The Beginning (1994)

We like to point out that we go back all the way. Founder Jim Carnicelli learned about the World Wide Web in the first week that Netscape went public with its very first web browser. He instantly saw the potential the Web held and began learning HTML. In short order, he was even writing software to turn raw data into web pages.

Somewhere along the line, someone got the idea to archive the history of the web, and the Wayback Machine was born. Sadly, all of Jim's original design work, some of it completed over a decade ago, is no longer online. The earliest example of his web design found in the archive dates from 1996:

Yeah, we gag when we look at it, too. But this was when there were many different web browsers with few standards. Even HTML tables were not typical, yet. This was high design in those days. Besides, the site already boasted one of the first mailing lists, message boards, document libraries, product catalogs, and even news blogs to be found on the Web.

Carnell's Founding (1997)

Carnell Information Systems was founded in 1997 with broad ambitions to bring new technology to bear on content provision.

We introduced the world to Seasoned Cooking magazine, the first totally self-service art gallery, a self-service message board system, a web-based opt-in mailing list system, the Internet Developers' Network, a free clip art gallery, and on and on.

It was all largely before its time, and we've let most of that go in favor of a certain sort of Zen simplicity to our business.

Now

It's all so much cleaner, now. We know who we are. We have a small staff of dedicated, talented people. We're still hard core on the latest technologies, but our main focus is on delivering clean, stylish web designs, mostly for small companies.

We're particularly interested in doing low-cost web makeovers. Most companies already have web sites now; it's virtually a requirement for starting a business. But that doesn't mean they look professional from the start. And tastes and expectations change as the years progress and designers get more sophisticated. We've managed to gain some rare talent that lets us improve just about any web site's sense of professionalism. We don't just bring your site up to date. We leapfrog most of the rest of the Web, in terms of style.

This work comes naturally to us. We have the right balance of skills and patience with the technology and aesthetics to make us experts and let us relax, enjoy, and take pride in our work.