Web Design Inspiration Blog | SpicyWebDesigners.com

Eric and Patty Rosol are the husband and wife team behind, RenderingEffects, their website design and development studio based out of Wisconsin in the United States. Together, Eric and Patty have built RenderingEffects from their collective knowledge in developing and designing websites over the past 6 years professionally. They use the power of Magento and WordPress to meet and exceed the needs of their clients with respect to developing ecommerce as well as standard websites.

Patty Rosol is a web designer and developer who is self taught who uses her knowledge of coding and design to build very cohesive websites. Eric Rosol is more focused on development but is focused on system administration tasks in the day to day operations of RenderingEffects.

Eric and Patty have created a great web design company focused standard platforms including Magento and WordPress as well as Quality, Communication, Flexibility and Creativity.

1. Patty, I understand that you are the designer and your husband, Eric, is the developer of your husband and wife web design and development team.  How do you balance your personal and professional lives as a couple in your business?

Well, actually Patty is the lead designer and developer. For her, knowing the possibilities of the code makes designing easier.

Eric does do some of the developing as well, but the majority of his time is spent doing all of the other services that we offer such as: hosting, email, pc repair/maintenance, and product photography.  He also handles billing, and helps to keep me focused as I have a tendency to constantly second guess my work.

We have a lot in common and share many of the same interests so working together seemed like a natural extension of our relationship.

2. Patty, as a web designer how do you keep yourself learning new technologies?

In my spare time I am constantly reading design blogs, books, and looking through the various CSS galleries.  I also spend a lot of time just experimenting.  I have folders full of design and code ideas.

3. When did you design your first website? How long have you been designing professionally?

We built our first personal website about 7 years ago, and we started professionally about 1 year after that. It was a rather quick transition, but we realized pretty quickly that it was something that we really enjoyed doing.

4. Where did the idea come from to start your website studio, Rendering Effects?

At the time that we were creating our personal website Patty was working for a photography lab, and they had a horrible website.  She told her boss that she could do better and he said “go for it”.  She managed to impress her boss, and some of their customers who started asking her if she could build them a website.  The demand was there so we decided to make it official, and we created Rendering Effects.

5. Eric, as a web developer what is the benefit of building websites and ecommerce sites using standard website development platforms like WordPress and Magento?

The obvious benefit of WordPress and Magento is that they allow our customers some control over their websites, while allowing us to be able to customize the look to our customers liking.

We were very excited when we heard about Magento because we weren’t happy with the other options that were out there.  Most of the other ecommerce platforms we had tried were just too limited with their features.  It was discouraging to have customers ask if their cart could do this or that, and we would have to say no… Or give them a hefty price tag for the adjustment which usually scared them away.

Sarah Enid Moule and Gennah NeSmith are both from Perth, Australia running Wildwood Creative, a small web and graphic design studio. Sarah has been designing websites for the past 7 years and Gennah started to design websites back in high school. They both admit to not being “coders” but they know the basics of JavaScripting, HTML, CSS and jQuery plug-ins in general. Sarah learned more about designing from the internet and is a self taught designer and artist and a few low level certificates and Gennah studied at TAFE (a Technical College) and Murdoch University and earned a certificate in Multimedia and a bachelor’s degree in Multimedia. Together they run Wildwood Creative with over 6 collective years of experience and have some killer design skills which they formed earlier in 2009. Keep an eye out for this tag team of designers as they continue to blaze new trials in the web and graphic design industry from their head quarters in Perth.

1. How did both you and Gennah get into web design? How long have each of you been designing websites for?

Sarah: I started getting into web design about 7 years ago, so I could build myself an online portfolio for my artwork. Once I started learning, I fell in-love and re-designed my website about once every 2 weeks! Consequently… I got bored of my own website, and now I make them for other people!

Gennah:  It all started in high school.  I was introduced to HTML and loved it. Something about using notepad to create something with structure and meaning, displaying things in such a way that made people more motivated to read, learn, and click!  I’ve studied off and on, played around with stuff in my own time.  The last few years I have been making websites for companies at a bigger web corporation, which defiantly lets you decide you are doing the right job!   I have been designing websites for 6 years.

2. Do either you and/or Gennah do any scripting on website design projects? If so, what languages do you script in?

Sarah: Not me! I do some very basic JavaScript but apart from that I mostly make the sites look pretty!

Gennah: We are not really the scripting type.  We know HTML, CSS and enough to jQuery to use plug-ins.

3. Being a two-woman web design company what do you find as an advantage of operating this way? Are there any disadvantages?

Sarah: So far I haven’t really noticed many pros or cons. I’m not big on celebrating the whole “two women taking on the world” thing. We are just two people; passionate about what we do who are always hard at work!

Gennah: We haven’t come across any yet.  At this point I would like to note, we are not feminists or do not want to be seen as two women taking on the world, rather two people who love making graphics, artwork and websites.

Sarah: Haha, yeah what she said! To be honest… I’m a pretty poor excuse for a female anyway, so really we are doing all women kind a favor this way hehe.

