FROM slug-infested student digs with a new Apple Mac to a modern facility designing websites all over the world, it has been quite the ride for Old Sarum firm Moore-Wilson.

Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, managing director and founder Steve Wilson started the company in London as a graphic design business.

Straight out of university, with a £10,000 loan from the bank he bought a “state-of-the-art” Apple Mac, which was about 1,000 times less powerful than a computer of today. He began designing brochures and posters.

He said: “I got a copy of the Yellow Pages and began phoning companies from A to Z. I would say I am a graphic designer selling brochures — most people didn’t realise what a graphic designer was.

“I would start by charging £12.50 an hour which was enough to cover the rent and food. In the first year I turned over £11,000 but if you are a student paying for a rubbish bedsit it was okay.”

After slowly growing, by the mid-90s he was employing a couple of people in his small team, which was when the internet was in its infancy. It was at this point after receiving enquiries asking if his company designed websites he contacted his dad, Cris, who as a trained mathematician was able to understand computing code.

Steve added: “If we got one of these weird website requests, we would do the graphics then email them over to my dad who at that time lived in the New Forest at Nomansland.

“By 1997 it was starting to hot up in terms of websites and we had got in very early, more by luck than judgement, because we didn’t know the internet would take off.

“My dad opened up the Salisbury office in 1997 and employed the first few people. The graphic design business started as 100 per cent of the business, by the dot com bubble it was 50 per cent, now it is about 10 per cent of the business.

“A lot of the stuff I learned at college 25 years ago is now not really relevant.”

Prices for a new website at the firm vary from £5,000 for a small website to £50,000 for bigger and more complex sites. The company employs around 20 staff at the Portway Centre in Old Sarum with a further ten based in a London office.

As well as designing websites, the company focuses on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), hosting, looking after websites and ongoing site improvements.

In the last few years the leap in the industry has been designing responsive websites, which change automatically between desktop, tablet and mobile. It comes after search engine giant Google changed its algorithms to favour responsive websites as traffic is increasingly being driven from tablets and mobiles.

It means plenty more work for Moore-Wilson as firms scramble to improve websites, with the future bright for another 25 years.