Industry Insight with Ross Riley

Posted 22nd March 2010

Welcome to the Industry Insights section of B-Hive. Over the next few months we will be interviewing some of Birmingham’s most successful PR, Marketing, Creative and Digital professionals – the B-Hive employers!

Today we’re talking to Ross Riley, partner at One Black Bear who is giving top tips for web designers. 

Do you have any basic design rules or tips for web designers?

My main tip would be to ensure your general awareness. You need to work to web standards and we focus on making sure that we don’t use Flash or complex imaging. We also make sure that all of our designers understand the technical background of websites, i.e. how they are made up and put together to ensure we don’t create a purely aesthetic but impractical design. Although it can be quite time consuming this awareness and knowledge of what’s happening behind the scenes can save time in the long run.

Another important part of working in the web industry is to be continually aware of what’s going on in the industry and technology. 

Whilst working in this position what’s the most important thing you’ve learnt?

That’s a good question. Well the most important thing to bear in mind is that at the end of the day we work for our clients and sometimes that involves putting in extra effort to ensure that you create the right design to please them. This client focus can sometimes be lost in this industry with people instead choosing to focus on what can be done technically. First and foremost you need to be familiar with what the client needs as well as possessing a good understanding of what the website needs to deliver. The best way to do this is to try and switch mindsets and think about the needs of the websites regular users and the client users, this may take some time to get your head around but that extra time is definitely well spent. 

From a student perspective whilst it’s important that you pick projects that interest and excite you to showcase, it’s also important to consider your projects from a business point of view. You need to think about what type of user will be using the site, its goals and what funnel the users will step through. These things are important to bear in mind throughout the process as ultimately how you set it up might alter depend on what you want the users to do. 

The Birmingham Post recently reported that the recession may open doors for digital marketing, do you agree with this idea? If so how are you embracing this new business potential?

The recession has definitely opened doors for digital marketing and it’s certainly something that we’ve discussed. The advantage in the digital industry is that everything can be measured, catalogued and feedback to clients is almost instantaneous. For example, if a client wants to know the success of an online ad campaign this can be collated and sent across immediately. This advantage plays a pivotal role now that clients are becoming more cost conscious as they are more likely push money towards marketing that can be easily measured.

Digital marketing also costs a lot less to execute than traditional methods such as print. We are able to take advantage of the viral nature of the internet and the abundance of social media sites as there isn’t much of a cost different between reaching 100 and 1000 people. How you embrace this new business however is all down to the execution, with digital marketing making online campaigns cheaper it’s not a case of whether you can afford to do it but whether you can create something of interest.

From a personal perspective the lack of a cost barrier and the instant feedback has given designers more freedom and potential to try new things. We now have the power to push things forward and if we embrace this potential we have the opportunity to become more productive for clients. 

Keep checking the B-Hive website for the next interview in our series. If you have any questions that you would us to ask the B-Hive employers then please direct message them to our B-Hive twitter at twitter.com/b_hive