The internet’s a place for fantasy. No, not that kind, but of the web design sort. And there’s a studio that wants to take that fantasy even further.

The aptly named Fantasy Interactive is one of the top interactive agencies in the world today, with awards and a huge clientele to prove it.

Starting out as a pure web design company—in, as the stereotype goes, someone’s garage—the agency now provides branding and social media strategies. And that’s not all; Fantasy Interactive pushes new technologies as well, with the blogging platform Kontain being its most popular product.

We speak with the firm’s CEO David Martin and collect his thoughts on the future of web design, the social media zeitgeist and why he thinks we have failed Adobe Flash.

TAXI Fantasy Interactive has come a long way since its small-town beginnings, being named 2008’s Agency of the Year by .net magazine and being nominated for the same award this year. What is the recipe, if there is one, for Fi’s meteoric rise to the top of the heap?

David Martin We formed Fi because the internet was a poor interactive experience. It still is today. Our expectations of what it should be are so high that it creates a natural massive amount of energy and drive towards getting it there.

This creates the side effect of being awarded Agency of the Year, for example. Passion, expectations and the talent at Fi whom share the same vision as I do, seems to be a recipe.

TAXI In 2008, Fi also came in third in Imagine Publishing’s list of most inspiring companies, behind giants Apple and Pixar. What is the essential quality you hope to inspire in other creatives, agencies, and designers alike?

David Martin Quality over quantity and an aspiration to excel or to come work at Fi and help us to continue to do it.

TAXI The use of social media as a marketing and advertising tool is now ubiquitous, and Fi has even developed a platform for this: Kontain Enterprise. Tell us what you think of social media in the advertising sphere and how it should be used.

David Martin Our clients look to us for how to use social media effectively as most web users today spend more time on their social sites than just browsing.

Therefore, you need to be innovative in ways to connect to the smarter web generation today. Most of our clients have a large following on Facebook but use it as a tool to bring users to their own social network space such we have done for Burton and Porsche using Kontain. Their results and connection points are a lot more effective now.

TAXI SEO is the catch-phrase of the current Internet era, and content is tailored to garnering hits and views. What do you think is the most common misconception people have about SEO and content strategy?

David Martin One misconception is that it's easy and the word ‘strategy’ is just fluff. We thought so too at one point, but today we have clearly seen massive impact on our clients traffic after a successful SEO strategy has been executed.

Creating quality content is important, but creating a quality setup is more crucial to the success metric.

TAXI Technologies are constantly changing, but just how much are Fi and the creative industries tied to the technological one?

David Martin We are all tied. An iPad comes out, a client wants an app. Android is now more popular the iOS4 so clients now want an Android app.

However in the case of Flash vs HTML 5, we proactively make recommendations of what and how. The buzz of a new technology makes a small bump but it's just a bump. Flash however is at the end of its glory days because we all failed to use it correctly.

[To read the rest of this interview, click the 'Next' button at the top of this page.]

TAXI eReaders like the iPad and Kindle are changing the way we read books, and for interactive firms like yours, there doesn’t seem to be a better time than the present. How much do you think reading has changed, and how do you see it panning out in the future?

David Martin It's not changing as much as you would think to the point where clients are banging on the door. We have a relationship with Barnes & Noble and while there is some innovation going on there it’s happening at a pace we can all keep up with.

TAXI Between New York and Stockholm, the two cities Fi operates in, which city do you feel is more inspiring from a creative angle?

David Martin Soon it will be three cities—we are opening in California this year. The city doesn’t impact the inspiration, it’s the people in the office and projects we work with.

TAXI Word is, a re-branding of Fi is in the works. Could you share with us a little about what’s in store for Fi?

David Martin We have struggled with the name Fantasy Interactive, for obvious reasons. We have referred to ourselves as “Fi” for years but some read is as “F1”.

Our issue is they are both household names now. I originally wanted to name the company just “Fantasy” but the URL was taken. Fantasy to me was trying to make an interactive experience on the internet amazing, but in reality the net was so big and so far away.

So Fantasy was the place to start from and a house you could be in to get as close as we can to that experience. What do you think, Fi or Fantasy?

TAXI “Fantasy” has a better ring to it, I think. To wrap things up, what is the word which you think will reside and reverberate in the creative world for the next 10 years?

David Martin Passion.