Without a website, you’re just a physical presence. The South African Web design industry is happily changing that Sheree Russouw
The whistling sounds of budgies and cockatiels resonate through the corridors of Randburg-based Web design company Webpaint Designs.
Music is blaring from the decibel-cranking radio, interspersing with the birdsong. There’s a veritable jungle of plants seemingly placed in every corner of the office. Besides the plants that flourish in the office, there are posters of Star Wars and comic strips placed on the walls behind the tough-looking Apple Macs.
“I think it’s important to have a lively office, especially in a field like ours where the deadlines are always tight and designers often spend hour after endless hour glued to the computer screen. It adds life to a company and doesn’t make it appear so corporate,” says Petra McCardle, owner of this young design company.
She says that the focus of Webpaint Designs and its emphasis on “paint” is its “freshness” and on providing a new and dynamic approach to advertising. This 28-year-old is motivated to succeed in what she says is a cut-throat field.
As a former creative director of a leading advertising firm, she says she knows all about tough working conditions. “It is hard, especially in this industry. I set up this company when I was 25. And then it was doubly difficult being a woman and a young one at that. It is certainly competitive, everyone tries to undercut everyone else. You’ve always got to got to keep on your toes and keep your pencils sharpened,” she laughs.
McCardle says that she wanted to give something more back to the industry and do something productive when she set up the company.
The company is relatively youthful and the same goes for its staff complement, comprising a group of 20-somethings who fill the positions of account executives, graphic designers and Web designers. These designers are currently working on Flash, one of the latest and greatest programmes in Web design it uses revolving mobile elements and is a whiz at producing and enhancing special effects.
“Keeping the computers in running order is quite expensive and surprisingly the software is more affordable. It’s like taking care of your car. You have to keep it well-oiled and have it serviced for it to run smoothly and it’s the same with the Macs that we work on. We have to constantly upgrade our machines,” says McCardle.
And, if you thought that staff meetings were reserved for Friday mornings, think again. Each and every morning of the week, McCardle and her team have a staff meeting where they plan their agendas and what they must achieve by the end of the day. She says that their careers are highly pressured and fast-paced. It is not uncommon for them to work past 10pm and to work on weekends. She says that there are always tight deadlines to meet but that they are passionate about their work.
“The thing with Web design is that sometimes it leaves the impression of being staid, dead, too flat or just overly elaborate. I think we try to strive to create a personal life-giving feeling to our clients’ Web pages and all the other work that they request us to do for them.”
The Internet is undoubtedly gaining momentum in South Africa and many companies are eager to leave their calling cards on the Net for potential customers to view. Log on to the Net and spend 30 minutes perusing its domains and you could be overwhelmed by the number of companies, worldwide, advertising on the Net and cresting the wave of e-commerce. “Locally, people are becoming increasingly excited to be working on the Internet side. Also, a lot of computer users have up until now been somewhat wary of the Internet and perhaps this could be attributed to the fact that they may have been uninformed and uneducated about it,” McCardle says.
The marvel of the Web, particularly for emerging companies, is the instant, equal access to global markets, unrestrained by size or geography.
Webpaint Designs sees itself as a “one-stop shop” where clients can buy all the marketing goods they need. The company does its clients’ Web design, corporate work such as stationery, logo designs and brochures and retail advertising in newspapers and magazines.
McCardle says her company’s client base is fairly large at this stage and it ranges from record companies right up to confectionary businesses. “We are not stale and that’s why we go right across the board and dabble in everything.”
Designing a basic website can take three to four days, but this is obviously dependent on how many pages a client wants there is, after all, quite a margin of difference in designing one homepage and 24 more.
McCardle believes that Web design has to tell a story as people become easily bored, especially when there’s a long and arduous downloading time taken to view a Web page.
The easy availability of powerful software has thrown up many Web designers and there are particular problems that the Web design industry has to tackle.
“People who have not studied graphic design just get hold of the computer packages. They then design a page for a company with no real feel for what it takes. This makes it a cold method of advertising because it’s not special or particular to your client.”
According to McCardle, it’s extremely important for any Web design company to find out who the target market is of a company and what the story behind the company is. This kind of behind-the-scenes work, she believes, makes for a much more powerful site.
Alan Visser, marketing director of Macromagic, a computer training institution, says that his school is experiencing a dramatic increase in the number of students enrolling to do computer courses, with Web design courses being the most popular.
“Everything is electronic. You don’t even need to send a fax anymore. But I think the Internet will take off here in approximately three years. Of course, we have been held back by our telephone companies and South Africans have still got a lot of growing up and utilising to do, but Web design is taking off in a big way.”