It may sound like a true Wellington cliché, but it’s hard to escape the smell of roasted coffee when you work directly above a cafe. So it’s no surprise when coffee is the first thing RICHARD EDGE, Director of PlasticStudio wants to head out for when I visit him at his premises – above the Lido Café.

PlasticStudio is a creative company specialising in websites and branding, but that alone isn’t what sets it apart. Edge’s business philosophy is unique for taking the values and qualities of pure craftsmanship and placing them in a modern IT context. It’s less about taking in as much business as possible and pushing through an average mass-produced product. It’s more about, “making websites that people love. That is what we strive for within each project and is the measure of success,” claims Edge.

When he explains the creation of PlasticStudio, it sounds like the ‘big-bang’ theory of the bursting dotcom bubble. “I went to work for quite a big dotcom company working on flash projects, which was the new technology of the time. When the company went bust, it blew apart and split into five or six successful IT companies. And that’s pretty much where PlasticStudio started.”

PlasticStudio has around ten regular ‘bread and butter clients’ extending out to clients on a one off basis. Projects, are personally handled by Richard and contractors make up additional staff numbers on an ‘as needed’ basis, allowing PlasticStudio to stretch and adapt depending on the size of the project. According to Edge different projects require different skills “so if we need a gun-programmer, flash programmer, animator or illustrator in a certain area we bring them on board.”

Edge is happy to stay small, and in his opinion, “the bigger you grow the more likely you are to drop the ball and stop delivering the real value your client initially went with you for, such as an individual approach or losing the ‘hand crafted’ feel of the product. All that stuff goes out the door when you take on too many projects. So it’s no sweatshop here with people knocking stuff out, everything has a considered approach. We intend to stay specialised and on the innovative and creative side of things.”

“We don’t believe in a one size fits all approach,” to creating a website, instead PlasticStudio focuses on the clients requirements. In return the clients are “dealing directly with the people who are working on their projects, there’s not the big lunches out [which can be disappointing for some clients] nor a hierarchy of account managers to deal with,” he admits. According to Edge, “There’s a fear that all web developers babble technical jargon and don’t listen.” Edge appears to have foot in both worlds – talking ‘geek’ when needed and translating this into understandable terms to achieve a client’s needs.

“We’re pretty old fashioned in that sense, it’s not about the latest gadgets, it’s about the content and the message there-in.” PlasticStudio works with clients they feel have a good fit with their own work philosophy. Edge is certainly not an elitist, explaining that finding the ‘right business’ from a creative point of view is as simple as asking, ‘can we add value for them?’ He also maintains that content, not technology or software is the real value of what is created on a website.

Taking a unique view on building websites, Edge believes in open source philosophy instead of locking into expensive software. “As far a technology goes, there are a lot of software focused companies out there selling their latest gadgets upgrades and peddling mass produced products. But if you just tap into the open source market it’s already there, technology and software is at a point where it is the easiest part of the project. Your hardest decision should be what goes on your home page not what website package and software you have to choose to run it. When creating a website it’s important to remember essentially clients don’t care what is running your website, they’re there to get your message.”

From a business perspective Edge tells us websites are become more personalised. They are changing, from autonomous websites to ones where you know there is a person on the other end. ‘About Us’ is becoming a hugely popular section as more people become interested in finding out who are the faces and people behind a company. The ‘about us’ section is now getting as much traffic as some of the popular products section. He calls it the ‘end of the corporate curtain.’

“You now have social networks and people want to deal with individuals and build relationships. For example most CEO’s now have blogs where they talk about interesting things that shows they are passionate experts within their field. Ten years ago organisations hid their CEO’s away and sent occasional media releases about that person. It’s becoming a scenario of ‘these are the people involved and this is who you are talking to – It’s putting a human face to the organisation.”

Draining his short black, his final words are for businesses considering the ‘were to or what next’ for their websites is whatever you do, “now is a perfect time to increase the communication and connect back with your clients”. In the current economic climate, “you need to get back in front of them before your competitors do!”