Avex Designs

BACKGROUND

Please introduce your business and what you do there. 

We are a staffing company, recruiting both temporary and direct hires for various practice areas, including office support, accounting, legal, IT [information technology], healthcare, and HR. I'm a co-owner of the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Avex Designs?

Our last website had been built five years ago and became antiquated, users were running into issues and we were really in need of a visual upgrade. We didn't have the skills to revamp the site on our own so we decided to hire an external supplier.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Avex Designs designed our new website. They have worked well with us, reworking designs until they were phenomenal. Our new site will be more functional than the old one.

Avex Designs was instrumental in giving us advice on what we should be doing, suggesting that we add a blog, for example, even though we initially thought that we didn't need one. We don't have website design experience, so Avex Designs's input was important for improving our job search feature and having a more interactive experience in general.

The experience has been seamless, so I don't know how many people have worked on our project. Avex Designs had a team leader, but we mostly interacted with their principal [founder and creative director John Surdakowski].

We requested a content writer to review the material we were putting together. Avex Designs found a writer for us.

How did you come to work with Avex Designs?

We had been working with a consultant whose job was to line up website developers, one of which was Avex Designs. We interviewed a slew of people. The meeting with Avex Designs went heads and tails better than any of the others. Their level of professionalism and detail were amazing, so we decided to choose Avex Designs.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total development cost for our website was $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our website is scheduled to launch on July 11, 2016. We're now working on finishing touches and plan to use Avex Designs for ongoing support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We're a part of the American Staffing Association. We go to conventions every year and have seen many websites, given that this is a big part of our industry. Avex Designs did as good a job as anyone we could have picked. We also work with some very picky, discriminating partners. When we sent the site to them, the overwhelming feedback was that it looked gorgeous and had a 21st-century look, which is what we wanted to hear. They would have been very quick to criticize.

How did Avex Designs perform from a project management standpoint?

Avex Designs did everything that we asked for, with a smile. I held up the project a bit because of a medical problem, but Avex Designs has been patient with us in getting the material on a timely basis. I always felt that we were important to Avex Designs, unlike with other developers we used. We were kept in touch through daily updates using Basecamp, and I could email Avex Designs' principal directly.

My partner and I aren't very tech-savvy, so it was often easiest to email Avex Designs's principal and maintain communication like this. He was very patient with us.

What distinguishes Avex Designs from other providers?

I appreciated Avex Designs's timeliness and responsiveness. I always received email responses right away. Avex Designs also has great attention to detail. They listen to us and always have a smile on their faces. We couldn't ask for more than this.

Is there anything Avex Designs could have improved or done differently?

No. In fact, when we lagged time-wise, Avex Designs sent us an email about the next steps to take.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

This is a film and video production company. We also provide audio recording and engineering. Our company has been in business for eight years.

What is your position?

I am the founder of the company. I have been a professional producer for 12 years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Avex Designs?

We needed a clean, cutting-edge, slick website that demonstrated our brand.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement.

Avex Designs created a website quickly for us, taking our brand to the next level in terms of having a website that focused on content and showcased us truthfully, in an exciting, flashy way. The original website for our company was also designed by Avex Designs. We went to them directly for the redesign.

Avex Designs enabled video integration for our work. They embedded a virtual tour of our studios as well. Avex Designs provided some general graphics and design elements for the work we've done. We've hired them for an animation project in which Avex Designs created characters and, with the help of one of our animators, those characters were brought to life using Adobe After Effects for a corporate video. 

I also hired Avex Designs to work on my father's website, who has his own production company, juliusnasso.com. Avex Designs did a phenomenal job of creating that site. Two or three developers and designers were assigned to us from Avex Designs. We collaborated with them directly.

How did you come to work with Avex Designs?

I looked up a number of graphic design companies. A friend referred me to Avex Designs.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The total cost of Avex Designs's services has been at least $7,500. We've worked on a number of projects through the years.

What is the status of this engagement?

We've been working with Avex Designs since 2008 when our business was launched. The redesigned version of the site is currently live as well as the site created for my father's business.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Avex Designs provides a service that competes with the best and biggest design companies out there. A client can end up spending a lot of money with the bigger, name-brand providers. Avex Designs has a boutique operation that allows them to cater directly to my needs, offer me the requested work quickly and at the highest level of quality, comparable to the biggest designers on the market. Avex Designs is cutting edge in terms of figuring out not just what is trendy at the moment, but what will last a long time. They always want to make sure that the brand is fresh, modern, up to date, and it truly represents what a company is offering. Avex Designs provides a service that competes with some of the best products out there, visually and functionality-wise.

I initially wanted a simple splash page for my company. I hired Avex Designs for a redesign for which they did a great job. I received a lot of business from that website.

Our current website is great. We plan a new redesign soon in order to make the site a bit more mobile-friendly. Avex Designs brought this issue to my attention, and it makes perfect sense. It has been a great website during the last two to three years, but we're ready for an upgrade. Avex Designs always wants the products that they make to be fresh and modern in terms of technology. It will be the second time I'd hired Avex Designs for work on my company's website.

How did Avex Designs perform from a project management standpoint?

There have been no major delays or defects for the work done by Avex Designs.

What distinguishes Avex Designs from other providers?

The functionality and quality I've received from Avex Designs are just phenomenal, compared to the rates that they charge. The attention to detail on Avex Designs's work has stood out to me, even though I visit media websites every day. I cannot say enough good things about them.