Dave was interviewed by Lucy Ann Lance, local Ann Arbor radio personality, where he discusses the history of Hile Design.

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There’s a lot of pressure in the advertising world to think big. Agencies compete for “big” clients, who in turn want big ideas for big returns in the form of increased customer awareness, sales and profit. Type “think big advertising” into your Google search bar and you’ll score no less than 165 million hits. The “big” mentality can be intoxicating, with its attendant rushes of adrenaline, awards and acclaim. But merely thinking big can leave some important things behind in the dust—things like integrity, loyalty and just plain human decency.

In their book The Power of Small: Why Little Things Make All the Difference, Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval talk about how focusing on the details yields big results. They know whereof they speak. Their agency, The Kaplan Thaler Group, started as a two-woman ad firm with a single Clairol Herbal Essences account and grew to renown as the creator of the ubiquitous Aflac duck. An excerpt from the inside front cover flap captures the flavor of the book: “Our smallest actions and gestures often have an outsized impact on our biggest goals… Going that extra inch—whether with a client, customer, family member or friend—speaks volumes to others about our talent, personality and motivations.” Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday we had a project management consultant come to our office to discuss providing services to analyze and help improve our company’s web design processes. But this post isn’t about that …

Instead, it’s about being who you say you are (or “show” you are, in the case of a website). During her visit, the consultant mentioned that her experience when she walked in our door and met our staff was the same as what she encountered in her visit to our Hile Design website (and fortunately for us, she liked what she saw in both places). That was music to my ears, and was one of the main goals of our most recent website redesign. Before starting the project, I reviewed a lot of other agency websites, and quite frankly, many of them began to look and sound eerily similar. For us, it was very important that we not only present our business services and design portfolio (all advertising agencies do that), but that we also communicate the culture (informal) and personality (friendly and creative) of our company to our site visitors. Read the rest of this entry »

Hile Design LLC has been selected to redesign the website for Ann Arbor–based Oliver Financial Planning, LLC, a fee-only financial planning and registered investment advisory firm.

As Fee-Only Financial Planners, Oliver Financial Planning does not sell products such as mutual funds or insurance or accept commissions from the sales of those products. Therefore, all conflicts of interest regarding compensation and recommendations are removed. As a result, the company is free to work in their clients’ best interest.

I know it’s not a good idea to check my company’s Google Analytics web stats every day, but I can’t help myself. I’m forever curious about who’s coming to the site, from where, and what they are looking at. When we generate a new company promotion I like to see the corresponding spikes in site traffic.

For us, the good news is that our traffic has doubled since we launched our updated site last January. Visitors are staying longer and viewing more of our work. Statistics show they are most interested in who we are, whom we work for and what services we provide, pretty much in that order. All in all, we’re happy with the site. And yet… Read the rest of this entry »

Click on the thumbnails to see a larger image. Production notes can be found at the bottom of the page.

In the field of advertising, when you find a means of connecting with people, you take advantage of it. So considering that my previous blog posting, “Thirty Years of Illustration,” got triple the readership of any of my former posts, I decided to write another article along the same lines—that is, looking back over my career as an illustrator. I promise not to repeat myself (the film Rocky was good and Rocky II was palatable, but then Sly made the disasters Rocky III, IV and V). Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to review design portfolios at our local community college. I’ve participated in this program for the past several years, where local agency staff and freelance creatives fill out forms offering feedback on the quality and creativity of the students’ work. The portfolios vary greatly in design quality and thoughtfulness, but there are usually a few standouts. This year I also had the opportunity to meet some of the students, and our firm even enlisted a recent graduate to help us with some production design. When I talk to the students, it is good for my ego since they manifest a reverence that borders on awe. It’s true that these neophytes have a lot to learn, but they also have a lot to give. They can even serve as role models for the creatives with decades of experience under their belts. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in late 1998 or early 1999 I got called by a marketing director from a newly launched search engine company named “Google” (founded in 1998). She asked me if I wanted to do an illustration that would be a playful takeoff on their logo for their homepage. If they liked it, she continued, there would be more assignments forthcoming, especially on holidays and other important dates. They had seen my illustration work in the Directory of Illustration and liked my style. Sure I’d heard of Google but I was far more familiar with their competitor Yahoo, which had been founded 4 years earlier and had a glitzy national advertising campaign (remember the hillbilly yelling, “Ya-hoo-oo-o!”).

At this point I should mention that I had recently pulled an all-nighter on a stressful advertising illustration for an unpleasant and demanding client. My energy level was running on empty and at that particular point in time my enthusiasm for my craft of illustration was negligible. Did I even want to be an illustrator? I wasn’t getting any younger and I didn’t know a lot of other people pulling all-nighters in their mid 40s. And then I did something I’ve only done a handful of times in my career. I passed on the project. Besides, the deadline was too tight and I was too tired. The company probably wouldn’t even be around in a year or two. Yahoo would probably buy them out or run them out of business.

Note to self: If Google ever calls again, take the gig.

P.S. After a good night’s sleep I was all about being an illustrator again!