After seeing a need for legal brand protection for their clients, Hile Design has formed a strategic partnership with brand clearance and protection expert IPPES LLC and the company’s President and Chief Legal Officer, Tim Kroninger.

IPPES, an acronym for Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Specialists, offers a federally registered proprietary service program, IPPES ProtectEnforce, which allows companies to protect and enforce their most valuable assets: their identities or “brands.” This includes brand clearance, with comprehensive legal availability and conflict searches, as well as enhanced protection for brands, trademarks, Internet domain names, and copyrights. IPPES uniquely blends the industries of law and business to effectively offer its services to companies of all types and sizes.

Businesses, including startups and those introducing new brands or re-branding themselves, are currently facing cease-and-desist demand letters and lawsuits for unknowingly creating brand names and logos that are already in use or their competitors believe are too close to their brands. Moreover, as the Internet gets more and more populated, the amount of available domain names decrease. The problem becomes worse due to the existence of cyber-squatters—people and companies that register domain names and then charge exorbitant prices to sell them to companies that should have rightfully owned them in the first place. Along with brand development, design, and web development services, Hile Design is now offering a unique way to overcome these challenges.

By partnering with IPPES, Hile Design will offer clients what other advertising agencies do not—a way to not only create a brand but to legally own and protect it. Hile Design is always looking to add more value to their services and this new partnership with IPPES will provide additional industry-leading services and “peace of mind” for present and future clients.

This summer I said farewell to my friends at Hile Design and hopped on a plane to spend a 5-week stint in England, where I studied literature at Oxford University and learned the correct way to drink tea and play croquet. I did fairly well academically, but how does an A in English translate to quality work in the office?

I’d like to think that the expenses of this trip paid for more than college credit and that what I learned while across the pond may be applied to the work I’m doing here at Hile.

So, besides finally being able to define a “crumpet,” what have I learned? My literature courses revolved around legendary writers such as Jane Austen, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll. But, at Hile I’m not writing about ill-fated courtships or magical rings. Now that I’m out of the classroom and back in the office I feel like I’ve taken a tumble through a rabbit hole to land on my head in the world of advertising.

However, my job here can really be boiled down to one thing: words. Constructing, organizing, manipulating, sometimes even creating words is really what my job as an assistant copywriter comes down to. And what were Tolkien and Austen really doing but stringing together words to fashion a plot and characters? Read the rest of this entry »

Hile Design has been chosen to develop a new website for Ann Arbor-based software firm Llamasoft.

Llamasoft is a leading supply chain software firm and an active investor in technology development. Just in the past year, Llamasoft has doubled its workforce and expanded its client base to a global scale, taking on clients such as Ford, General Electric, Target and Intell. Llamasoft’s software enables clients to manage supply chain costs as a whole instead of in individual pieces.

Hile Design has been selected to design a new website for Ann Arbor, MI based Aastrom Biosciences.

Aastrom Biosciences, Inc. is the leading developer of patient-specific, expanded multicellular therapies for the treatment of severe, chronic cardiovascular diseases.

The company’s proprietary cell-processing technology enables the manufacture of ixmyelocel-T, a patient-specific multicellular therapy extracted from a patient’s own bone marrow and delivered directly to damaged tissues. Aastrom has advanced ixmyelocel-T into late-stage clinical development, including a planned Phase 3 clinical program to study patients with critical limb ischemia.

I’ve been interning at Hile Design for about four months now and I’d like to think I’ve lasted due to my writing skills and charming personality. However, as daughter of Julie Tibus (Creative Director at Hile) I can’t help but wonder if my being able to say “hi mom” when I walk through the door has anything to do with my current position.

I assist Monica Getz in researching, editing and, in those occasional, blissful moments, writing copy. I move in a nomadic fashion around the office as I hop from desk to desk depending on who happens to be absent the day I’m working. I’m usually stationed at Mary Cooper’s desk, but currently I’m sitting at a table in my mom’s office. Note to Dave: these chairs look very modern and stylish but they do nothing for the posture.

Now, I’m certainly not pampered at Hile because of my last name. Most of these people have known me since I was in middle school and have, through phone calls to my mother and the annual holiday parties, witnessed my maturation. Apparently they liked how I turned out since I am now employed, but just how much of an influence did mommy dearest have in this decision?

If I weren’t her kid, Julie Tibus would surely intimidate me. She knows what she’s doing, how to get it done and has the confidence to help lead this company wherever it needs to go.  Lucky for me, when she’s giving me an assignment in what I like to refer to as her “business mode,” I can think back to all the days I’ve seen her in a raggedy t-shirt vacuuming the living room and belting out a Michael Jackson song.

I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but working for my mother isn’t half bad.  And, if anyone says I’m only here because I’m a Tibus I will stamp my feet and call for mommy. She will fly over in her blazer and heels, lift that ferocious one eyebrow, and the perpetrator will be put in his place.  Or, I suppose I could just keep proving myself worthy of my position and see where that gets me.

Hile Design has been hired to design a new website for Ann Arbor’s recently launched Vis-à-Vis Skin Spa & Bodywork.

Vis-à-Vis (meaning face to face in French) is an intimate boutique spa located within walking distance of downtown Ann Arbor, offering a full range of massages, facials, body treatments and products for purchase.

Hile Design has been hired by Metro Detroit–based Kubica Corporation to develop a redesigned website representing a complete branding refresh.

Kubica, formerly known as Prime Technologies, was established in 1995 and serves customers throughout the United States and Canada. The engineering company provides software, hardware and control panel solutions to help a diverse customer base manage their manufacturing processes.

Hile Design has been selected to create an updated website for Brighton, Michigan–based GKI Foods, a candy making company founded in 1972.

Over the past six years, Hile has provided ongoing package design services for the company. This includes assistance with presentations and sales for GKI’s clients, which include small retail outlets, convenience stores, grocery stores and “big box” chains.

Since their modest beginnings, GKI has grown into a major candy and granola manufacturer. The company currently maintains a 66,000-square-foot plant capable of producing 30,000 pounds of chocolate confections and several tons of granola a day.