Lifelong soccer fan, ergonomist and Englishman Ian Cross started a soccer club based out of Dark Horse Pub in Society Hill a few years after arriving in Philadelphia. When he tore ligaments in his ankle in the mid-1990s, he used his idle recovery time to think about starting his own web design firm.

The result some 13 years later is I-SITE, an award-winning, interactive design and marketing agency. Appropriately, soccer is the theme for I-Site’s home page, which greets visitors with a pictorial how-to on blowing up a soccer ball and features employees in soccer uniforms, a locker room featuring clients and I-SITE’s work, and employee stats on soccer “cards.”

Cross says he wasn’t much of a midfielder in high school, but he’s developed into quite a web design coach. I-SITE has built a reputation of strong individuals forming a talented team that has tackled some interesting projects, most recently a rush-job for NxtUp Philly, a collection of creative people and events in Philadelphia running Oct. 5-16 (including I-SITE’s charity soccer game on Oct. 15 to launch its new website). The project was only formed earlier this summer, but Cross and I-SITE quickly lent their considerable muscle.

“We’re always up for a challenge and we believe in community initiatives,” says Cross. “People who work with us know they’ll get total commitment.”

That has paid off in the form of long-term client relationships, like a 10-year run with the National Dairy Council. Cross, who has no intention of growing I-SITE into a mega-agency, likes being small, limber and feisty, choosing projects that his team can really get behind. I-SITE is anxious to submit to the Apple Store a new application that allows users to follow endangered gorillas in the Congo.

“We have a lot of things people want in an agency,” says Cross. “We know we’re not a fit for everybody and we have no issue with that. The flavor has to be right.”

Source: Ian Cross, I-Site
Writer: Joe Petrucci

Original Article.