Artistic Group - Creative director Lee Egstrom, right, began his company, AV Web Designs, in 1996. With Egstrom is his creative team, from left, Anthony Uriarte, Melvin Alfaro and Thomas Martinez

AV Web Designs' a little different

By LINDSAY HYMAS
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER - The open, sunlit room, modern furniture and abstract art dotting the walls reflect AV Web Designs' sleek, cutting-edge image.

"We're a little different," admitted Lee Egstrom, creative director and owner of the company. "I shoot for having an L.A. or New York feel - we like to offer the quality of a major advertising firm."
The young entrepreneur started his career as a musician, took an interest in Web design and soon found himself working for a large design firm, where he worked on Fortune 500 accounts like Disney, Motorola and AIG.

Now, at 32, he owns a successful design firm with clients in the Valley as well as in New York, San Francisco, L.A. and other big cities.

His innovative business offers Web design, logo, identity and branding, Web application development, interactive entertainment/online video games, Internet video production and DVD, CD and interactive CD ROM duplication.

Six team members run the show: one member specializes in 3-D visualization and video post production effects, two members focus on database and application development, one focuses on Web design and content integration and another team member focuses solely on content integration.

Egstrom works on graphic design - the look and feel of the Web site. He meets with clients to discuss their goals, then takes their ideas through the process of design development and deployment to an actual tangible product, he said.

"I steer the ship, but it's not all about me. At the end of the day, not much goes through here that hasn't been touched by the other team members," he said.

New advances in the industry create limitless possibilities for the team's creativity.

"After all these years, we've finally come to a point where broadband is readily available," Egstrom said.

"We can now create immersive Web sites that utilize video, audio and animation to guide users through the site. This helps us to achieve the goals that we outline during our initial meetings with clients."

One such advancement that Egstrom and his team have utilized is video avatar - a live action video within the Web site that speaks to viewers and draws them into the content.

This and other creative ideas have won the company several national awards and recognitions, including 3

bronze medals in the Horizon Interactive Awards, the Cool Homepages Award and the Best New Idea recognition in the auto industry.

"I don't feel like high traffic to a Web site is necessarily important, if visitors aren't converting into customers," Egstrom said.

"Success of a Web site can only be quantified by first defining goals for the site. Once we define the goals, then we review the site" to see if it has met the goals, he said.

If it has, then the site is successful no matter how many hits it receives.

The 32-year-old entered the Web industry by chance.

As a musician, Egstrom said he realized that the Internet was going to change the entire music and entertainment industry.

"I could see that the Internet was the key to leveling the playing field," Egstrom said.

He created a Web site for his group that gained so much popularity that friends and businesses urged Egstrom to design Web pages professionally. So at 20, Egstrom entered the world of Web design as a free lancer, spreading his name by word of mouth.

He sought an internship with a local company, HTML Wizards, to learn the ins and outs of graphic design. A month-long excursion at an entertainment company in London helped Egstrom realize he wanted to pursue Web design as a career.

Upon returning, the talented young man soon landed a job at Passinglane Inc., a leading provider of innovative on-line products and services, in West Los Angeles. He started out as an entry level designer and apprenticed directly under Nicholas Le'Clerque, an experienced interactive designer and developer from France.

The rookie worked directly with Disney Interactive Group to generate new Web site content for Disney.com, ToonDisney.com and Zoog Disney, including six Web sites, interactive CD ROM, and more than 30 Flash-based video games. He designed and implemented content for Disney Channel and ABC shows "Even Stevens" and "So Weird," and worked on projects for stars such as William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy, Kevin Smith and Stan Lee, the co-creator of the "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" comics.

While at Passinglane, "I advanced my design skills as well as developed strong principles of the backbone and technology that goes into developing a Web site that not only looks good but functions well," he said.

By the time he left, Egstrom was the creative director of the company, overseeing the design of branding and media for clients, the person ultimately responsible for the quality of the final creative work.

In 2001, with guidance from his friend and local business owner, Ron Emard, and with support from his wife, Egstrom took the entrepreneurial plunge and focused full time on his fledgling company, AV Web Designs.

He started out of a small office in Palmdale and in 2005 moved the business to its current location at 725 West Lancaster Boulevard.

Read More Company News