Harris Williams

Modernizing Harris Williams with a New Look and Future-Leaning Tech Stack

1

The Background

When we began our partnership with Harris Williams, their website was visually and technologically outdated. Its antiquated look and friction-filled experience stood in stark contrast to the realities of the firm’s bespoke, client-focused approach.

Our goal was to position Harris Williams as the leading M&A advisor through a more effective and meaningful digital experience—one that maximized conversational engagement and more accurately reflected their energetic and intelligent brand and team.

2

The Work

We started by gaining a better understanding of Harris Williams as an organization, and what truly sets it apart: a collaborative approach, deep industry expertise, and dynamic talent. These three attributes guided the design, messaging, and user experience of the new website.

Navigation: A Clearer Path

  • Effortlessly navigating any website is hugely important. However, the original Harris Williams site presented challenges. Many of the pages relied on tabs below the hero images to take visitors to sub-pages within that category, making it difficult to locate specific information. We gave users a better way of finding these pages, making it easier for them to browse and engage with desirable content.

-

Visual Aesthetics: Leveraging Assets

  • The site was falling flat when expressing the Harris Williams brand in the digital space. It lacked clear visual hierarchy, priorities, and contrast to lead users through the content of the website. It also lacked the dynamic energy that epitomized the HW brand. Many visual cues provided by the brand style guide were either not represented or simply misused.

-

  • We leveraged design elements such as the “slash” and other background treatments to keep the pages and templates interesting. We used an animated version of the logo mark (“H”, the “slash” and the “W”) for videos and other animations. We added a new slate color to extend the spectrum of the brand. Other color swatches from the secondary palette were also emphasized.
HARRIS WILLIAMS CASE IMAGE

Homepage: Diving Deeper, Faster

  • The redesigned homepage quickly educates visitors on the key differentiators and reinforces the perception of a category-leading organization that’s powered by a team of industry experts throughout the globe. Visitors to the website can now quickly solve needs through an inviting, professional and frictionless experience that encourages intrinsic exploration, engagement, and connection to the brand and people of Harris Williams. That starts with an accessible and attractive homepage.


Transaction Display: Highlighting Success

  • Transactions needed to be clearer and easier to understand, with more supporting copy that conveys what transactions are and how they help Harris Williams help their customers. Tombstones, small thumbnails that convey information about closed deals, were difficult to read. We broadened some of these tombstones to be longer and more descriptive. The elevated tombstones helped users learn more about the firm’s recent successes.


Thought Leadership: Touting Expertise

  • The existing website contained valuable thought leadership content that needed to be more accessible to visitors. We expanded key pages to include more information about the firm’s focus areas and expertise, enabling Harris Willams to add additional content to many pages and helping to improve search value.
Harriswilliams caseimage 1

Careers: Attracting the Best

  • People are the core asset of Harris Williams. Attracting and retaining talent is vitally important. The website didn’t provide enough information to potential new hires about what makes the firm unique as an employer. So we transformed the careers page into a primary tool for talent acquisition by including a new content strategy regarding inclusivity, culture, and Harris Williams’ fundamental values. We also gave DE&I—reflective of the firm’s greatest strength, its people— a more defined and prominent space within the website.


Powered with modern tech stack

  • Migrating from a monolithic Drupal-based site to a modern headless architecture built on top of Contentful CMS and Next.js frontend framework. Other notable features included the hosted Meilisearch instance bringing search speed and quality to the next level; and DeepL Translator - a neural machine translation service that we integrated with Contentful via the custom-built Contentful app. These services were orchestrated in a microservices architecture pattern deployed to Platform.sh with independent CI/CD pipelines.

-

To bring our site strategy to life, we extended the progressive design elements within Harris Williams’ style guide to energize the brand expression and elevate visual aesthetics. We then launched the work by partnering with Platform.sh. We also integrated with Microsoft Dynamics for analytics.

Harris Williams SC3

Driving B2B Growth

Partnering with some of the world's largest companies to fuel their business-to-business expansion.

Tipico Featured Module
Tipico

Succeeding on a Mission to Win Ohio

AOR leading an integrated campaign to capitalize on the moment and bring Tipico to market.

Read More
  • Challenging category conventions to create a differentiated connection with audiences
  • Speaking with Ohio sports fans the same way they speak to each other
  • Working in an Integrated Agency team to connect through all media channels, including the app

Evolving E-commerce to Fit Modern Audiences

We are shaping the digital transformation of the industry by creating strong connections between audiences and brands.

Screen Shot 2023 03 01 at 11 14 04 AM
Marriott Bonvoy

Reimagining Marriott Bonvoy as a Hub for Travel and Commerce

Evolving Bonvoy’s design system to be more modern and immersive while staying true to the core strong brand identity.

Read More
  • Mobile-First
  • Contextualized Conversion
  • Flexible Design and Content Systems

Leading With Empathy and Inclusivity

Having deeper conversations, widening the funnel, and driving innovation with an inclusive-first lens.

CASE CARD Blowout Top Image Size Image of 7680 432
Allspring

Speed to Market for a Portfolio Optimization Tool

Crafting a UI for a complex product through user input and clear data visualization.

Read More
  • Improving workflow processes through enhanced user interface design
  • Clear and simple data visualizations for complex data sets
  • Designing a roadmap to continue to iterate and optimize the product on a rolling basis post-launch

Transforming Education's Forefront

Defining the future of digital experiences in education.

Pfizer World| Shaping a Platform into a Beacon for New Priorities and Ways of Work

Pfizer World

<p>Pfizer World</p>

Transforming a platform into a meaningful beacon to set new priorities and ways of working.

Read More
Galleri| Introducing a Revolutionary Medical Feat to the Market

Galleri

<p>Galleri</p>

Creating the first B2C campaign and user experience for a first-of-its-kind cancer detection test.

Read More

Evolving the Financial Services Model

We’re transforming an antiquated industry through cutting-edge design and driving the future of finance forward.

Award WebbyW3 0031Ad Age 0023

Recognition

  • Code and Theory

    Webby Awards

    2022 Best Magazine – Websites and Mobile Sites
  • Code and Theory

    W3 Awards

    2021 Best in Show General Websites-Associations
  • Code and Theory

    Ad Age

    2020 Agency A-List

All Work

 2023

Says a Lot —

Latest

News — 

Ringier | Leading International Media Company Ringier Appoints Stagwell’s (STGW) Code and Theory to Transform the Blick Brand

News — 

Code and Theory Takes the Stage at Web Summit Rio

News — 

PRNewswire | Code and Theory, a Stagwell (STGW) Network Company, is Building New Artificial Intelligence Capabilities with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

News — 

PRNewswire | Stagwell (STGW) Marketing Cloud Taps Former Microsoft Chief Data Analytics Officer John Kahan, Code and Theory Chairman Dan Gardner as Advisors

News — 

PRNewswire | Code and Theory Network Agency Kettle Promotes Lauren Kushner to CEO

News — 

PRNewswire | Stagwell's Code and Theory Network Expands Its Digital Transformation and Engineering Globally with Addition of YML

News — 

Ad Age | Top 5 Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Efforts To Know About Right Now

News — 

PRNewswire | Stagwell (STGW) Digital-First Creative Agency Code and Theory Launches Industry's First Holistic Inclusive Design and Marketing Strategy Discipline