Who Are We

HOW ARE WE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER WEB DESIGN COMPANIES?

How did we get here?

Get to know Gina Fiedel & Doug Anderson, Principals

Marketing & Communication

We create websites in a thoughtful, artful manner. That means that when you work with us you will gain an authentic anchoring hub for your marketing and communication on the web and the experience getting there will be different than it would be with other web development and web design firms.

We work in close collaboration with our clients. No surprises.

In tandem with strategic planning and constructing a clear communication of identity for each of our clients, we demonstrate their essence, character and strengths in the environment of their website. All the while, strongly considering the needs of our clients’ clients and customers. We bundle it up into well planned, smart, artfully presented websites.

Our rule of thumb is that design (form) follows function (usability) and purpose.

We are invested in communicating our clients’ identity through their web properties, we also make sure to balance that with the following imperative: That the client’s resulting website offers up what it is that their client or customer needs and is looking for. User experience is pivotal; the way in which the message is received by their client or customer, primary.

We’ve been here, calling ourselves Fat Eyes since 1998.

We are the nucleus of Fat Eyes. Founding owners, Gina Fiedel and Doug Anderson.

How It Started

In the beginning, we were hoping to make what we projected to be a modest, simple contribution to the success of small businesses and non-profits. We’d both had substantial careers in the fine arts, moved on from the art world and then spent a number of years engaged in various collaborative creative digital media projects. Digital video, animation, 3D, illustration, storytelling. The plan was to use our skills in fine art and design built over decades of experience and combine them with what we’d learned immersed in the world of digital media. The world of business looked a bit dreary and we thought we could somehow make a difference. This promised an exciting if vague potential.

It Was Our Clients Who Showed Us What Was Needed.

It didn’t take long for the dawning “aha” moment to bring it all into crystal clear focus all those years ago. The platform of the web was where we could help most and do our best work. We would create websites as a way of combining everything we’d experienced and learned: Visual craft and creative media added to pointed investigation, good planning, and solid programming to create sites that make sense, express our clients’ identity authentically, speak to their customers and clients. And at the same time have heart and look great.

We got hooked. We love the work. The service.
We love collaborating with our clients, each other and our team.
Expressing for our clients proved to be very exciting after decades of expressing ourselves.

The Web Changed & So Did We

What we hadn’t quite realized back in the beginning (it was 1998, after all) was the tremendous import. The power and deep potential of a company website. The absolute necessity of it.

The web is a very different place than it was when we started and today, needs have changed. Developing a strong online presence involves a number of aspects that require awareness, balance and consistency.

We look at the website as a living, breathing entity in itself; one that has an organic relationship with the entity it is owned by and is continually evolving. The organization informs the website and the website informs the organization in a continual communication cycle.

This is why our approach is to combine strategic and sophisticated web solutions to create websites that offer better, more authentic and effective communication, sales and marketing tools for our clients and their audience, buyers, clients.

Here’s More About The Design Difference We Offer:

Both graduates of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, our formal visual training began ages ago. This means we’ve accumulated a long track record as practicing visual artists and designers with national and international exhibitions, sales, grants, awards, articles, catalogs and reviews. Our work is represented in museums and private collections worldwide.

Life (and success) in the competitive contemporary art world gave us skills that inform our ability not only to create web sites, but also to discern, interact with and support our clients’ needs.

It All Adds Up To Fat Eyes

Art-making on a professional level is not solely about making pretty pictures or objects; it requires clear intention, accepting critique, listening, dialogue, determination and perseverance, delivering the goods.

These are critical skills in the art world and they are also critical skills for running a web design company. At Fat Eyes, we use what we’ve learned.

Learn more about our philosophy and team.

Fat Eyes was fabulous in helping Storyteller Children’s Center develop its new website. …I would strongly recommend them to any organization seeking to develop an attractive and effective web design.

Denise Hinckle, Director of Development, Storyteller Children’s Center, Santa Barbara, CARead the full review