Insights

There's a lot of information to consider when choosing a new home and a home builder. With the new McMillinHomes.com, we wanted that information to be easily accessible and organized for the user and easily updatable, for accuracy, for the client. Then we wrapped it all in a look and feel that speaks both to the trustworthiness and modernity of the organization.

McMillin Homes builds custom homes in several cities in central and southern California and in San Antonio, Texas. Digett created a website for the San Antonio division back in 2005, but this time around, McMillin wanted to unify their web presence and include all their cities and corporate information in a single website.

The increased complexity of a site that encompasses 10 or more cities, combined with the amount of information to include, posed a few challenges that had to be addressed:

When you work in the internet business, it's critical to stay on top of current design trends and development best practices.

In the same way writers improve their writing abilities by reading other great authors, graphic designers and programmers can seriously expand their repertoire by surfing the web for inspiration, reading design blogs, and keeping a watchful eye out for methods that might help get the job done better and faster.

With so many tools available online, you might think "those internet people have it easy." Sure, there's plenty of resources online to help us get better and keep our sites looking fresh and hip, but there's really nothing more vital to a web professional than people skills (a.k.a., the ability to relate to a client in such a way that their needs are fully understood and fulfilled).

Our good friends over at Glass Chalk have a unique product. Their WHATUP™ banner kit and markers allow anyone to create their own banners and signs that don't (a) look like a grade school art project gone wrong or, conversely, (b) require the assistance of an expensive professional. They're great for schools, businesses, and families.

In 2004, we built a site for Coyle Engineering, one of Texas' premier civil engineering firms. At the time, the site was cutting-edge. A sleek, well-architected design, coupled with the client's ability to manage their own content, made the site a powerful marketing tool for the thriving company.

We're big proponents of emerging technologies here, especially those that help shake up a medium—like television—that has been done largely the same way for decades. But as much as things change, the more they stay the same. After all, when was the last time you saw something truly different on TV?