4. Where and what did each of you study while you were at college or university and is either of you a “Self-Taught” web designer?

Sarah: I am a self taught artist and designer. I did a couple of low level qualification certificates but everything I know I have learned from the internet. It’s the best university ever! I think when you are really interested in something; nothing can get in your way!

Gennah: I studied at eCentral TAFE(Technical College) and Murdoch University. I have both a Certificate in Multimedia and a Bachelor in Multimedia.

5. Would you said that both yourself and Gennah have different styles of design and if so how do you balance this in the web design projects that you complete?

Sarah: Definitely! Gennah is more of a corporate designer, she likes things neat and clean and shiny, where as I love designing crazy fun sites with lots of color and exciting photos. We are both able to do either style though which is great, but we play to our strengths. If one of us feels like a break, we high-five and change over, then give each other feedback and support.

Gennah: Sarah’s design is very friendly, free and artistic.  She is very good at using color to make things stand out and work well.  My style is more corporate, a little more boring but still neat and user friendly.  This is a good dynamic to have!

Jim Wiberley and Graeme White are both directors of Staak Ltd., a digital creative studio located in Royal Leamington Spa in Warwick in England in the United Kingdom. Together, this duo started Staak in late 2008 targeting the entertainment industry’s need for web design that suits their clients’ needs. Both had previously worked for other agencies and well known games companies so having their own studio for web design seemed like the next logical step to take. Staak is not only a proactive web design studio but it is also dynamic giving Staak an advantage over larger creative agencies. Together with Jim and Graeme and a few select freelance designers, Staak is making a name for itself.

1. When was Staak founded? How many people currently work at Staak?

Staak was officially founded in November 2008 by myself and Jim Wiberley. We’d previously worked for other agencies and well known games companies and having our own studio seemed like a natural progression for us. We’re a small studio with just ourselves and a few choice freelancers which we use on a project by project basis. We’ve always felt it’s our size as a studio that really allows us to be dynamic and proactive for our clients giving us an edge over some of the larger creative agencies.

2. Jim, Staak seems to have a lot of project work that involves clients from the entertainment industry including Sony, Xbox and Electronic Arts and I wanted to ask was it intentional to attract clients like this to your business?

The majority of our work has always been in the games and music industry and it was natural for us to continue in this area when we started Staak. We’ve always found that our creative style has been well suited to these types of clients and we’ve always really enjoyed pushing ourselves to produce the best work we can. Although having said that our work in the games and music industry does lead to further work with clients we wouldn’t have previously worked with.

3. What kind of quality practices do you have in place when dealing with a larger client to make sure the whole project is running smoothly?

Communicate at every step of the way! We can’t stress that enough. Without clear communication everything else falls apart. With larger scale projects we spec everything with the client and agree on schedules and budgets before moving forward. The one thing we’ve learned over the years is that every client has their own way of working. You can’t force someone into a process as it just won’t work, so there’s always a little give and take–but as long as you’re clear on the objectives and more importantly so is the client, you can’t go far wrong.

4. What is a day in the life like when of working at the Staak digital creative studio?

Coffee. Lots of coffee! We then kick start the day going over the studio schedule–what projects need looking at, any clients we need to get back to, fairly straightforward stuff. The important thing for us is keeping things fun and stress free. You spend so much of your day at work the last thing it needs to be is a pain in the ass. Luckily for us our jobs are pretty diverse. We can be knee deep in some motion graphics work or CSS one day, followed by a trip to a games convention the next–fun times!

5. What types of work does Staak take on currently? Motion Design? Web Design? Etc.

Although we’re primarily a web design studio we don’t particularly confine ourselves to any one particular discipline or area.

We do everything from full content managed sites (built with our own in-house CMS ‘Fuel’) to dynamic Flash sites and games with a sprinkling of motion graphics to pep things up! We’re always on the look out to learn new things. You can’t stop still in this industry–if you do, you get left behind!

Liam Faulkner and Katherine Boardman are web designers who run Twenty3Design, a small web design company in the United Kingdom. Liam Faulkner studied Multimedia Technology at the University of South Wales while Katherine Boardman has her BSc of Sound from university. They complement each other and have created some amazing web design work because of their vast experience in multimedia design, flash and graphic design.

1. How did you and Katherine get started in web design? When did you start designing websites?

Liam: I was always interested in web design.  Actually I have a bit of a coding background, I did a qualification in Visual Basic (of all languages), and when I went to University, I studied other programming languages, but actually found I like the visual design side of things best.  While at Uni I took on a few simple paid projects for clients, and learnt my freelance lessons designing and coding for them.  I then took a couple of full time positions as a graphic designer, but always had in mind that I will be working for myself, and it turns out that going freelance was surprisingly easy.

Kath: I fell into it by accident really.  My background was in Sound Technology, but I helped out on a few projects with Liam and found that I picked up HTML pretty quickly. I found coding incredibly satisfying and now can’t imagine doing anything else.

2. How long has Twenty3Design been in business?

Liam: Well, we’ve been Twenty3design full time for nearly 1 year …it’s our birthday soon!   We have both worked professionally for over 6 years, be that freelance or full-time and about a year ago we thought it was time to put all our efforts under one happy roof.

