Just before Christmas, we reached six-figure daily impressions in the SERPs and four-figure daily clicks. A great SEO success for us.

New products designed, produced, licensed, and/or released.

A portal like TutKit.com does not thrive solely on functional and technical development, but especially on the high-value content that we produce and publish for our customers and members.

This year, we were able to conceptualize, produce, and publish 78 new products. Some video trainings were licensed from trainers who have published their online courses elsewhere, while many were also created by us. A focus was placed on video trainings related to AI. For this purpose, we specifically integrated a new tutorial category, now featuring 18 online courses on ChatGPT, Midjourney, and others.

There were additional highlights in our corporate design packages, which we have now organized thematically in a better way. Furthermore, we published new packages with templates for applications, flyers, Photoshop actions, icon sets, and much, much more – everything that a creative heart desires.

In addition to these new releases, we also published dozens of new help articles on software usage and 62 editorial blog posts in 2023.

In conclusion: We were really hardworking this year!

Artificial Intelligence (AI): the big topic of the year

Just before Christmas, I always write a review of the year to my team, along with goals for the upcoming year. I also asked specific questions to my team about personal and professional milestones that we want to achieve. It was interesting that a year ago, with one exception, no one on our team had AI on their radar. We formulated our goals. AI was not part of our expectations.

Then came the Christmas shock for me: I engaged for the first time with ChatGPT and Midjourney and immediately recognized the disruptive power of this new technology. Yes, the shock even spoiled my Christmas spirit a bit last year. My brother and co-managing director Stefan and I discussed how we want to react to this development. AI is coming anyway. So we are specifically looking for everything where AI can support us in our processes. AI will make many companies losers. Our focus: we want to be among the winners.

Stefan has extensively engaged with all AI tools to evaluate what we should incorporate into our processes, both to stay relevant and to leverage the positive aspects of AI. This has resulted in many excellent video trainings on AI tools created by him, allowing us to share our experiences directly with our customers. We will continue to integrate new AI techniques into our processes. The quality of our templates and products is improving through AI. We are now equipping covers with AI-generated images that are simply inspiring and fantastic. Additionally, we have started replacing placeholder images in templates with real images created using AI tools. This significantly enhances the quality of our products, making them easier for users to handle. The audio quality of our video trainings is also improving, as we are using AI for audio enhancement to create videos with one-click solutions, removing background noise, and so on.

Development work is becoming a form of pair programming, as our developers use ChatGPT and other AI tools to respond to development challenges more quickly and effectively.

Since July, we have been working on the biggest milestone in our TutKit story: the multilingualism of the platform. It makes absolute sense, as ⅔ of our products – our templates and assets – have always been highly interesting for creatives abroad. And with the advancement of AI tools, the German video trainings will soon be transcribable and synchronizable in various languages as well.

While this agency website, where you are currently reading this post, represents a relatively simple technical solution, in contrast, TutKit.com is a highly complex interconnected system based on Laravel and Vue.js, featuring user management, content management, newsletter management, a flat rate, and the option to purchase products individually.

All components should be fully translated. This includes, among other things:

• Hard-coded text components > Incorporation of variables throughout the code
• Dictionary/glossary to translate specific words as desired.
• Hundreds of parameters that interact with each other (e.g., linking products to categories)
• Separate components that need to be translated from components that apply globally to all languages.
• User management (users receive, for example, a language setting)
• PDF invoices and emails in the user’s corresponding language.
• Comprehensive options for administrators: Global translation of all pages into a new language AND translating individual pages AND translating individual elements of pages.
• Image metadata > each image receives translated metadata, which is then displayed depending on the chosen language.
• Automatic linking of correct links (i.e., after translation, links to German pages are automatically linked to pages in the corresponding language)
• Other components include: notifications, emails, vouchers, quizzes, etc.

The translation will be done via the connection to the APIs of translation AIs. And here the enormous benefit that AI can have for companies like ours becomes evident, when we pass over 50 million characters across more than 1,800 subpages to an AI and receive the contextually correct translation back. It already works in our dev environment! It’s like magic.

To get an idea of the effort involved in such a sprint: As of now, over 600 tasks have been created and processed for the development of multilingual support in our project management tool JIRA. Many more will follow. Currently, five developers have been working continuously on this sprint for months. When we started, we looked for documentation or other information on how to approach such a project. What can we say: There is no roadmap for this on the internet. So we designed everything ourselves to the best of our knowledge and belief, breaking this mammoth task down into smaller, manageable pieces for a team like ours.

With TutKit.com, we have already created an LMS (learning management system) with subscription and e-commerce features, which is rarely found on the market in this form. With the addition of multilingualism, we crown our in-house development as something truly unique.

Our plan is to roll out our portal in January in English, Russian, Ukrainian, and Turkish. Then it will be time for checking and bug fixing. Once all errors and inconsistencies are resolved, we will add about five more languages to the system each week until our portal operates in 100 languages. This will also mean 1,800 subpages per language. We will thus multiply our page count into the six figures. In preparation for this, we’ve really put effort into the SEO sprint and the PageSpeed sprint. We want to launch our multilingualism with one of the most optimized and modern portals on the internet. When we submit the pages via sitemap.xml to Google, we also want a chance to compete against the market leaders in different language markets.

We are really curious to see what will happen when the first languages go online. I will report back here within a year at the latest.