/Interview/ Frost
14/02/2007 | Filed under Design > Interview
In southern Sweden lies an agency at the heart of Scandinavia’s creative hub. Formed in early 2006, the staff at Frost are a blend of 3D, Flash and ecommerce experts. We spoke to marketing strategist Russell Clark about Gothenburg’s finest
.net: Can you tell us about Frost, and why you’ve become a top Scandinavian agency?
RC: Frost is reasonably new on the web design scene, but the personnel behind the name are certainly not. Frost was born at the start of 2006 after two established Gothenburg agencies, Admire and Adera, merged. Admire was a highly creative gang working with Flash and 3D, and Adera was a more programmer-led bunch, able to build huge ecommerce and corporate sites with tailor-made CMS systems.
.net: What are your specialities and what sort of clients do you want to attract?
RC: Frost’s specialities are twofold. We build ecommerce sites to a very high standard, both in terms of design and functionality, and we build outstanding Flash campaigns. At the moment, I would say the split is 70 per cent ecommerce and corporate site work, and 30 per cent ‘glamorous’ work that we often do alongside classic, full-service advertising agencies, such as the world-famous Forsman & Bodenfors (www.fb.se). We tend to help these agencies bring their creativity to life online, though we feel that we contribute to the creative process, too. We’d like to get more ecommerce clients in the future, as well as campaign work. We’re also very keen to work with clients over in the UK.
.net: What’s the Gothenburg web design scene like?
RC: The Gothenburg design scene is pretty cool – there are a lot of things going on here. Sweden in general has always pushed boundaries in IT and web work, and if you look at many major web agencies across the world, there’s often a Swede tucked in there! In Gothenburg, which isn’t a huge city (about 600,000 residents), there are many excellent creative web agencies, and an abundance of companies offering IT and ecommerce solutions.
.net: What excites you about today’s web?
RC: It excites me that we’re in the midst of a ‘controlled’ dotcom boom. I wasn’t working with the web when people were throwing crazy money at websites and buying Koi carp for their offices, but the present dotcom boom is more focused. I’m excited that businesses are now realising that their web marketing is as important as their offline marketing, and deserves due thought. Frost focuses on helping clients drive value from their online investments, and I think all web workers should keep this in mind.
.net: What turns you off it?
RC: I don’t like large corporate sites that have been knocked up without too much care for design or exciting functionalities. Even workers at large companies deserve a pleasing web experience!
.net: Whose work do you really admire, and why?
RC: I really enjoy the work that Big Spaceship does. North Kingdom is a company from Stockholm that’s also pretty cool, and so is Fantasy Interactive. Over in Blighty, I think that Graphico is an impressive outfit – it’s great that a company outside of London can claim such great clients. Sadly, there’s not much happening in my native Scotland at the moment (that I can see). We’ve talked about opening Frost Scotland one day!
.net: How hard is it to carve out a particular design style in this day and age?
RC: When you’re working with a client who has a brand or brand elements to stick to, such as their corporate colours and logo, you can feel a tad restricted. A good website is about more than just good design, though. It should perform creative, useful functions, and our designers need to suggest these functions.
.net: What’s web accessibility like in Sweden, and what do you make of WCAG 2.0?
RC: Web accessibility has always been an issue for Frost’s clients, because in our previous incarnation, we worked with corporate clients for whom a well-built site was crucial on many levels. So, we’ve always had clauses in our contracts guaranteeing certain levels of W3C and WAI compatibility. I can’t argue with the main principles of WCAG 2.0: all content, functions, interface components and controls on a site should be understandable and operable.
.net: Are clients becoming more demanding?
RC: Yes, I think clients are more demanding, but this isn’t a negative thing. They’re quite right to want results from their online investments, the same as they would expect from any marketing channel.
.net: What do you guys get up to outside the office?
RC: The majority of people here are in their 20s or early 30s, so it’s a fairly young team. We’re often out partying together. A Friday night out is a regular occurrence. One of our project leaders is the (selfproclaimed) ‘hardest-working DJ in Gothenburg’, so we can often be found blagging our way into the nightclub he plays at. The same project leader is also a magician, so he keeps us entertained! Many members of the team enjoy their sports, and quite a lot of them train together at the gym nearby, trying to inspire each other to lose the ‘web design physique’ that can so easily afflict people in our industry!
Comments
Steffan / 11/11/2007 / 01:34
These guys have changed name to Cordovan Digital and seriously increased their capabilities... make no mistake, this is a company who will be replacing the traditional advertising agencies in Sweden in the future...
The Pied Pipes / 02/01/2008 / 14:10 / http://mypipeline.co.uk/blog
Is it so difficult to put a hyperlink to the agency's site up there?