3. How many designers, developers and other creative people currently work for Twenty3Design?

Liam: There’s just the two of us.  We’re the designers, developers and project managers for our projects.  For anything we can’t do we rely on the extensive UK and US freelance community to lend a hand.

We’ve got some pretty good contacts built up now who we know we can rely on.  I think that’s the key for freelancing.

4. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

Liam: I think from a design perspective the hardest and most crucial part is getting a really decent brief form the client.  It’s so important to understand what the client wants and needs, but sometimes they don’t know themselves or they’ll “know it when they see it”.  I guess what I’m getting at is that people are more web savvy than ever and managing clients’ expectations among the vast array of information available for them is an ever changing task.

Kath: Is it too obvious to say dealing with IE6? That said it does at least keep me on my toes .  Other than that I’d say for me it’s utilizing the correct technologies for the right project.  Sometimes clients want something fancy just for the sake of it and, although it might be nice to be able to bill for the extra dev work, you can over do it and ruin a good project.

5. Do you ever refer to yourself as a Front-end developer or a web designer? Do you code any of the web sites that you design currently? If so, what language(s) do you code in?

Liam: We code and design everything ourselves.  We have the luxury of being multi-disciplined; we can take on the coding and design aspect for our clients, providing them with the whole package.  We code in the standard languages: HTML, CSS and PHP as well as doing bits and pieces of other languages such as JavaScript when it’s required.

6. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web design professional?

Liam: We both went to University in South Wales, but I’d say that real life experience has made us better professionals, nothing can beat that.  Our degrees certainly gave us the start we needed to find out what type of work we’re in to and the time we had while at Uni allowed us to experiment with taking on clients and managing projects for ourselves.

7. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?

Liam: The industry seems to have grown and developed in to much more of a community, everyone is chatting online using Twitter, comparing notes and sharing ideas.  It’s a nice industry to be involved with.  From a client perspective, more people seem to be tech savvy, giving people like us a little more freedom to be creative.  The openness of the design world has always been there, but now there are so many tutorials, blogs and communities that you can really immerse yourself it what ever you like.

8. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a web project? Why are they your favorite tools?

Liam: I love my Macbook Pro, can’t do without it.  I also use an A5 Wacom tablet when I’m doing illustration; it’s incredibly helpful to be able to sketch freehand.  Software wise I use Photoshop for web design and Illustrator for print work and logo design, they can’t be beaten in my opinion.  Oh and can’t forget pen and paper, cheapest design hardware available.

Kath: As a developer I live inside Coda.  I can do almost everything in there and it makes developing so much easier.  The other thing I really rely on is my notebook.  It might sound odd for a developer, but it’s always when I’m out and not by my Mac that I figure out how to solve some problem I’ve been stuck on for a while.  I’ve got to be able to note it down quickly or I’ll forget.

Mathew Carpenter is the project manager at Tisme.com.au, a recently formed web design and development based in Newcastle, Australia. Both he and the designers and developers that work at Tisme.com.au turn out some amazing work for their clients on a daily basis. Currently, Tisme is a 5 man and woman operation that has been in business for the past 3 months and as they say “Don’t let our age fool you though; our team have years of experience under their belt and are able to compete with the best in the business”.

1. How long has Tisme been in business?

Tisme is still only a baby after being formed a little over 3 months ago with the intention of bringing creativity and innovation back into Australian websites and graphic design in general. Don’t let our age fool you though; our team have years of experience under their belt and are able to compete with the best in the business.

2. How many people currently work at Tisme?

There are currently 5 people employed at Tisme including myself. We have Dule as our lead developer who handles all of the programming and tricky stuff, Branka is our designer and one of the most creative people you will ever meet. Across the table we have Ferdinand (call him FM) who slaves away at his graphics tablet designing awesome mascots and Andi who designs some of the best promotional material including logos, business cards and more. Then I handle the project management side of the business.

3. What does Tisme pride itself upon in the field of web design?

Tisme is all about developing websites and graphics which complement our clients business, service or product. We are here to help their businesses grow by utilising current design trends and incorporating creative solutions. We pride ourselves on these characteristics and our ability to understand and meet the needs of our clients whether it is for a simple logo design or a full website design.

4. How do you and your coding abilities make life easier for people at Tisme and its clients?

Answered by DULE, a programmer at Tisme.com.au: One of the main goals of Tisme is to provide an effective and efficient experience when dealing with projects. In order to complete this, we must use clean, standard-compliant code so that we can refer back and make appropriate changes to the code when necessary. Website developers must realise that during the life of a website, you are not going to be the only person looking at the code. This is why I document and comment in the coding so that the project owner can easily modify and change the source once we have completed the project. This also comes in handy when we are commissioned to make changes to a website we have worked on before.

