Melbourne Web Design Companies.
S.I.M.B. is on a mission to create a definitive list of good Melbourne based web design companies. For each web design firm, we're going to list some important information, such as how long they've been in business for and where they are based. We're also going to make some judgements about how good we think they are (based on a number of criteria).
You might wonder why we'd make this information available to you, given that we're a web design company too. Well, in the end we want to help you as much as we can, and if you don't like our work or our pricing, we might as well make it as easy for you as possible to find another Melbourne based web design firm that does suit your needs.
For each web design company that we're evaluating we'll provide you with:
- The company name.
- How long they've been in business.
- Where they are located.
- Where they currently rank on Google for the term "Melbourne Web Design".
- A rating of the quality of their graphic design.
- A rating of the quality of their html code.
- A direct link to their web site.
We've also give you the opportunity to rank each company based on your own judgement, and provide comments against each firm if you've used them personally. Please understand that we cannot comment on the customer service level or give accurate pricing for each company, as we do not have this information. So without further delay, here's our work so far.
Evolution 7 - Richmond
Web site: www.evolution7.com.au
Address: Studio 5, 100 Dover St, Richmond, Melbourne
Phone: 03 9429-0033
Time in Business: Approx 8 years.
Google Ranking: 1st
Graphic Design Skill: Very Good
Copy/Text Quality: Average
HTML Code Quality: Excellent
Comments: Evolution 7 are doing excellent work, especially from a graphic design point of view. Personally I'd like them to use a bigger font for text on their own site (it's too hard to read). The copy (text) could also more persuasive.
Bliss Media, Carlton
Web site: www.blissmedia.com.au
Phone: 03 9347 3085
Address: 134 Queensberry St. Carlton, Melbourne
Time in Business: 6 Years.
Google Ranking: 2nd
Graphic Design Skill: Excellent
Copy/Text Quality: Very Good
HTML Code Quality: Excellent
Comments: Bliss Media are definitely one of the best design firms that we've seen. They produce attention grabbing work that is also executed with attention to detail.
Get Started, Melbourne
Web site: www.getstarted.com.au
Phone: 1300 554 891
Address: Level 9, 94 Elizabeth St, Melbourne VIC 3000
Time in Business: 9 Years.
Google Ranking: 3rd
Graphic Design Skill: Excellent
Copy/Text Quality: Excellent
HTML Code Quality: OK - home page does not validate to W3C standards
Comments: Get Started are another impressive Melbourne web design firm. Their design skills are excellent, and unlike many other companies, they understand that websites need to have an underlying strategy to succeed.
Salsa Internet, Fitzroy
Web site: www.salsainternet.com.au
Phone: +613 9388 8981
Address: Level 2, 156 George St, Fitzroy, VIC 3065
Time in Business: 5 Years.
Google Ranking: 4th
Graphic Design Skill: Good
Copy/Text Quality: Good
HTML Code Quality: Good, but home page does not validate to W3C standards
Comments: Salsa is a pretty decent web design firm. They could probably benefit from simplifying their home page a bit, as it's a little cluttered for my liking, and they fall into that common trap of making the type too small.
Design Junction - Melbourne
Web site: www.designjunction.com.au
Phone: 03 9686 1528
Address: Suite 607, Level 6, 370 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Time in Business: Unspecified.
Google Ranking: 5th
Graphic Design Skill: Average
Copy/Text Quality: Below Average
HTML Code Quality: Average
Comments: Most of Design Junction's portfolio pieces are visually stronger than their own site, so I'd recommend that they give some love to their own backyard. Their copy is very pretty uninspiring and the HTML code is also using tables everywhere instead of clean semantic markup.
Gee Multimedia, Melbourne
Web site: www.geemultimedia.com.au
Phone: 03 9867 7044
Address: Level 6, 11 Queens Rd, Melbourne, 3004
Time in Business: Unknown.
Google Ranking: 6th
Graphic Design Skill: Very Good
Copy/Text Quality: Average
HTML Code Quality: Average
Comments: Gee Multimedia have done some impressive work, particulary from a graphic design point of view. They also have some big name clients in their portfolio, including Telstra, Birdseye, Canon and Edgel. I didn't however find the text to be very compelling and the text is also too small.
Smashing Time, West Melbourne
Web site: www.smashingtime.com.au
Phone: 03 9328 8811
Address: 100 Railway Place, West Melbourne, 3003
Time in Business: 15 years.
Google Ranking: 7th
Graphic Design Skill: Below Average
Copy/Text Quality: Average
HTML Code Quality: Average
Comments: I was underwhelmed by Smashing Time's design. The front/splash is ok, but the inside section is just a green glob with small copy.
Exa, Melbourne
Web site: www.exa.com.au
Phone: 03 9867 7044
Address: 1186 Toorak Road, Camberwell, Melbourne
Time in Business: 8 years.
Google Ranking: 10th
Graphic Design Skill: Good
Copy/Text Quality: Average
HTML Code Quality: Average
Comments: There can be no denying that Exa are an impressive company and that they have many big name clients. To me graphically they're not quite as sharp as the likes of Bliss, and their text/copy is lacking a bit of mojo.
Efront - Melbourne
Web site: www.efront.com.au
Phone: 1300 337 668
Address: Suite 5 Level 4, 360 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Time in Business: 9 Years.
Google Ranking: Unknown
Graphic Design Skill: Good
Copy/Text Quality: Good
HTML Code Quality: Excellent
Comments: I'd never heard of Efront until recently, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the skills. They posses a good all-round ability to produce websites with clean graphics, sharp copy and excellent underlying code.
Devolution, Murrumbeena
Web site: www.devolution.com.au
Phone: (03) 9563 0195
Address: 11 Erindale St Murrumbeena 3163, Melbourne
Time in Business: Unknown.
Google Ranking: 9th
Graphic Design Skill: Average
Copy/Text Quality: Average
HTML Code Quality: Average
Comments: What is it with web design companies and using an 8 point font?
People need to be able to comfortably read your sales pitch people!! Anyway, Devolution's web site
is not one of my favourites - I find the design and the copy pretty lack lustre.
Low Cost Web Design, Carlton
Web site: www.lowcostwebdesign.com.au
Phone: 03 9700 0422
Address: 17 Lawson Way, Endeavour Hills, Melbourne
Time in Business: 5 Years.
Google Ranking: 17th
Graphic Design Skill: Below Average
Copy/Text Quality: Very Good
HTML Code Quality: Below Average
Comments: Low Cost Web Design do advertise themselves as being a "low cost" company, and it shows. The design and html coding skills are well below that of most of the top ranking companies. That being said, they are sales focused (this is reflected in the copy/text), which is not a bad thing. I really don't like that they have music on their webpage without an obvious "off" button.
