Press For the Agency

Smash Climate Change

This article is courtesy of The Vancouver Sun (download the original).

 

An online green initiative has helped Vancouver-based interactive design firm smashLAB gain the type of international exposure many companies can only dream of.
"There's not a lot of work so far because of it," said company co-founder Eric Karjaluoto in an interview about his company's recognition by Time magazine in its Design 100 edition - the magazine's annual roster of people and ideas behind today's most influential design. "But it will help us close deals. It's like a stamp of approval."
smashLAB is an interactive design firm that specializes in online communication and the best ways to use digital media. Interactive design and Web development are specialties of the company.

Karjaluoto, who was in Boston at a design conference this week, said design is probably the single most important attribute of any company. "It's the spot that makes people passionate about a product."

What caught Time's attention is a website smashLAB came up with called www.designcanchange.org which is aimed at encouraging the world's graphic designers to use their influence and buying power to combat climate change by changing their professional and personal practices.

In its first year, over 1,500 designers pledged to embrace more sustainable professional practices like cutting back on printing annual reports. The site has received hundreds of thousands of visits.

Karjaluoto and business partner Eric Shelkie - both in their mid-30s - are from Prince George, where they launched the agency in 2000 before moving to Vancouver in 2003.

 

Karjaluoto, the company's creative designer, was a painter who studied at the Emily Carr Institute before focusing on design. Shelkie, the technical director, oversees the planning, implementation and operation of server environments and website hosting.

 

Clients include CN Rail, the University of Northern B.C., Tax and Estate Planning Group, the City of Prince George, BC Hydro and Thompson Okanagan Tourism.

 

Like many entrepreneurs, Karjaluoto and Shelkie had no background in business.
"Our first project we made $400, about $2 an hour," said Karjaluoto. "And we took the hardest path, in Prince George, during a recession and after the dot-com bubble had burst."

Karjaluoto said long hours are the norm. "Last week, I worked 89 hours. There's slow winds, but you just have to keep working at it."

He said diversification is also very important. "We're not overly fixed on one particular industry, so we're not so vulnerable."

Shelkie agreed in an interview that perseverance is key to building a company. "Also, it's good to have a good partner. If it was either of us on our own, we would have given up."

Shelkie said smashLAB had $350,000 in revenue in 2006 and has projected revenues of $750,000 for 2008.

He said sales were way down in 2007, because they made changes and pulled back to develop new self-directed concepts and website ideas, including designcanchange and Makefive.com, a website that allows people to voice opinions on topics.

 

Shelkie said designcanchange wasn't meant to be a moneymaker. "That was our biggest money-losing venture we've ever taken on. But it was a cause dear to our hearts."

bmorton@png.canwest.com

smashLAB
Year launched: 2000
Number of employees: six (including founders Eric Karjaluoto and Eric Shelkie)
Total revenues in 2006: $350,000

Projected revenues in 2008: $750,000

Total money made on first project: $400