5. How long have you been designing websites and how do you stay up to date with the latest techniques in web design?

Answered by BRANKA, a web designer at Tisme.com.au: I have been designing websites professionally for the last 2 years but I have been involved with creating websites and graphics for a long time. It first started out as a hobby until I realised I could make a career out of doing what I love; that is, designing attractive and user friendly websites. Although staying up to date with the latest techniques in website design is essential, the ever-changing state of the industry makes it hard to stay current, though I think I do a good job. I am actively involved in several design forums, and I also love reading about current design trends in magazines and on the Internet.

6. What does the role of a “promotional designer” involve at Tisme?

Answered by ANDI, a promotional designer at Tisme.com.au: The role of promotional designer is quite a broad role. Some days it may involve creating logos and stationery for small to medium enterprises while other days could involve working on packaging for a brand new product. By doing this, I am able to work with a large selection of clients and I am constantly improving my skills which will ultimately benefit the client.

7. What kind of projects do you work on for clients and how did you earn the title of “mascot illustrator”?

Answered by FERDINAND, a mascot illustrator at Tisme.com.au: Basically I get called in when the client wants to project a specific personality, image or message through a character design. Mascots work in a similar fashion to any logo in that they represent the company and its ideals, but mascot designs can also give the consumer some things logos can’t; a face, a look, a human touch. We respond instinctively to eye contact and body language, and that’s the area of expertise for a mascot designer – to try to get the audience to relate to a brand on that intimate, personal level.

8. When it comes to managing a project for a client at Tisme what can clients expect from you as the project manager?

Answered by MAT, a project manager at Tisme.com.au: When a client first reaches out to us to create their project, our first main goal is to make them feel secure. We do this by having a free, no obligation consultation regarding their project. Once we receive all of the project details, I go ahead and assemble the first management document to hand over to the client which basically contains information about our business, services we offer and also a brief overview of what we discussed earlier in order to see if we correctly understood the clients requirements. Upon receiving the client’s feedback, a time allocation and pricing structure is sent and reviewed which outlines how our time will be spent on their project and what our initial price estimates are. As you can tell, we focus on providing the client want they want, opposed to creating a project which the client had little to no say in. By following these simple steps, we are able to satisfy the client and become more efficient and effective in delivering a positive result.

Pete Stubbs is the managing director at 2am a company in Wesham, Preston in England in the UK. 2am has been in business for the past 20 years. The business currently provides services for PPC marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Web Design and Graphic Design and has an extensive portfolio available online. 2am is an “AdWords Qualified Company” meaning that they have been qualified by Google to provide Adwords consulting on how you can use Adwords to run your advertising.

1. How many people currently work at 2am?

There are currently nine people here at 2am

2. On your site it says “we are an award winning agency…”  What awards have you won?

There is a local Cheese maker Dewlay Cheese for whom we won the award for their cheese labels.

3. What is your company known for and what business problem are you trying to answer?

We are well known for our creativity and brand management skills. We want businesses to succeed and therefore we answer the age of problem of how our clients communicate within their sector.

4. How long has 2am been in business?

2am has been in business for over 20 years.

5. Where did the company name come from?  2am – is that when the best web design work is done?

The name 2am was created by the original founders who both had the initial AM thus the two AM’s! Nowadays of course, this is when the best ideas pop into our heads!

6. Have you developed any in-house technologies that you use to market to your customer that give you a unique advantage in the web design marketplace?

Our in-house SEO skills together with our experience in design give us the edge over most competitors!

7. Why should someone hire 2am for their next web or graphic design project?

Basically 2am create work which exceeds our clients’ expectations and our designs always aim to push the boundaries of creativity, as-well as communicate effectively – this may be an obvious answer but it’s surprising how many designs applications there are out there that are frankly utterly shit. The client should always receive design solutions that work effectively!

Some web design companies are good at development but terrible at design. Others are good at design but not too hot on development. Most don’t have the in-house capabilities of SEO – 2am have it all!

8. What do you feel is the biggest barrier to overcome for a web design company like yours currently?

I think the biggest problem (which also links to the question above) is that many clients have had web sites created without the end user in mind and therefore just don’t work.

Too many websites not only look rubbish but don’t function to the browser, search engines or user so its our job to educate the customers and give them the confidence back!

So the biggest barrier therefore is trust!

9. Being an “Adwords Qualified Company” what advantages does this give your company in developing, managing and working on PPC projects and do you find that a lot of people are interested in your company because you are “Adwords Qualified”?

We feel that with the experience we have in developing ”Adwords” campaigns speaks for its self and we would only offer products and services which will benefit our customer. We feel that customers are interested in 2am because of our experience and the fact that we offer all these services in house gives the customer the complete package.

10. What is the “Dream Analytics & Reports” feature all about on your company’s website?  I see that it’s coming soon but what can you tell us about it now?

Dream will be a service that analyses data from search engines and allows us to identify strengths and weaknesses in our customers campaigns enabling us to ensure that either fixes are made or areas are developed and capitalized upon. We will be giving complicated statistics and analytics the human touch!

