The Young and the Restless
Diane Anderson
Consolidation in the site-building business has inspired many Web designers to strike off on their own. Here's a look at five shops worth watching.
Everyone wants to build web sites. Big consulting firms. Boutique shops. Ad agencies. The yearbook staff at your local high school. And for good reason: Demand is booming. International Data Corp. predicts that industrywide revenues from Internet consulting services will grow to $78.5 billion by 2003, 10 times the $7.8 billion for 1998.
Hoping to grab a piece of that pie, holding companies like KPMG and Omnicom have gone on a buying spree, swallowing many of the Web-building business' prominent niche firms. But there is still plenty of work for small, entrepreneurial shops. Here's a brief look at five young I-Builders - all based in San Francisco - that you can expect to hear a lot more about in the months ahead.
Method was founded earlier this year by refugees from San Francisco MetaDesign, a branch of the international design firm. Kevin Farnham was San Francisco MetaDesign's director of Web development; he joined forces with other Meta folks, including Mike Abbink, David Lipkin, Patrick Newbery and Meng Mantasoot, to found Method.
Method works on a variety of Web development and marketing projects. The shop recently helped relaunch Adobe (ADBE).com in its effort to rebrand.
"I thought by getting a high-end, cutting-edge Web design firm, there would be a corresponding tradeoff in flakiness," says Peter Isaacson, Adobe's group manager of worldwide branding. "But Kevin didn't only have the talent, he had the business side buttoned up as well." That professionalism helped Farnham steal the Adobe job away from Razorfish (RAZF), which also bid for the work.
While Sapient (SAPE) handled most of the Adobe site, Method complemented Young & Rubicam (dossier)'s print campaign with microsites like Defytherules.com and Smashstatusquo.com, taking images - a grandmother popping a wheelie on a BMX bike, business-suited men with their ties on fire - and putting them on the Web. The integrated campaign was designed to remind consumers that Adobe and its GoLive product were ready for the Web. One of Adobe's requirements was that Method use the new GoLive tools to do the job.
Method was in the black a month and a half after launching. The firm now has 21 employees and five contractors, and is working on projects for companies like ePhysician, FusionOne and iPlanet. While Farnham is proud of his firm's diversity - employees come from around the globe - he doesn't want the San Francisco office to grow larger than 30 employees.
But that does not mean he isn't looking to expand. First stop is New York, then Toronto, Berlin, London and Tokyo. Method's ultimate goal? "World domination," Farnham jokes. "And nothing short of it."
