Looking for a good web design company

looking for some tips to find the best company to work with

[tictoc]

I have been trying to find a good web design company to work with and wonder if anyone has any tips on this... I have gone through a few that are just not very creative or are not good on the technical end of things... it seems hard to find that winning combination.

When I go to their design sites its hard to tell what background of knowledge they have on cutting edge technology and what’s next in what consumers want when they come to a website. I expect a design company to keep up with this. I have used design companies lately who have done a poor mediocre job and I have just not been impressed so please share what you think works best when interviewing them besides the obvious portfolio of sites and information on their website.

[The Contractor]

what background of knowledge they have on cutting edge technology

Unless you are serving multimedia on your site what kind of "cutting edge" technology is required?

Things haven't changed as far as I can see on what to look for in a web development company.

If you are looking for someone to represent your business online.

Look for a company that is honest and ethical.
Understands "business" in general.
Understands your industry and/or asks a lot of questions about your business model.
Doesn't make wild claims and guarantees.
Writes clean code (you won't know this unless you have knowledge).
Uses the right methods for optimization (you won't know this unless you have knowledge).
Integrates good off-the-shelf scripts if required on your site and doesn't try to charge an arm-and-a-leg to reinvent the wheel by writing scripts that are not only less efficient, but probably full of security flaws.

I'm sure there are a lot more… that's just off the top of my head thinking of why most people end up redesigning their site or switching development companies not long after the first incarnation of the site.