Nathanael Ellacott is one half of the husband and wife team behind E Media Architects, a web development company based out of Kitchener-Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Together with his wife, Allison, they have been building a web development company since the spring of 2004. They currently keep all of their web design work “in-house” and have personally seen to all the web design projects that they take on at E Media Architects. Nathanael handles more of the development and coding while Allison handles more of the design and marketing aspects of running E Media Architects. One area of business is helping Automotive Dealerships getting setup with a web presence that works for their sector of business.

1. How long has E Media Architects been in business?

My wife and I started E Media Architects in the spring of 2004. Thanks to the ongoing support of our clients, so far we have enjoyed five years in business here in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.

2. I know that you are currently a Husband and Wife team but I am curious if you hire any freelance web designers or developers or if you have anyone else working in-house? If so, how many other employees do you have?

We do not currently employ anyone or hire external freelancers. We had one past project where we hired an extra hand for coding.  But other than that, we have done all the design and development work ourselves.

3. How does your company feel about outsourcing?

Well, Web design work tends to come in spurts, and turn-around time is important. So it’s fair to argue that a higher volume of work could be accomplished faster if we were to outsource or hire additional help. Of course, you never know how things might develop in the future. But our intention has always been to keep to just the two of us. Our goal is simply to provide for our family. Our clients also value being able to deal directly with the people who will be doing the actual work, from planning to completion to providing support for hosting and E-mail. On a practical level, this has meant that rather than taking every job we can get our hands on, we strive to cultivate our reputation for outstanding person-to-person service with a view to building a limited but loyal repeat clientele.

4. What role do you take in projects currently? Do you handle more of the coding or design related aspects or both?

I take the lead in coding. I do most of the development, and also answer clients’ technical questions and manage hosting. My wife, Allison, does some of the coding and handles all the graphic design for printed applications, marketing strategies, and domain name registrations, the final quality-control testing for Web projects, writes content and deals with the everyday management of our company, E Media Architects.

But with Web design, we share the work 50/50. While we tend to work on our initial design concepts independently, it always ends up a team effort, because all designs need small tweaks (at minimum). When a person is working totally alone it can be easy for inspiration to run dry or to lose objectivity after you’ve stared at the same layout for hours. This is a classic design hurdle for many freelancers. So in our case, we avail ourselves of the advantage of always having another person to bounce ideas off of and to offer realistic criticism of the work. This really improves the end quality of the entire project.

5. Does your company work off of a proprietary platform that was built-in house or do you use pre-built platforms (WordPress, ExpressionEngine, osCommerce, etc.) to run your clients online web presences?

We use WordPress when blog-style functionality is the focus of a site.

Generally speaking, we custom build every aspect of a site for the optimal fit to the clients’ needs.

At the moment, most of our clients do not have in-house staff assigned to handle site maintenance, so they just get us to update their site for them as the need arises. If they want to regularly manage certain portions of their content themselves, our approach has been to identify the repetitive tasks they need to perform and then build simple management tools to specifically handle these isolated functions. That way, clients are only presented with the features they really need to complete the task, which makes their job very efficient.

6. What are some of the most frequent questions people ask about your business and how do you answer them?

“Are you hiring?” The answer is, while we’re very flattered that you would like to work with us, for now we’re sticking to just the two of us.

“Where did you go to school?” We are open about the fact that we are both self-taught, and that we value keeping up-to-date by learning new techniques every day. We have also benefitted from the practical skills we each learned in our years of previous work experience – Allison in graphic design and me in Internet service and computer hardware.

“I have a Web site that needs help. Can you fix it up/finish it?” We explain that we primarily do all-in-one custom Web work. If an existing site’s code is dysfunctional or unfinished, there is no telling the extent of the issues it may have. So it’s going to be more cost-effective for the client to have us start fresh than to track down a problem and try to find a remedy for it. Furthermore, if it is the design that needs help, a new overall concept is usually more effective than trying to patch up a reinterpretation of someone else’s vision. On the other hand, if they do not need help with their site code and are just looking for us to provide a new design concept, we are willing to supply an artwork file to them which they can implement as they wish.

7. What are the biggest challenges you currently face with web design in your company?

Specific to Web design, the biggest challenge is helping the public to really understand

1. the objectives and process in Web site creation;
2. the value of the Internet as a medium for business; and
3. what to look for and expect in a Web company.

Many people fail to grasp the purpose and value of creating a Web presence that can really compete in business. They know they need a site – they may even want a decent one – but they cannot confidently move forward. This is often because they haven’t been sufficiently exposed to the technology or the industry to even know what questions to ask. Therefore, they may not be prepared for the investment of time and money it will take to turn out what they have envisioned. And many do not equate getting a Web site with first seeking out a professional who both suits their business objectives and whom they can trust.

To assist potential and current customers, we strive to give them the tools they need to make decisions. Our Web site’s blog and our monthly clients-only E-newsletter, emaNews, are used to help educate and inform business people about what to consider when developing and expanding their Web site, how to understand Web concepts and online tools, and what to fundamentally look for in a Web company. While we don’t expect readers to learn everything there is to know, we hope they can feel a little more prepared to face the choices they need to make.

We also want to help people select the designer that’s right for them. To do so, differentiation is vital.

