I had a thought this morning in the shower.

Here at M.E we’ve been talking about our site redesigning. It’s definitely in the works and will be happening soon. It’s hard to find time for your internal work when you’ve got so many other things coming in. I was in Florida last week and Ryan asked me to be thinking about things we could incorporate into our new site. I tried, but the sun got in my eyes and I kind of forgot about it until this morning!

This morning I got to thinking about a local agency’s site I had gone to. The site looked decent but when I mentioned the agency’s name to another advertising/design friend he gave me a dirty look as if to say, “no no no, that’s a bad place.”

It hit me this morning, that whole phrase about judging a book by its cover. Does that rule still apply? Especially for a designer? Honestly I wouldn’t read a book if it had an ugly cover. That being the case, I’d never want to use an agency that had an ugly site.

This may be unfair because in the above story the agency had a nice site and apparently crappy work. Some agencies have terrible sites but great work. It just depends I suppose. For me the site of an agency is very important. Here are some things I look for in an agency site:

Timeless design

I realize that’s a bit vague but let me explain. It’s like a timeless logo really. There are basic design principles, such as the use of a grid, that should always last. No matter what the trend is in design (gradients, peeling stickers, shadows, highlights, etc) certain things will always be viewed, at least by myself, as good elements of design. Agencies who change their site to merely reflect a trend don’t really impress me. I just see it as oh, you took note of what everyone else was doing and did it too, way to go!

Work

I came to your agency site to see what you can do. If I can’t find a link to your portfolio or work within about 30 seconds then your site has failed. Your a an ad or design agency, let’s see what you can do!

People

I want to see who works with you. What you’re position is in the company, who your owner is, all of that good stuff. This staff section lets me know a little more about the internal vibe of the agency and whether or not they’d be good to work with on a project.

Some Interesting Thing

Something neat, something cool, just a small thing. I don’t want it to overwhelm me. Just do something really awesome that let’s me know you can think outside the box. Self promotional pieces are usually a great place to show this.

So Should You Judge An Agency By Its Site?

Maybe, maybe not. Just like a book’s cover, an agency’s website is a great starting point to make some sort of judgment call.

Be on the lookout for our new site, we’re probably just going to have to use our nights and weekends to get that done.

-Don

Filed under: Artsy Fartsy by don
No Comments »