Clickfarm Design Helps Hollis + Miller Architects Connect With Prospective Clients and Attract Top Talent

Hollis + Miller Architects is an architecture, planning and interior design company with offices in Overland Park, Kan. and Lee’s Summit, Mo. For more than 50 years, the firm has been in the business of enhancing the way that people learn, work and connect by creating facilities for education, municipal government and commercial clients.

But helping the company connect with its own prospective clients and associates was a central reason for the firm investing in a new brand identity and Website.

“We knew that we needed to update all of our marketing materials and that our Website needed to change in order to help us communicate more effectively,” said Chris Heinz, R.A., a senior associate and design director for the firm.

After undertaking a complete brand redesign that included creating a new corporate logo and developing all-new marketing and new business collateral materials, the firm turned its attention to building a new Website.

Heinz, along with one of the firm’s principals and a graphic designer, led the team that worked with Kansas City, Mo.-based Zero Design and Clickfarm, to create a new Website that would not only showcase Hollis + Miller’s work, but also enable the firm to attract and retain top talent as the company grew.

“It was a lot tougher to design for ourselves than it is to design for outside clients,” said Heinz, “so we were fortunate to have the leadership and expertise of Zero Design and Clickfarm to guide us through this project.”

Using Zero Design’s graphic design elements to guide the look-and-feel, Clickfarm built the new Hollis + Miller Website using its Content Management System (CMS). Clickfarm’s CMS enables a member of the Hollis + Miller team to access the Website through a password-protected “back door” and instantly upload content from any Internet-connected computer in the world. Heinz said that this task is typically performed by one of the firm’s graphic designers, although any member of the team can upload content without having any programming knowledge at all.

Clickfarm customized the Hollis + Miller CMS platform by adding a database management function that enables visitors to the Website to search for particular projects using multiple criteria. “It’s a great way for a prospective client to look at similar work we have done in the past without having to flip through every single project in our portfolio,” said Heinz.

Aside from being a great new business tool, the new Website has also impressed prospective employees as well.

“The Website has been a tremendous asset in our ability to recruit new professionals,” said Heinz. “Younger professionals or those just out of college are much more likely to research a company’s Website before considering an employer or going for a job interview, and we’ve heard that our new site has been a major factor in us attracting top talent, whereas our old site might have been a liability for us.”

Heinz reports that Hollis + Miller liked working with the Clickfarm team and have begun bringing Clickfarm in on projects for their own clients. “It’s nice way to help our clients to take advantage of Clickfarm’s interactive expertise and promote their businesses,” he said.

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Hollis + Miller Architecture is a collaborative, relationship-driven architectural firm that works hard to understand our client's goals, vision and mission.  The team at Hollis + Miller is passionate, forward-thinking and results-oriented client advocates, who utilize their specialized expertise and professional design skills to create imaginative, uniquely beautiful, functional and effective architectural solutions.  Clients can trust Hollis + Miller to always work to deliver long-term value through built-in operational efficiencies and productivity-enhancing considerations that ultimately improve the way people learn, work and connect in the specific environments of educational, municipal/government and commercial client industry segments.

Founded in 1950, Hollis + Miller has offices in both Kansas and Missouri and is licensed in more than 30 states.  The firm has annual billings of more than $11 million and provides traditional and integrated product delivery services to clients in a variety of industries, including:  commercial, education and municipal.  The firm offers master site planning, architecture planning and design; interior design and procurement services, including:  selection of furniture, fixtures and equipment; structural engineering and, creative graphic services.  The firm and its professionals have been honored to receive recognition from its clients' industries and the architecture and business community -- receiving numerous local, regional, national and international awards, including CEFPI.

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