who we are about us

Durrani Design is a full service creative design agency providing graphic design and web design services to Encinitas, Carlsbad, the greater San Diego County area and nationwide.

Durrani Design is located in sunny Southern California, in a little surf town called Solana Beach. Our offices are situated in the artistic and diverse Cedros Design District, just a stones throw from the ocean.

Founded in early 2007, Durrani Design specializes in creative graphic design and website development for businesses of all sizes. The management team at Durrani has a combined experience of over 20 years in the web development, graphic design, and internet technology industries.

We pride ourselves on staying informed of the latest trends and techniques in order to keep our clients in pace with their customers and their competition. At Durrani, we have a saying, that we don't sell graphic designs, we sell graphic design services.

Every client is different and we don't provide templates, we provide solutions and we are always available to consult with our clients on what is important to their specific business. Our business is making your business better.

the team

The team at Durrani is an eclectic mix of talented people who have all “bought in” to the vision and culture of the company.  The hiring motto at Durrani is "We don't hire resumes, we hire the right people."

Who are the right people for Durrani? They are people who fit into where the company is headed, which means that they are forward-thinking, growth-focused, and service-oriented. It means that they are fun and relaxed people who are also diligent workers. The people who work here are able to laugh at themselves, and occasionally at each other (in a good way). They are people who celebrate good surf, go to yoga class before work, ride beach cruisers to the office (and, occasionally, in the office), hang out over a pot of good (or sometimes not-so-good) coffee, enjoy "fast food Fridays" together, and answer to the name "awesome". Durrani people are people who love what they do.

In short, the team at Durrani is an all-star group consisting of experts in strategy, design, copywriting, web development, flash development, marketing, and project management. Each person is committed to his or her specific role, committed to the collective effort of the group as a whole, and above all else committed to the process of building effective results for our clients.

MANAGING PARTNERS

Joe McDonald

Joe is the technical mastermind behind Durrani's success. Ambitious and driven, he treats his clients' business as if they were his own – a quality that makes him extremely good at what he does. Joe's passion for his work and his ability to think outside the box have endeared him to his clients, and his employees love that he still maintains the delicate balance between focused and fun in the office.

 

 

Though Joe didn't get to this position overnight, as with most small business owners, he has worn many hats along the way. Since graduating from Norwich University with a degree in Management Information Systems, he has always been at home behind a computer. Before entering the business world, Joe worked as a police officer and also served as an Armor Captain in the U.S. Army. After leaving the military, he jumped head first into the Seattle dot com Internet boom of the early 2000s and worked as VP of Information Systems and Internet Technologies for several startups. Before starting Durrani, Joe also worked as a freelance web developer and photographer with work featured in publications such as 944 Magazine.

Joe in his own words…

Q: Why did you start Durrani?
A: I've always had the entrepreneurial itch and have worked for many start-ups, but each time it was working for someone else's vision and ideas. After a while you just realize it's time to do your own thing and you hope that you've seen enough along the way to know what works and what doesn't. Before Durrani, we were always under the control of someone who may not have shared the same creative direction as us. We wanted to create an agency with a personality all our own and provide work for our clients that we really believed in. We wanted to be in control of the creative direction of the company from all sides.

Q: What are your short-term goals for Durrani? Long-term goals?
A: Our short term goal is to continue to provide quality solutions to our clients and build our team in the right direction. We want to continue to find those clients that really appreciate the work we can do for them. In the long term we want to maintain a reputation as a top-notch design agency that is both current on design trends and responsive to client needs. We don't want to be the largest creative agency, just one of the best.

Q: What would you say is your "superpower" or something interesting about you?
A: I don't think anyone has specific super powers greater than any others; it's just about staying focused and not giving up. Some say having a successful business is just waking up every day and opening the doors. You do that long enough and one day you wake up and your business has made it. On the personal side, I would say a strength is probably my technical knowledge. I love digging in to find a solution to a problem especially if it involves technology. I always tell clients, it's not whether it can be done, its how. There are so many gadgets, services and software products hitting the market every day that there's always a solution. I think many of our clients have come to rely on us as problem-solvers and not just their designers and developers. We take their business seriously and invest the time to get things done right. At other companies I have worked for, the management meetings focused around how much we were billing clients instead of what great work we were doing for them. With Durrani, I promised myself that we would give our clients solutions, not invoices.

Matt Harding

Matt's desk chair sits under a collection of skate decks that he has skillfully designed, and for some, hand-painted. They are there partly because–lets be honest–it looks sweet, and partly as a reminder of the journey that brought him to this point. As the owner and creator of a successful skateboard company, Matt was awarded Outside Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002.

Matt's entrepreneurial spirit is matched by his creativity. Always designing, he went from producing skate decks to freelancing as a graphic designer, to working in a more corporate setting when he took a job as the VP of Abtech Creative Group. At Durrani, both Matt and Joe set out to create a fun and relaxed atmosphere where the feel is less corporate suit-and-tie and more skate-to-work. They succeeded in doing this and while still maintaining a culture of professionalism… proving that the hybrid of fun and work is in fact possible, and that like most things the attitude must start at the top.

 

Matt in his own words…

Q: Briefly describe yourself.
A: I am passionate about design, ambitious, and dedicated to business and family. I love competition and really enjoy being around and working with people who are willing to try. I don't want to go through life always wondering "what if?", you have to keep pushing for success.

Q: Why did you start Durrani?
A: We've been doing this a long time so it was only natural that we eventually branched off on our own. We wanted to become one of the leading design agencies in San Diego, even in Southern California. Our goal is always to truly provide a superior product and real results for all of our clients – in the business of being creative and thinking of new ideas for our clients, it truely is a case where their success is our success.

Q: Describe the synergy between you and Joe as business partners.
A: We have an unbelievable balance of technical and creative. We've been working together for years, and we definitely complement each other in all facets of business. We are Yin and Yang for sure.

Q: What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment in the business-realm?
A: Owning and operating my own business for almost a decade. Being a people-person and being able to grow and maintain good relationships with clients.

Q: How about outside the business-realm?
A: Having the best relationship with my wife and balancing my life and business with my marriage.

Q: What would you say is your "superpower"?
A: My drive, determination, and loyalty to those who support me. I'm never fake or pretend I can do anything that I just can't. I just leave the things I can't do up to Joe.