Digital agency

What does a digital agency do?

A digital agency designs and builds the digital places where customers meet a brand, such as websites, ecommerce, design systems and motion. At IW Agency, Digital is one part of Full Circle, alongside Strategy, Design, Comms and Innovation. Every website we build starts from the brand strategy and identity, so customers meet the same brand online as everywhere else. We decide what each project includes together with you.

Web design and ecommerce

For many brands, the website or online store is where most customers meet them. A project can cover structure, design and content. It can also cover the moments in the purchase journey that should be recognisable at once, such as the home page, the product page and the checkout. The aim is an experience that clearly belongs to your brand, so customers remember where they bought. Read more on how to make ecommerce feel premium.

Design systems

A design system gathers components, typography, colours and rules in one place. With it, teams can produce new pages, campaigns and markets without the brand drifting apart. The work can mean building a new system or pulling an existing one back together. Here is more on when a design system pays off.

Motion and animated identity

Motion design is the work on how the logo, typography and transitions move in interfaces, film and social channels. A project can produce motion principles, an animated logo and templates your team can use on its own. With them, people still recognise the brand when it moves.

AI visibility and GEO

Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the work on how ChatGPT and other AI assistants describe and recommend a brand. We usually begin by asking the assistants about your brand and noting what they say today. From there, the work moves to the website, so every page describes the brand clearly and consistently. Read about how brands show up in ChatGPT.

Selected work

The three cases below cover ecommerce as a brand experience, a public conversation about AI and a new brand in data. In each one, the digital work starts from the brand.

Nordic Nest

For Nordic Nest, the brief was to turn Designonline.com from a generic online shopping platform into an online store with a clear premium feel, one that design lovers seek out. The whole experience is built on the brand, from how the range is presented to how the store looks and sounds. It is our clearest example of a digital project built from the brand outwards.

Google

As AI gained more influence over public debate, Google wanted to take part in Almedalen, Sweden's annual political week, with a more human perspective on technology. Our brief was to give Google a place in the conversation about AI at Almedalen. Visitors had to be able to recognise themselves in it.

Epical

Enfo decided to demerge part of its organisation to form a new, leading data consultancy. Our task was to create Epical as a brand built on trust, because trust is what clients look for when they hand over their data.

There are more examples among all our cases.

How do we approach a digital project?

A digital project starts from the brand and leads to the finished experience. The steps adapt to what you need:

1. Brand first. The digital experience should express the same thing as the rest of the brand. If there is no clear brand platform, that work may need to come first.

2. A review of what exists. When we renew an established brand, we first go through every asset, such as the logo, colours and typefaces. For each one we decide whether to keep it, refine it or complement it with something new, before anything is redrawn.

3. Concept and prototype. The idea becomes a clickable prototype that real users can test before it is built out.

4. Design and design system. The concept becomes pages, components and rules that hold across channels.

5. Implementation and follow-up. We follow both existing customers and the new ones you want to reach. A renewal that wins one group but loses the other counts as a failure for us.

Why choose IW Agency as your digital agency?

IW was founded in 1992 as Identity Works and changed its name to IW Agency in May 2025. It is still the same company. Around 50 people work across Strategy, Design, Comms, Digital and Innovation, so the same agency develops the brand strategy, the visual identity and the website. From our office in Stockholm, we work with clients across Sweden, the Nordics and internationally.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a digital agency and a web agency?

A web agency mainly builds websites. A brand-led digital agency starts with what the brand should stand for and lets that guide design, content and technology choices. A web agency is enough if your brand is already clear and you need a new platform. When the experience also has to strengthen the brand, brand and digital work best in the same agency.

How much does a digital agency cost?

Scope sets the price. The biggest factors are the number of page templates, markets and languages. Integrations with the ecommerce platform, stock systems and payment also add significant cost. A design system built from scratch costs more, as does renewing the identity at the same time. A clearly defined first phase makes it easier to give an exact price.

How long does a new website or online store take?

Time depends on the same factors as price. Content and integrations usually drive the timeline more than design does. Producing copy, images and product data in parallel with the design shortens the project. If the identity has to be renewed first, the whole project takes longer.

Does the brand need to be finished before the website is built?

The positioning and the key visual elements should be decided first. Otherwise the website becomes the place where brand decisions get made after the fact. Sometimes both can happen in the same project, as long as the strategy stays ahead of the design.

Can a new website make a brand visible in AI assistants?

It can give the assistants better material to work with. That requires a website that states what the brand does, who it is for and what proof backs it up, in plain language and consistently on every page. Read more on what a company website needs in the AI era.

How do you get started with a digital agency?

The first step is to describe what the digital experience should do for the brand and which customers it should reach. From there, you can decide the scope and the order of work. To talk about your next digital project, write to us at hello@iwagency.com.