The reality is that there are many competent designers out there – each with their own strengths – and so blanket statements like “we’re the best” don’t really accomplish anything in terms of helping the client make an informed choice. In fact, it just reinforces the industry concept that all designers and companies offer basically the same product and service on a varying scale of better to worse. We feel this isn’t true. A good doctor wants the patient to get the best care possible from whichever physician is best suited for that particular case. Likewise, in Web we feel the customer should be encouraged to find the designer that is the best fit with their business, tastes and needs. So we try to be open about what we have to offer, what makes us different and what they can expect from us.

8. What is your company best known for in the web design industry?

Within the industry, I can definitely say that we are primarily known for modern, clean, and stylish design. Our work has a signature look.

People also think of us as “that husband and wife who do Web design.” It isn’t very common to find a young married couple who work together every day, so that makes us stand out.

We also are known for helping automotive dealers create unique custom Web sites that represent their individuality on-line.

Perhaps the most notable aspect, though, is how seriously we take both our work and how we operate our business. Our clients are real-world businesses, and they count on us to respond to them promptly, to be organized, punctual and reliable. It has been commented that this is what’s missing in some designers. So, while the customer may truly value a designer who is a genius at their art, they really also need someone who will answer their messages and keep an appointment. So both through our Web site and in person, we try to reflect that we value these qualities too.

Our business model is also viewed as a little different because, rather than high turnover, we’ve focused on developing ongoing relationships with our clients. For example, if you find a good lawyer or mechanic, you don’t just go to him once – you return whenever you need some advice or assistance. It’s the same for us. We don’t just build a site and then it’s over. We stay on hand for ongoing maintenance, expansion and auxiliary print marketing. In this way, we develop a rapport with our clients. This attracts a more discerning client who takes a long-term view of their marketing, and it fosters a respectful relationship. We come to understand the nature of their business, and they come to trust our recommendations. Many of our clients request our input on their general marketing or ask us to develop concepts for specific campaigns.

9. Do you have a physical office where clients can come in for a consultation or does the office run virtually?

Because there are just the two of us, we work from an office in our home. Doing so helps keep operating costs low and affords us the scheduling flexibility we need for our personal circumstances.

When it comes to Web and E-mail hosting, that is all located in an off-site datacentre.

For client meetings, we go to their place of business whenever possible, but when necessary we will have clients to our home. We prefer to communicate via E-mail, opting for telephone or in-person meetings only when doing so would be more efficient.

Mark O’Brien is the new CEO of Newfangled Web Factory (He’s been the president for the last 5 years), a company focused on helping advertising agencies build better websites for their clients. Mark was good enough to speak with us about Newfangled, which he has been a part of since 2000 and that he has played many roles with the company including ‘intern’ which is how he originally started with Newfangled.

1. For those who may not know, you are the new face of Newfangled Web Factory since you are in the process of taking the business over.  As the owner of the website is there a new direction that you are hoping to take Newfangled in?  If so, do you care to let us in on some of them?

I’ve been with Newfangled since 2000, when we started “Grayscreen Prorotyping” and built the CMS. I started as an intern, but I’ve been the President (there were many roles in between) since 2004. So, I’ve been with Newfangled for 9 of our 14 years, and I’ve been centrally involved in running the company for the past 5. This isn’t a situation where I’m excited to storm in and shake things up, since the company is on the exact track I think we should be on. That being said, we go through consistently directed, yet massive, changes every year, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. We’re focusing more closely on our positioning of helping marketing firms build great marketing websites for themselves and their clients, and I’ve been very focused on getting that message out there, mostly through public speaking. We work pretty closely with three of the main consultants in this industry, David Baker of Recourses, Blair Enns of Enmark Performance Development (a.k.a. Win without Pitching), and Tony Mikes of Second Wind. I’ve been speaking at their events, in addition to speaking at this year’s HOW Design Conference in Austin. We also have a new version of our CMS, NewfangledCMS, coming out in the next few weeks. This CMS is directly aimed at being the best marketing CMS available. We do this by building it for marketers, as opposed to many CMS that are built by programmers, for programmers. We focus heavily on dirt simple usability, powerful asset management, Business Intelligence and closed loop tracking for key site interaction events. In addition to the CMS, we have a new site design in the works, and the company name will be officially changing to Newfangled, without the Web Factory.

2. Newfangled Web Factory has produced some helpful and very useful videos in the past.  What drives you guys to put content like this together?

Our content strategy is, alongside with very well placed speaking events, at the heart of our marketing strategy. Between our newsletters, blogs, webinars, and videos, we add a huge amount of content to our site every month. We feel that the best form of marketing is free education, and the job of a marketer, any marketer, is to accurately, thoroughly and regularly describe the firm’s expertise to Google, so that Google may drive the specific masses to the firm’s website. I am talking about this stuff all the time, and we very much take our own medicine. We do this to get the attention of those that are contemplating a future website project, and are searching for expert info in preparation. We want those people to discover us as the experts in this field at that stage of the buying cycle, so that we are top of mind when they make the transition to the purchasing stage. This is not marketing content, by any means, it is generous, objective, and useful content. Beyond the soft sell, “pull” marketing objectives, we feel that putting great content out there makes the web a better place.

