We are pleased to announce the addition of our newest Hile Design staff member, Bob Moulton, to the position of Director of Account Management and Online Media. With over 15 years of account and project management experience for Fortune 500 companies, Bob possesses cutting-edge knowledge in the newest forms of marketing and advertising. He has successfully administered the strategy and architecture of websites and technology projects including PR2.0 media sites, live webcasts, viral video campaigns, e-magazines and blogs. He has also handled customized content management systems and social media campaigns for international auto industry clients (Nissan, Hyundai and Chrysler Motors LLC) and e-commerce clients and technology leaders (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Best Buy, MSN and Yahoo!). Bob graduated cum laude from Eastern Michigan University with Bachelor of Science degrees in both Organizational Communication and Business Management.

In this tough economy, many companies who have managed their own advertising in-house or relied on word of mouth are now fighting for survival. They have discovered that what has worked in the past is not going to sustain them now. They have to compete for every customer like never before, and that often means turning to an advertising agency for the first time. Here are some suggestions of what you should look for when choosing an agency to represent you. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the goals of our blog “HileItes” is to give people a way to get to know Hile Design staffers in a different way—less business, more personal. So how better to gain insight into each of us than to understand our musical tastes:

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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 »

Hile Design has been selected to redesign the website for Guardian Tree Experts LLC of Ann Arbor. The redesigned site will provide an updated look and feel for the firm, along with additional company information and video features. As arborists, Guardian Tree staff care for trees and shrubs on an individual basis to ensure that they survive the challenges presented by urban environments.

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 »

Many retail companies envy the almost cult-like passion that Ikea’s customers direct toward the Swedish manufacturer of designer home goods. But the company wasn’t prepared for the worldwide backlash it experienced recently when it switched typefaces in its venerated catalog for the first time in 50 years, from Futura to Verdana.

For those type neophytes who don’t know their Helvetica from their Times Roman, Futura has been one of the grand masters of sans serif typefaces since it was first released in the 1920s. It’s prized for its clean geometry and simple elegance. Plus, it boasts an extensive family of associated fonts: Futura Light, Book, Medium, Heavy, Bold, Extra Bold, Condensed, Oblique, Light Oblique—and on and on. 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.