Illumine8 has earned a coveted international award for the redesign of its company website. The Summit Emerging Media Award marks the second international award the Illumine8 website has earned since its launch on August 30th of 2019.
The Summit Emerging Media Award “evolved through a need to recognize and celebrate creativity, innovation, and those pushing the bounds of creative excellence in all newer forms of emerging media.” The competition plays out on a global stage with submissions entered from creatives all over the world and an international panel of judges who analyze the work and deliberate on who the winners should be. ‘
The work is judged based on the following factors:
- Method - uniqueness, audience reach, strategy
- Innovation - visual design/creativity, graphical user interface, interaction design/functionality, user experience, audience reach
- Information - marketing message integration, audience appeal, user appeal
The Summit Emerging Media Awards are governed by the Summit International Awards (SIA), which also include the Summit Awards, the Summit Creative Awards, and the Marketing Effectiveness Awards. Over the last 26 years that the SIA has been hosting these awards, it has received over 100,000 entries from 57 countries. The organization prides itself on “honoring the best web, design, video, advertising, interactive, mobile & social marketing from creative agencies worldwide.”
Illumine8 Rebrand
Following her completion of the coveted Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, Illumine8’s founder, Christina May, had the vision to refine the company and its brand. In September 2019, the company initiated a strategic rebranding process.
After taking a comprehensive, in-depth inventory of the organization, May created a new business growth plan. The plan outlined two new areas of economic opportunity that Illumine8 had the expertise to provide but had not yet formally offered to clients—sales enablement and customer experience services. In addition to the two new services, May realigned the company’s positioning in the market by redefining the market Illumine8 serves.
“When I looked back at the years of company data and reflected on our experiences, I found that we do our best work with family-owned and operated businesses because our values and passions align to create this organic but powerful spark of productivity and success,” said May.
With Illumine8 redefining itself as a company, it needed a new brand identity. The design portion of the strategic rebrand was led by Illumine8’s creative manager, Erik Pitzer, in an effort to convey the company’s maturity, experience, and professionalism in a subtle, yet purposeful way. New visual elements were used to create this effect, including a logo, logomark, fonts, color palette, and website. However, the most pivotal component of the rebrand was a new digital presence. The Illumine8 website became the centerpiece, where every element of the rebrand came together to speak for the company in a digital format. The website redesign was executed by Pitzer and Illumine8’s web developer, RJ Hallin.
“It was important to us that Illumine8 have a website designed to the highest standard,” said May. “We are an example of excellence in marketing and digital media. It shows our clients, both current and future, how you can drive growth through investment in your online presence—and most importantly, through investment in your brand.”
One of the main functions of the website and an important part of the strategic rebrand was Illumine8’s creation of original thought leadership content to promote organic traffic to the site and provide high-level insight to visitors. The website was designed with this core objective in mind, and the content strategy has significantly improved Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the website’s analytics.
The rebranded Illumine8 site officially launched on August 30th of 2019, marking a significant milestone for the organization. Illumine8 was recently notified that its newly rebranded website won a gold MarCom Award for digital media, as well as the Summit Emerging Media Award.
“This is a site that we can be proud of. This is a site that our clients can be proud of,” said Pitzer. “This was a big win for Illumine8.”