3. Is the main scope of your business working with Advertising Agencies or are there other secondary aspects of the business that also contribute to the bottom line?

Yes, working with ad agencies/marketing communications firms (based on what they might call themselves) is our very clearly stated focus. On every single page of our site you can read that “Newfangled helps Advertising Agencies build better websites for their clients.” A lot of development shops have had a flavor of this niche, at some point or other, but most ultimately abandon it. We enjoy this niche. We’ve been doing it for fourteen years, and we do really well with it. We focus on mid-sized firms for the most part, because they are the ones that generally need outside help with the web. What we’re really great at is building marketing sites, and that, of course, has all kinds of applications.

4. I see that you guys have put together a book “Client vs. Developer Wars” and I’ve read some of it.  Where did the idea to produce this come from?

Well, producing the book shares all the same base motives as our other content production. In this case, though, Eric thought our breakthrough discovery of effectively communicating web development intentions with our clients was book worthy, and I agree. For our first 5 years of business, we did what everyone else does; we built sitemaps and highly detailed wireframes. In those days we failed at communicating the subtle (read: most important) details of what we intended to build for our clients, which, of course, led to a lot of frustration and waste. Once we discovered our proprietary Grayscreen Prototyping process, or, building the site before we built the site, our rate of success skyrocketed. It was an industry-changing breakthrough that we swear by to this day. Why everyone doesn’t build websites this way is beyond me.

5. How has the concept and practice of using Gray-Screen Prototyping helped Newfangled since you started using it?

Hmmm, I think I might have just answered this question, I guess I got ahead of myself! Let’s put it this way, we are still in business because of “Grayscreen Prototyping”. It is how we impart our expertise to our clients, it is how we define scope, it is how we know we are going to get the project done right the first time, every time.

6. What else are you guys working on these days? Any “Top Secret” things that you might be able to share?

Well, this too I’ve already covered. NewfangledCMS 5, the best marketing CMS on the market, is our latest and greatest. Next up: real time Google Analytics integration. That is all I can say about that for now.

Nikola Denić is a web designer and one half of the team managing Haragei (the other is Milan Kristoff), a web development company out of Belgrade in Serbia. Nikola has been designing since 2000 and was originally a “one man show”. Today Haragei is larger, with about 15 people (aka “samurais”) that work for them at any one time. Check out their “Dojo” today.

1. How did you get started in web design?

I think it was sometime in the year 2000, right after the dot com bubble. I tried to create my own web page in a period when the Internet was a much tamer environment than it is now. At that time, things like tables and cool flash effects were considered an achievement. Basically, I was fascinated by web pages and the process of making them. I was using the Internet for 4 years at that point so going into development was a logical step for someone who took all his toys apart to see what’s inside and how they work.

2. When did you start designing websites?

If you count my attempts to make my own website with funky gif’s, that happened in 2000, although the first project I got paid for happened in 2001. It’s funny, from this point of view, thinking back to frames and flash in them. Peaks of development were things like contact forms that send emails, but if you worked with the Internet professionally at that time, you’ll recognize that it wasn’t anything like today – there was no one you could ask.

3 What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

Originality. That essentially summarizes the biggest problem right now. Being original at a time when websites are shooting out on conveyor belts is very hard. The process that we maintain at Haragei is pretty clear – we have a goal and we are working towards it. Perhaps the hardest stage is the sketching stage; the process of going from a drawing on paper to usable wireframes and having them interact the way we imagined. Making a useful project and standing behind it in every pixel is a huge mountain that you always want to climb and is always interesting in its own way.

4. Do you code on any of your web design projects? And if so, do you consider yourself a “Front-End Coder”? Why or Why Not?

Hmm, I have to explain a little bit about myself first: I started off “old school” – as a one man show. That basically forced me to become proficient in every step – from sketching on paper, through making beautiful markups to optimizing queries in a db.

Today I let my samurais handle the design; although there is virtually no project I haven’t checked over in every gradient and typography relationship in css. This is crucial in order to be comfortable when delivering reliable products to customers, when they trust us enough with the development of their online business.

I think the real answer is that I’m both a designer and a front end coder, simply because as the project manager of all of our projects, and as the company CEO, I have to offer and stand behind Quality Assurance – although I may not do the day-to-day designing/coding work.

5. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web designer?

I have B.CS. from University of Belgrade that really hasn’t done anything particular for me in terms of personal advances, but it surrounded me with very many talented people. Right now I’m considering options for a Master’s degree; I am looking to combine an internal project with the degree to really experience the best of both worlds.

6. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?

The industry is changing rapidly – on a daily basis, I’d say. I am honestly impressed by people who are brave enough to go into web design and development right now. For the past 3-4 years, it seems like the whole thing has been on steroids and so much knowledge has been created that in order to come into the industry today, one has to have a vision that covers the problem from every point of view. On the other hand, as I’ve said before, 8 years ago, the fight with Internet Explorer was somewhat brutal simply because there was no adequate alternative.

