History
Spark Design was founded in 2004 by Nick Davies as a specialist design consultancy. Spark Design specialises in contemporary, sophisticated and world-class website design and development. This website is a collection of creative work Spark Design has produced, and represents the kind of collaborative problem-solving that Spark Design delivers to its clients.
Spark's experience includes extensive experience across the lifecycle on web and online projects including: strategy development, audience research, requirements definition and specification, user interface design, information architecture, website design, website development, database design and systems testing. Spark has cross-industry experience in publishing, media, telecommunications, sport, entertainment, government and education.
Nick Davies - Profile
Nick Davies has over 10 years experience in web and multimedia design and development. Nick completed a bachelor of Applied Science in Multimedia Technology at Melbourne's Swinburne University. Subjects studied included Principles of Design for Electronic Media, Human Computer Interaction, Design for Multimedia, and Advanced Web Development.
Nick worked at Melbourne's Acumen Multimedia from 1999 to 2001 whilst completing his degree. Acumen Multimedia were veterans in the industry in Melbourne, having been providers of electronic content since the early eighties. Whilst at Acumen, Nick worked on the development of database-driven web and multimedia applications and the user-interface design on a number of projects. Clients worked with included: City of Melbourne, RMIT, Telstra, the Shire of Yarra Ranges and various local and state government departments.
In Mid-2001, Nick moved to Europe for travel and further work experience. He started work at North London's Deal Group Media in late 2001. Deal Group Media is a world-leading online marketing group. Nick's role at Deal Group included the design and development of a web-based ad-serving software solution. The software was designed to handle a huge amount of traffic delivering over 600 million banner impressions per month for merchants on publisher's websites. Clients included MSN, BT, William Hill, Dialaphone and Lycos.
In early 2003, Nick moved to The Hague, Netherlands for a contract with US firm Edocs for the development of an on-line billing system for KPN Telecom. Following that contract Nick stayed on in the Netherlands working with world-leading publisher Reed Elsevier in delivering scientific and medical journals online.
Returning to Australia in early 2004, Nick started Spark Design in a response to the growing demand for web projects from his colleagues and network.
Nick currently works as web designer and producer at Tennis Australia in Melbourne. Nick's work whilst at Tennis Australia has included the successful Australian Open Tennis website and mobile site that in 2010 received over 10 million unique visitors over the 2 week tournament. In 2010 the Australian Open iPhone application was downloaded over 410,000 times from the iPhone app store. Nick has also designed and produced sites for the Australian Open Series tournaments, as well as websites for Sam Stosur and Jelena Dokic. Nick has also overseen Tennis Australia's social media presence whilst at Tennis Australia included the YouTube channels, Facebook and Twitter
Nick takes on small side-projects with Spark Design whilst working at Tennis Australia. Some of his favourites have included the Medico Legal Society of Victoria, Moneygirl, Accredited First Aid Courses, Bings Chinese Medicine, Bastion Brands and Knowledge Box.
