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The problem with this question is you assume there is a "solution." All we attempt to offer are "responses."
As the economic climate has changed, web shops have realised that their value is now based on their margins rather than on head count. This has forced them to create concrete systems to increase "efficiency." The web world has become about mass manufacturing, rather than challenging and evolving the status quo.
My point is that projects are not homogeneous, so responses cannot be replicable. Factories are built to mass produce, not innovate. Creative work is about finding the appropriate mix for a particular project, not finding a rule that you can apply to everything. The other issue we are obsessed by at tomato interactive is interaction, or to be more specific "reaction".
It's not necessary to be a techno wiz to make a significant contribution to web development.
To ignore the medium is fatal, so some knowledge is necessary, but to get overly obsessed with form is another dead end.
What absolutely kills a website for you?
Arrogance. What I find exciting about the web is its potential to depart from the old publishing model (monologue) to one of dialogue. Most developers ignore this as most clients do not want to talk, they want to tell. This is why so little of (tomato's) commercial work has been web-based as we are not interested in this model.
The web is not a network built around a few key points, but the centre is everywhere and the simple point is that people are more interesting than corporate messages or web developers trying to show off.
sissyfight and isketch are two pieces that make my point about the network and are good examples of the kind of work we would want to be working on.
What's in a name in this business?
Nothing. In my opinion tomato is a silly name, but it doesn't matter…It's what you invest into a word.
Concerned with developing true interactivity in digital design, tomato interactive's Tom Roope has worked on numerous high profile international projects including Levi's CD ROM / Shockwave Site and Interactive window displays in Europe, online animations for MTV Awards 1999 and an online tour site for Massive Attack.
For his efforts, he has received a plethora of internationally coveted accolades. Roope lectures part-time at the Royal College of Art and the University of Westminster, and has served as a visiting lecturer at Space Invaders and the Koling School of Art in Denmark, the Lausanne School of Art in Swizerland and Coventry University.
www.tomato.co.uk
