Name:
Alan Najman

Company:
sitegeist, Inc.

Job title:
Principal | Chief Creative

Services:
Corporate Identity Systems, Branding, Logos, Illustration, Web Design & Development, eCommerce, Character Development, Original Artwork, Typography

Practising since:
1994

Country:
United States

City:
Aventura, FL

URL:
www.sitegeist.net

Email:
Alan

Selected client list:
Missy & Jack
Ohr Menachem Congregation
Temple Emanu-El: The South Beach Synagogue
Bancentro, Grupo La Fise

Success Story:
Rum and Form (space and shape) the official magazine of Danish Designers.

Spirit of Miami
By Mikkel Sonne, graphic designer MDD

Generally speaking, graphic designers own homepages are rather boring. At least the Danish. Some web pages show only the address where others are designed as if they were a printed brochure. It's sad to see 'creative' people be so little creative when they are to design the most vital advertising of them all: Their own. Let's look at the background colours for starters: Danish designers use almost always black or white, continuing all the way through. One wonders why, considering the web to be the only medium where the colours are free.

Recently, I was in Miami to meet with sitegeist, Inc., a company specialising in graphic design on the Internet. I found them - of course - on the net, where their homepage instantly draw my attention. I was not the only one, since this, the company's most important - and only - advertising draws more and more clients.

sitegeist's web designs prove that they think www. The standard of the graphic design is high, and they display an easy-going and playful attitude towards the medium. Carefully avoiding the standard Internet clichés (scrollbars all over, pointless and heavy animations, loud colours) sitegeist takes advantage of the strengths of the medium thus managing to create an unexpected entertainment value. One navigates almost intuitively through their pages, instead of the usual brochure-on-the-net-way. And the use of colour, rich and warm, is both appealing and welcome.

Take for instance the homepage of Bettimi’s Cakes, where the use of colour has made it one among the most recognised. The page has an almost cake-like-eat-me feel to it, is very easy to navigate and a true feast for the eye.

The legal firm of Brotman & Nusbaum hired Sitegeist to create their total visual identity: Logotype, printed material and web page. The result is serious but with a refreshing contemporary flair. For myself, I can only wish to find a Danish law firm with the same appealing design next time I get a petition!

An e-mail address and a telephone number only list sitegeist, because the company is a design studio without a regular street address. The partners Shana Kruger and Alan Najman both work from their homes, they communicate online and only meet in person once or twice a week. The company has no staff, but works closely with an umbrella of subcontractors such as programmers and typeface designers. The finished work that seems to be the work of one person only, may in fact be the work of many professionals. Some of their associates work locally, some nationally and some even internationally. Some of these have never actually met Shana and Alan. The Internet works globally and allows people to sit in Miami and work with people in Hong Kong. They assure me that they always look for new free lance associates, who are able to work under theses special circumstances. Client meetings are done on the phone, by e-mail, at the client's or someplace else.

Both Shana and Alan are trained graphic designers, and they worked doing more traditional design when they decided to start their web-based company 1 1/2 years ago. They both felt the importance to get involved in this new medium. The way sitegeist works can very well be the way of the future. Meeting Shana and Alan made me think that there is little hindrance for me to do my work in a cottage in the country or on Time Square, whatever I wish.

A bigger and bigger part of graphic design will be designed for the Internet, and will call for a greater deal of flexibility. Things can - and will - be changed from day to day, and will allow us to work together, across the old fashioned and well-known national boundaries.

It is a challenge that a Danish client in the future may well choose to work with companies like sitegeist. Around the world there are plenty of highly skilled designers who are able to do 'our' work, almost always for a price we cannot compete with. It certainly will be interesting to see how Danish designers will go about this challenge. One can only hope it won't be with black and white as backgrounds!