The Reference

Founded in 1993, The Reference was the first Belgian Web Agency and a European pioneer. Today it is an established and leading full service agency located in Ghent, Belgium, from where it services its clients internationally. A team of 50 highly qualified professionals explore and extend the borders of strategy, creativity and technology, mixing these heterogeneous skills in attractive, usable and powerful web projects.

The Reference has been doing this for over a decade, so what sets them apart? While the majority of web projects take either technology or the brand's interface as their starting point, The Reference emphasizes on its users and does so in all phases of the projects.

1) The Reference engages both the internal and external stakeholders to streamline objectives and expectations before the actual construction takes off. In this context, The Reference developed a unique methodology, SAFIRA, which results in projects that are well thought through and are bound to be successful.

2) After this conceptual phase, their team of graphic designers, analysts and developers build the project based on the latest state-of-the-art technologies, conform with usability guidelines and see to it that interface and functionality result in a positive user experience.

3) But after building and deploying the project, the true challenge has only just begun: managing and exploiting the site so it goes beyond being a goal, becoming a means to meet the overall objectives as defined in the conceptual phase. That's when Interactive Marketing comes in.

This approach is universal and applies to all types of web projects, regardless of whether the users are clients, employees, partners, the press, etc.