Also, today you have Rich Internet Applications that are very popular and we all use them on a daily basis, which means that today, with the increase in Internet speeds, you learn to rely upon the Internet almost the same way as you would on desktop applications which were virtually impossible before.

7. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a website? Why are they your favorite tools?

Paper? No, seriously, a blank sheet of paper is 9 times out of 10 the tool with which I start designing and coming up with site interactions, regardless of whether I’m working on a micro site, a flash application or a social network. Obviously, after that the whole wireframe is transferred to OmniGraff or Visio (if we’re working on a bigger project) and then to Photoshop.

When it comes to code, I use TextMate on Mac, and if I’m running Windows by some strange coincidence, I stick with Dreamweaver (although it sounds lame).

Firefox with some extensions, such as Firebug, WebDeveloper, etc, is definitely a must have for anyone in this business, so it also comes into my project building process.

8. How many people work at Haragei?

Right now we have 5 people working in-house and over 10 external coworkers.

9. What do you want people to know about your company?

Hmmm… I like martial arts; oh wait, you can already notice that from our website. What is very important for people to know about us is that we, first and foremost, believe in a specific philosophy that follows corresponding business standards. We can say it’s a matter of having a sixth sense for our clients’ businesses and we are very good at realizing our plans. Aside from that, we kick ass in all those fancy words such as xhtml/css/is/actionscript/web2.0/etc.

John W. Ostler runs operations for Eight Bit Studios, a small web development studio based in America. The company has about 11 people working for them from various backgrounds. Since 2003, Eight Bit Studios has been developing websites. When they first started they where a PHP shop that was concentrating in small boutique websites. Recently I found out about a site that they developed called “Joe Bidden’s Teeth – Teeth you can believe in” using a blending of RoR (Ruby on Rails), Google Maps API, Scriptaculous and Prototype JavaScript frameworks. The company’s focus is tied to the Viral and Social web space including developing for the iPhone and they balance this development with a focus on an agile development.

1. How long has Eight Bit Studios been in the business of web design and development?

Eight Bit was first established back in the winter of 2003 at Michigan State University.  We were a PHP shop in those days, and concentrated in small boutique websites.  After doing that for a couple of years, the partners and I went our separate ways.  It wasn’t until the fall of 2008, that I began putting the foundations under the new company with a new set of partners.

2. Where did the idea for JoeBiddensTeeth site come from?  How is the site related to the Trident engagement?  What kind of web technologies did you use in the project?  What other technologies where used as well?

Joebidensteeth.com was created by my good friend and business partner, Daniel Peck. We were sitting around watching the Vice Presidential debates, and one thing we couldn’t get over, was that Joe Biden had a killer smile. After about a week of asserting “Joe Biden has the smile of America”, we decided to do something about it.

We gathered some friends and launched the site before the election. It went viral almost immediately.  After its success and the election ending, Trident (among other teeth-friendly brands) came knocking.  Once the partnership was in place, the site was brought into the products team at Eight Bit Studios for strategic and technical development.

The site in its current iteration was built on Ruby on Rails, with support from the Google Maps API and Mapeed.com‘s pin-scaling map technology.  The game along with some of the other error handling was produced using the Scriptaculous/Prototype JavaScript frameworks.

3. What other websites are you guys producing these days?

We’re concentrating most of our efforts in the viral and social web space. This includes niche social networks and iPhone Application development. We practice and preach agile development, usually concentrating efforts on a very specific piece of functionality first, then iterating on that. Although I can’t talk about the specific projects we’re working on, I can tell you that this team is the best of the best.  There hasn’t been a more exciting time to be in our labs and a part of the web medium.

4. Is Eight Bit Studios a “one-man show” or is it bigger?  I cannot tell by checking out the site so its a bit of a mystery

Eight Bit Studios is currently a 11-(wo)man show. We work with some contractors depending on project needs. I’ve kept the team small on purpose.  We need to be able to communicate and collaborate at a very intimate level.  When you can provide that channel and compliment it with mutual respect, our ideas and shared expertise gel.  This formula is very rare and I am blessed to be apart of it.

5. John, what is your role/job at Eight Bit Studios?

Besides operations, my efforts have shifted slightly into marketing and concepting our viral products.  I try to stay actively involved in all aspects of the company including the technical work.  We all have shared roles within the company and I think that’s what keeps it fun.  We have a motto, “If it feels like work, you’re doing it wrong.”  Any time you start doing something you’re not passionate about, it’s easy to get tunnel vision on a concept.  We’ve learned that doesn’t work in a creative environment and as a result, we do everything we can to change the way we think about “work”.

6. What is Eight Bit’s focus when it comes to designing websites?

We spend 50% of our time identifying our user-types and their main goals when coming to a site.  Many of us come from a video-editing/animation background, so this usually involves lots and lots of story boarding.  We’ve subscribed to the “less is more” philosophy and do our best not to clutter the web space.  Not until we have identified the functional needs and behaviors of a site’s assets, do we start making design decisions.  The process is extremely creative and collaborative and has proved to be incredibly successful.