TheZMedia

In an abrupt coincidence, I happened to bump into a nice lady that happened to be the owner of a small business. And so as we got to know each other within the time the the elevator reached the top floor, she had given me an opportunity to redesign her website. I took the offer and so I began to ask questions.

What is the nature of the business? What are the people that you are trying to reach? What exactly is it that you are trying to market? How long have you been in the industry for?

After taking into account of all these answers, I got a general idea of what kind of look this website should give.

I wanted to make the website easily accessible with intuitive principles included in the design. So to do this, I wanted to first make a wireframe of what the website might look like. Then after populating the wireframe with some data, I decided that a rounded and pastel combination would fit the idea of this site. I color coded each page of the site so that the user knows which aspect of the story they are walking through when navigating the website.

The owner loved the newest iteration I had which gave me a sense of relief. But she added that some of the principles must be kept even if they do not match the design language and minimalism that I was trying to aim for. So I complied and added in the elements that she really wanted to keep. And with that, I will say that I value my customer's input very greatly so I will do all that I can to match what they ask of me to the best of my abilities.

One of the first things that I needed to know is what the company's culture was centered around. With this, I would be able to pick out a good color palette and maybe some shapes that match the representation of the company's goals. I found that this company was primary centered around community service and supporting the next generation of society.

This included hosting scholarships, building homeless shelters, cultural education, and giving back to the community. After a quick look at her site, I could tell she had a heart for her work and I was lucky enough to be the one to illustrate it!

After getting some of the smaller details hammered out, I moved on to setting up a consistent design language for the site where the main colors would be white, black, and rose. Rose being the accent for things that are important. I made a standard homepage with boxes and text. in a grid formation. After adding some of my own fine touches, I went to get feedback from the owner.

In the final iteration, I decided to redo the entire front page of the website. I wanted to add some of my own creative touch to it, so I implemented the buttons that are all linked to a single reference design. This was where I think the minimalism and design language actually succeeded pretty well.

I eventually showed the owner the finished product and she was ecstatic to see the new site I had for her! She instantly took out her phone to take a video of me demoing through the site and all was well at the end of the project. Here's the link if you ever wanted to check her out.