About the Exemplar Website:
Exemplar has taken great care in the building of its new website to bring interesting and meaningful content to our customers. We also have tried to make your visit to our website an enjoyable experience where you can learn more about what we stand for and the many ways in which we can help our customers to overcome challenges and grow their businesses.
In this blog, we wanted to share with you some of the thought that went into the illustrations you see on our site. Like any good site, it is very much a living and evolving canvas for sharing knowledge, demonstrating capabilities, and keeping you apprised of new innovations that bring our customers exactly what they have been asking for in a professional services firm. The content and illustrations that you will find on this site will, no doubt, reflect our development and evolution as an Exemplary services firm(s). We are pleased to share our inspirations with you and welcome your feedback, as we continue to expand and refine our new and evolving creation, hand-in-hand.
About Exemplar:
Exemplar was formed with the express intention of consistently delivering, in a holistic manner, the most innovative and highly valued professional services available to mid-tier companies in the marketplace. Since Exemplar is a firm that is committed to remaining ahead of the curve and providing unmatched value, it was critical to choose a style of presentation that captured the imagination and dedication to excellence of our creative, forward-thinking professionals, our uncompromising values system, and our unique brand “personality”.
About Our Relevant and Radical History (“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” ~Alan Kay, computer scientist):
Exemplar’s history as the first corporate law firm in the nation to abandon hourly billing in favor of a fixed, value-based pricing model is an interesting one. Although today the practice is considered innovative, this wasn’t the case back in the 1950’s when billable hours started to become an accepted practice. At that time, billing by the hour was considered an “alternative billing model” and the distinguished professionals of the time balked at the practice, stating that the practice “put your lawyer on the same level with your plumber.”
By comparison, Exemplar’s innovative business model is truly RADICAL to the core (relating to, or characteristic of the basic or inherent constitution of a person or thing; fundamental)! While the word RADICAL has come to have a colloquial meaning as being on the cutting edge, especially with respect to professional services, its true definition is one of returning to the fundamental “root” of things. Indeed, in fields other than professional services, such innovations are actually well accepted and, in some cases, deemed fundamentals of good business practice.
It is notable, in this regard, that the practice of billing by the hour, warmly embraced by America’s law firms, is a divergence from fundamentally sound economic theory. For example, Karl Marx’s Labor Theory of Value (on which billable hour is based) was refuted as a valid economic theory long before its adoption by the professions. Apart from being inefficient, the billable hour is also symptomatic of other ailments that have recently befallen corporate America: the erosion of corporate organizational values systems; the failure of internal accountability mechanisms (transparency, checks and balances); and the disregard for corporate stakeholders-at-large. Consequently, insofar as Exemplar’s RADICAL business model was designed, in part, to address these systemic weaknesses, it can also be said to be a bit retro; i.e., it harkens a return to sound practices that have been proven successful over time.
About the Website Design:
Exemplar’s creative team has crafted a RADICAL (progressive as well as fundamental) website design that caters to today’s users: It not only has the capacity to communicate massive amounts of information, but also the means to enable users to quickly navigate to the most “relevant” information. The Exemplar website was designed to place a premium on efficiency and simplicity – it does not divert users’ attention with moving parts, music, and hundreds of colors, and generic stock photography. The Exemplar website, rather, was modeled, generally, after the Newspaper, a proven system of organizing and presenting information that has worked well since the 1400’s. And, it was specifically, inspired by the genius of the Wall Street Journal, which creates an easily navigable front page while communicating up to 20 or more topics.
About the Website Illustrations:
The Exemplar website hand-illustrations are intended to communicate in a more personal manner how Exemplar’s innovations can benefit our customers. We also chose hand-illustrations because they demonstrate our firm’s values, namely, our commitment to customer quality and integrity, as well as, our firm’s high-touch and service-oriented mission. Hand-illustrations also exemplify our firm’s focus on the arts and entertainment, which have been identified as a primary Exemplar initiative.
The Exemplar website illustrations are stylistically inspired by the journalistic genre known as Political Satire. For example, the New Yorker and Economist magazines convey a certain “smartness” wherein artistic creations are imbued with a distinct, but engaging look and feel that animates the brand. Unlike a publication, Exemplar is a professional services firm with a collective ‘personality’ with which our customers interact every day. Therefore, we believed that the Exemplar website illustrations needed not only to be smart (e.g., allegorical), but also fun and interesting to look at. In other words, they needed to convey a personality that is as accessible as engaging.
What’s up with the Penguin:
As far as personalities go, Exemplar’s is most personified by the Penguin. The Penguin is an affable, hardy, intuitive, free-flowing and playful character that reflects and fits well with our brand image. In the future, Exemplar website illustrations will feature only one Penguin, the Exemplar Penguin. Over time, the Exemplar Penguin will acquire a life force and personality that exemplifies the ever-evolving, active Exemplar brand.
About the Animals:
Exemplar website illustrations rely heavily on the use of animals. The use of animals as allegory is well established in world history. Animals are particularly useful in clearly conveying a point or benefit that could be confused on misinterpreted with the use of people. Anthropomorphism of animals also helps people to identify with the personality traits associated with humans without the “baggage” associated with the choice of physical characteristics of a person, and the confusion about what that choice is intended to add or communicate to the viewer. Exemplar animal illustrations are used to tell a story of the benefits associated with our firm’s innovations.
We Invite You to Enjoy the Exemplary Evolution:
We look forward to working with you and demonstrating our abilities. Please visit Exemplar’s website regularly for fresh and relevant information and to learn more about how we continue to deliver successful results for our customers.
