Awards Partnerships

Web Development & Web Design Awards Laurel School Site Wins WebAward WRIS received a "Standard of Excellence" award in the School category for the site it created for Laurel School. Laurel is a college preparatory, independent day school for girls, kindergarten through grade 12 located in Shaker Heights and founded in 1896. Their newly redesigned website was carefully organized to present relevant information to prospective students and their parents as well as the entire Laurel community including current students, parents, teachers, and alumnae. The award-winning site includes many interactive features including complete site content management and automatic synchronization with the school’s internal user directory. A sophisticated online application allows prospective students to complete their application over time and even link teacher recommendations to their account. An in-depth alumnae tool known as LaureLinks allows registered users to search the alumnae directory, update their own information and communicate with one another in a private online community. Heartland Industries Site Wins WebAward WRIS received a "Standard of Excellence" award in the Retail category for the site it created for Heartland Industries. With 30 years of experience and 1.5 million satisfied customers, Heartland has become the expert in providing consumers with custom outdoor storage and recreational building solutions. Originally built as an online brochure offering product information only, this award-winning website was recently redeveloped into a complete start-to-finish ecommerce selling tool. The site allows visitors to customize backyard storage buildings, gazebos, playhouses and/or play systems and place orders online. A prominent radius search feature allows consumers to locate nearby dealers and calculate shipping charges. Additionally, the entire website is backed by a content manager enabling Heartland to change pricing, offer discounts and run promotions. Wellcorp Site Wins WebAward WRIS received a "Standard of Excellence" award in the Professional Services category for the site it created for Wellcorp. Wellcorp provides corporate health management programs that help improve employees’ lives and rejuvenate the organizations for which they work. Wellcorp’s services range from on-site programs including health screenings, training seminars and nutrition consultation to online services such as lifestyle health coaching and employee health resources. The clean and uncluttered layout of the website conveys their corporate mission and effectively communicates their broad range of offerings to current and prospective clients. Time-sensitive sections of the site such as awards & honors, news, media kit, health management resources and career opportunities are completely updateable through a content manager. The Ohio Landscape Association Site Wins Award WRIS received a "Standard of Excellence" Webaward in the "non-profit" category for the site it created for The Ohio Landscape Association (OLA). A non-profit trade association, OLA is dedicated to promoting the highest standards in the landscape industry. The purpose of the website is to inform consumers of the various options and benefits available with the use of professional landscapers. In addition to providing timely and seasonal information updated by OLA on a regular basis, the site allows consumers to search for a landscape professional based on a number of criteria. This database is maintained by OLA through a Content Management system, allowing them to continually expand and enhance it. City of Euclid Site Wins Award WRIS received a "Standard of Excellence" Webaward in the "Regional" category for the site it created for The City of Euclid. Euclid is a city rich in history, tradition, and diversity. Its award-winning web site was developed specifically for the residents of Euclid to serve as a well-organized source of valuable community information. Interactive features such as a categorized calendar of events, online surveys, newsletter sign ups, updateable news features, downloadable forms and permits and archived city council minutes were designed to encourage community involvement, improve communication and increase convenience. University School Site Wins WebAward WRIS received an Outstanding Website Award in the "School" category for the site it created for University School. The challenge with the website redesign (www.us.edu) was to present the school, which operates from two geographically separate campuses, as one unified facility. This was accomplished by carefully organizing campus-specific information using easily accessible dropdown menus. The award-winning website functions effectively as both a marketing tool as well as a valuable resource and communication vehicle for members of the school community. One judge from the WebAward competition deemed the site an "Excellent resource of information," saying, "the site does an excellent job of selling the school, keeping alumni interest and providing ample information to parents." KraftMaid Cabinetry Site Wins WebAward WRIS, and teammates Overview & Longlook and Doner Advertising received an "Outstanding Web Site" award in the "Manufacturing" category for the site they developed for KraftMaid Cabinetry - www.kraftmaid.com. KraftMaid is the world's leading manufacturer of built-to-order cabinetry offering storage solutions for every room in the home. The mission of the website is not to sell cabinets online, rather it is to inspire creativity in visitors as they browse through beautiful photographs featuring KraftMaid cabinets in a variety of room settings. The site encourages viewers to purchase cabinets through one of many local dealers by allowing them to add rooms, door styles, finishes and accents to a scrapbook. The site's customer service options include a zip code dealer locator as well as the ability to check an order's status online. The user interface and page layout is easy to follow and flexible enough to allow the visitor to choose his or her own path. Ladies Who Launch Site Wins WebAward WRIS won a "Standard of Excellence" award in the "Online Community" category for the site it designed for Ladies Who Launch - www.ladieswholaunch.com. This content-rich website and event forum is dedicated to female entrepreneurs and motivated women. Through its website and events in different cities, the company provides a forum for women to share products, services, ideas and marketing. "I really enjoyed this site and its mission and purpose - I appreciated that it wasn't all fashion and fluff; it had a meaty, practical life skills and entrepreneurial business skills focus for women," said one WebAward judge, "I suspect that strong, motivated, aspirational women will find it invigorating, encouraging, and beneficial." Bruening Foundation Site Wins Award The Eva L. and Joseph M. Bruening Foundation web site received a Gold Award in the web sites category in the 2004 Wilmer Shields Rich Awards for Excellence in Communications. The award was presented by The Council on Foundations and The Communications Network. The Bruening Foundation web site received top honors in the independent, family and operating foundations category and was described as "extremely sleek in its organization, clear, concise and to the point - just what the Web should be," by the judges. The Bruening Foundation is one of several foundations managed by Foundation Management Services, Inc. of Cleveland, a long-time client of WRIS. Corporate College® Site Wins WebAward WRIS received an "Outstanding Web Site" award in the "Education" category for the site it developed for Corporate College® Located in Westlake, Ohio, Corporate College® is Cuyahoga Community College's newly renovated, state-of-the-art facility that combines the latest technology and upscale amenities to create a one-of-a-kind, premier corporate conference, and training environment. Judges from the WebAward Contest deemed the site "an excellent interactive planning tool" stating, "The site's strongest asset is the ability to customize a package online. This is a wonderful feature that will keep clients coming back." Bay Village Recreation Site Wins WebAward WRIS received a "Standard of Excellence" award in the "Regional" category for the Bay Village Recreation Department website - www.bayrec.org. The Bay Village Recreation Department offers a wide variety of recreation programs that are continually being expanded and revised in response to resident interests. Because of this, the site was built with a user-friendly content management system allowing administrative staff to easily add and cancel programs, view lists of individuals registered for each program and manually enter information for mail-in and walk-in registrants. The registration process on the front-end is equally as simple, and the easy-to-follow instructions guide the registrant through the process of signing up. Arborwear site wins ADDY Awards The Arborwear site, designed by The Creative Department and programmed by WRIS won several ADDY awards during the February 2003 Award Ceremony in Cincinnati, Ohio. The entire site won a Gold ADDY for the Consumer category under Web Sites. It also won a Judge's Choice award, which means that one of the four judges thought it was the best entry over all other entries and in all media! The Fleece Jacket Webmercial and the Shorts Webmercial each won a gold and silver ADDY (respectively) in the Online Pop-ups category.