Web designer to the stars

Jon Sulkow, a musician in his own right, has designed websites for Bob Dylan, Madonna, and other high-profile artists. (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)

By night, Jon Sulkow and Will Claflin play bass and guitar, respectively, for the righteous Boston rock band Dear Leader. By day, these mild-mannered gentlemen make widgets. Sulkow is the founder of PROD4ever, a fast-growing graphic design company that specializes in building custom websites for musicians. After starting locally with work for Fenway Recordings and Mission of Burma, the company (which also includes members of the bands Taxpayer and Certainly, Sir) has hit the Internet big time, creating sites for Bob Dylan, Madonna, Radiohead, and Beyoncé. We talked to Sulkow, 39, about happily keeping his day job.

Q. So does Bob Dylan drop you e-mails about changing fonts?

A. (Laughs) No. We rarely hear from the artists themselves. With Dylan, we were mostly working with his manager . . . and with Columbia Records. We heard things like, "Bob wants there to be a lyrics button."

Q. On that site, it's not just pop music - you're working with living history.

A. That's the idea. His name and some of his songs are so meaningful, so evocative to people. You want the website to support that feeling.

Q. Oddly, Dear Leader's site is basically just a blog.

A. (Laughs) I don't do the Dear Leader site. Maybe it's like a separation between church and state, though I'm not sure which would be which.

Q. When did you start getting recognized by the major labels?

A. The guys from Dispatch introduced us to the guys from Guster, who were on Warner Bros. We made a little audio player for them - you could play all their instruments. Warner Bros. started calling us more and more. Eventually they said, "How'd you like to work on Madonna .com?"

Q. Coming from the indie world, was there any part of you that said, "Oh, great. Madonna?"

A. No. I saw it as a huge opportunity. I'd been reading all these Japanese design books, and I applied a lot of that. They got into it, and the site [since overhauled] got an amazing response. I feel like we make these sites that appear light on the outside, but you can really dig deep to get a feel for the artist.

Q. You just did the NHL's online all-star balloting. The pro sports leagues have really figured out how to market themselves, how to make their brands more exciting by aligning themselves with pop culture.

A. I feel what we do isn't limited to music. . . . All companies want to be rock stars, and we maybe understand that a little bit.