Case Studies
Does Your Website Header Need a Facelift?
Take a good look at your website header – your site’s conversation starter.
Does it look professional? Does it clearly say what service or product you offer? Does it entice your visitors to explore your site?
These questions are fresh in my mind because I’ve spent a lot of time the last few months designing headers for my clients. I love the process because I know that I can quickly and cost effectively make a difference in their businesses just by designing a powerful header for their website.
Here’s a step-by-step look at my header design process.
Step 1: Q & A
The process starts with a design and content questionnaire. This helps me understand you, your business, your ideal customers and your design style. It gives us a place to gather all the technical information I’ll need to make sure your header fits the space available on your site and matches any existing branding you have.
Next, we get on the phone or Skype and talk about your business. This is one of my favorite parts of the process because I get to put on my journalist’s hat and ask you questions like: Why did you start your business? and What do your clients experience when they do business with you? I get to peek inside your brain and see your business through your eyes.
Step 2: Design
Here’s where my design and marketing knowledge is put to use translating all you’ve told me about your business into something beautiful that can help your business grow.
If I’m creating a logo treatment for you, as part of the header design, I start by experimenting with typography. I focus on fonts for about an hour, or so. At this point I’m working in Illustrator. I end up with a page full of your business name in many different fonts and then narrow these down to five or six of my favorites to play with more.
Often header design involves pulling together your logo, photo, and tagline into a cohesive unit that matches existing aspects of your branding or website template. Sometimes illustration is involved, other times I use stock photography to tie it all together. At this point in the process, I’m working in Photoshop. After I have a few header options that I think are awesome, I test them out on a screen shot of your site or template. Then I tweak, test, tweak, test until I’m happy with the results.
Step 3: Review & Revise
When I’m satisfied I’ve created the best header options for you, I send you a PDF of the options for review and we go through the revision process.
Step 4: Approval & Launch
Once you’ve approved the header design, I get the final file (usually a jpeg or gif) over to you ASAP so you can load it on your site and smile about the results.
When your site looks great, you feel great about your business. It’s an instant facelift for your site and your confidence.
There’s no reason not to have an awesome header that features the personality of your business and attracts your potential customers and clients. If you like my work, feel free to get in touch. I’d love to work with you.
How Visualization & Dreaming Influence Design
Case Study: Shine Creative Wellness
This is easily one of my favorite projects of the past year because the process of working with this client was just lovely.
I got to sit down with my client face-to-face and listen as she described her plans for her business in awesome detail. Then, we worked side-by-side (literally she was sitting right next to me in my office) to make that vision a reality in her branding.
Since she is a very artistic and visual person, she wanted to create a bit of her brand presence to provide inspiration while working through all the bureaucratic details of starting her business.
Prior to meeting with me, she’d spent time visualizing her wellness practice. She knew her business would be called Shine Creative Wellness. She described the type of clients she wants to serve, the colors of paint on the walls, the way the receptionist would greet clients, the smell of clary sage and the sound of the door chime. She talked about brightness, balance, connection, sunflowers, joy, royalty, growth, and simplicity.
As she was describing her business to me I could see the space coming together in my mind and feel the softness and care that would surround anyone who entered.
Because she had already put so much thought into her brand, we had a solid foundation to build upon in creating her logo and brochure.
Logo Design:
To create the logo, I scanned a sketch she had drawn of sunflower petals, then traced, refined and colorized the petals in Illustrator.
We tried several different font combinations and settled on Quicksand because it felt modern, open, clean and simple.
The color palette reflected the recurring sunflower theme with bright yellow and rich, lush purple.
Brochure Design:
I chose a stock illustration to emphasize growth and add some texture and depth to the basic tri-fold layout. I customized the illustration in Illustrator by removing the original background and adjusting the colors. We tweaked the copy she had written to make it easy to navigate and read, then added it to the InDesign layout.
Here are the results:
My client dreamed for her businesses. She visualized the future. Her dreams, her visions for her business and her willingness to share them with me all contributed to the creation of a logo that shines.
What are you dreaming of for your business? Please share in the comments or send me a tweet. @jewelsbranch