Ethos

At carciofino, the customer calls the shots. We appreciate that without our customers we have nothing. It's you who is commissioning us to supply you with a service that will enhance your business.

We are the facilitators, the consultants, the strategists and the ideas board. You are the client, the yardstick by which our skills must be measured and it is you ultimately who is paying to procure the results that you desire.

We are extremely flexible. We work with clients from sole traders and small local businesses right up to large companies with international presences. We work with design, marketing and advertising agencies acting as their technical backup where their own skillsets finish. We have close links with management consultants, printers and other intermediaries who like to see us as an extra string to their bow.

We are not afraid to tell you what we think. Ultimately it's your website and you can have what you want, but we will tell you if we feel that what you propose is not the most applicable method of utilising the medium available.

Between the members of our network we have over 100 years experience of web design and associated services. Given that the public internet as we know it was only invented in the early 90's that means we have a pretty good head start on most people.

We like websites that look nice - doesn't everybody? But that's not the be all and end all. The primary objective for most of our clients is to have a website as a business tool. You want to make money. Ok maybe not all sites are ecommerce sites, but one way or another, the aim of most businesses and therefore of any of their assets is to increase the company's revenue. To that end there are times when design objectives may have to play second fiddle to marketing ones.

Activities such as gratuitous use of Flash, text as images (to allow the use of some obscure font) or overlarge images that take forever to download will be discouraged as ultimately they will have a negative effect on the success of your site.

We want our customers to make money and have successful websites. We want this for several reasons:

  • You're our customers and we wish you well
  • A happy customer comes back
  • A happy customer recommends you to others
  • A customer earning money from their site will plough some of that back in to future development
  • Happy customers send you wine
  • Happy customers take you out for lunch

We don't advertise at all. There doesn't seem much point. Nearly all our business comes from recommendation and referral - we are only as good as our last happy customer.