For a brilliant example of how dezinsINTERACTIVE helps other companies brand themselves, look no further than the design agency’s own logo.
A green and gray sphere embossed with a leaf, the symbol perfectly conveys the natural flow that’s taken dezinsINTERACTIVE from humble origins to award-winning web design and marketing agency. The idea of synergy even extends to the firm’s branded office interior with fresh greens and tans, representing their organic approach to client relationships.
Founder and managing partner Orhan McMillan uses words like “spherical” and “synergy” to explain how dezinsINTERACTIVE helps clients discover and deliver their message through design, technology and marketing. Far more than just website designers, dezinsINTERACTIVE’s full menu of identity, internet and exposure services are tailored to reinforce each client’s market presence.
The circle of success is powered by collaboration.
“From the moment a new client calls, I am listening-to their goals, to their personalities, to everything that makes their company unique,” McMillan explains. “Then our creative director comes in and listens. Then our programmers. We are all collaborating to determine what their company’s identity is and how to brand that.”
“A lot of designers try to make the customer fit the market. We do the opposite,” McMillan adds. “That’s why our slogan says we ‘revolve the market around you.’ “
The process is a lot like the evolution of dezinsINTERACTIVE itself.
It began as a freelance graphic and web design business McMillan started while working as a designer for the Gonzales Weekly. In 2005, he partnered with Paul Keesler to take dezinsINTERACTIVE to the next level. Since then, the company has grown 200% each year to become a fullservice web development, custom programming, design and marketing agency.
dezinsINTERACTIVE clients encompass a diverse range of privately owned businesses, corporations, government agencies and nonprofits. As managing partner, McMillan leads a team of creative, IT and marketing specialists. Most of them joined the company almost serendipitously through one connection or another.
Creative Director Natalie Gillis, with a bachelor’s degree in visual arts and experience in graphic design and marketing, is one of the right people who happened to come along at the right moment. ” I take great pride in being able to conceptualize a design that is unique and personal to each and every client,” Gillis says.
The job of revealing a client’s identity through technology falls to Sam Razi, director of programming development, who also came to join the team in a very natural way.
“We are always two steps ahead in terms of innovation, whether it’s social networking or a technology our clients haven’t even thought of,” says Razi, an information systems graduate of LSU and IT manager with 15 years of experience. “We get our clients thinking in new areas.”
McMillan notes that dezinsINTERACTIVE is also unique in that it has “an amazing set of designers and an amazing set of programmers. Usually you only get one or the other. “
The results are plain to see. dezinsINTERACTIVE recently won a silver ADDY from the Baton Rouge Chapter of the American Advertising Federation, an impressive feather in a young agency’s cap.
McMillan is also proud of dezinsINTERACTIVE’s proprietary content management system (CMS) that allows customers to update their own websites. “Most CMS programs are cumbersome, complex and non-intuitive. We designed a CMS that is simple to use yet just as powerful.” Thanks to its staff’s expertise, dezinsINTERACTIVE websites are truly customizable far beyond the standard templates. dezinsINTERACTIVE also excels at campaigns for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, as well as iPhone apps to increase brand awareness, customer loyalty and traffic.
It all goes back to dezinsINTERACTIVE’s mission of revolving the market around its clients.
“Our clients are at the natural center of all we do,” McMillan says, “and from there we empower their market relationships, new ones and the ones they’ve had for years.”