Celebrating 20 years of Spark

2024 marks the 20th year of Spark and we wanted to reflect and celebrate on key achievements since 2004. We are also proud to launch our refreshed brand and website and share this with you.

Spark was founded in 2004 by Nick Davies as a freelance web design business. From an early age, Nick was interested in using both the creative and analytical sides of his brain and in choosing his career in creative software and web development Nick was able to combine both interests.

In his early career in the late 1990’s in Australia Nick worked on creative CD Rom software and early websites. Following completing his degree in Applied Science – Multimedia, Nick lived and worked in the UK where he was able to utilise his design and development skills. Following a year working on the digital platform for the world’s leading scientific journals ScienceDirect in the Netherlands Nick returned to Australia with many of his contacts requesting websites and Spark Design was born.

Spark Design 2004

Nick around 2005

BizMaker – 2004

Operating out of his spare bedroom and armed with a desktop PC, Nick created websites for affiliate marketing businesses, schools, societies, small businesses and created his first product in 2004, YelloFotos, a photo sharing web service in which was launched the same year as Flickr many years before Facebook.

Bastion Brands 2010

Early successes included being a finalist in the McFarlane Prize for excellence in Australian web design.

With clients seeking solutions for updating content on their websites without requiring complex technical skills and wanting an easy-to-use format, Spark became an early adopter for the WordPress content management system from 2007 despite many people not seeing it’s capabilities beyond blogging software at the time. WordPress has since gone onto power over 60% of all content management system driven websites worldwide.  We launched our first Shopify store in 2012 and were drawn by this easy to use ecommerce system.

Always interested in new technology, Nick caught the buzz when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone in 2007. The iPhone triggered a wave of new technology and industries including ‘responsive’ websites which allowed a website to work across small mobile screens through to larger desktop displays. Spark became an early adopter of responsive technology launching one of the first responsive corporate websites in Australia in 2011 for Carlton & United Breweries.

In 2008 the Apple App Store was launched along with the iPhone in Australia and in attending conferences in the US Nick could see the power that mobile apps were offering to consumers whilst working on the Australian Open Tennis app.

Smiling Mind was the first mobile and web app we built and this has since gone onto being downloaded over 7 million times and changing many peoples lives.

Having been exposed to meditation as a teenager, the advent of mindfulness and more open discussions in mental health in society, Nick was interested in working on further projects in this space.

Spark worked with Monash University from 2015 on the MoodMission app – an app and research project for people with Anxiety and Depression.

Since then Spark has gone onto work with many leading universities, research and mental health organisations in Australia including The University of Melbourne, The University of Sydney and HeadSpace.

Our purpose is to create transformative mobile apps and websites and we do so by putting the human into technology by creating from the heart. Since our foundation, we have planned, designed, built and support 100s of mobile apps and websites.

Around 10 years ago, we surveyed our clients to ask why they enjoyed working with Spark. Two key themes emerged that we care for our clients success, and we deliver on our promises. Caring, consistently delivering along with passion, collaboration and meticulousness are the values that describe us at Spark Digital and make us tick. These values guide who we are, where we are going, how we are going to get there, and when.

We thank all our clients, team and families past and present. Without you all there would be no Spark.

As we launch our refreshed brand and expand further into New South Wales, Queensland and internationally, it is a very exciting time at Spark and we are driven to making the next 10 years at Spark Digital Agency the best ever. We hope you will all join us for this ride – it’s going to be fun! Here’s to our next decade of blazing a new trail! 



Nick Davies

Founder and Director

Spark Digital Agency