"Digital design is like painting, except the paint never dries." - Neville Brody
WHAT IS DIGITAL DESIGN?
Simply put, design is a method of solving problems. Whether it is a website, an app, a company brochure, an office space, or a better way to streamline production on the factory floor – design helps solve a problem. Not only is design solving problems but it is the key to creating a meaningful customer or user experience that will differentiate your brand's products or services from competitors.
STRONG BRAND DESIGN = STRONG CONSUMER TRUST
GOOD DESIGN KEEPS YOUR BRAND MEMORABLE
Design is more than just the outward appearance of a business, brand or product. It goes deeper, particularly when it comes to brand design. Brand design is like meeting a new neighbor. First, you may only see them from your driveway and wave, but as you get to know them you discover all the little parts that make them your neighbor. This is what design is.
DESIGN SETS YOU APART FROM THE CROWD
Have you ever looked at two products, like cookies, that are exactly the same but you bought the one that looked nicer than the other? Maybe when you looked at the package you noticed it had a nicer set of colors, crisper images or a sturdier box. Chances are we won't pay much extra for the "nicer-looking" brand but when it comes to similarly priced products, we will reach for the more aesthetically pleasing option.
BE CONSISTENT
Consistency is arguably the key rule to a successful brand, hence, a successful business. It sounds simple and like an easily enforceable rule, and it can be, but only when you have a good strong understanding of design. Consistency builds a strong customer understanding of your company's services and products.
ENSURE YOU APPEAL TO THE RIGHT MARKET
Chances are when you started building your business you established the type of target audience (clients) you would work with. As well thought out and detailed as your target market might be on paper, in practice, targeting this market can be rather tricky. Once again, this is where design can save the day!
WHAT WE DO
WEBSITE DESIGN + BUILD
We will build your website with our custom WordPress designs. We build our website with a marketing mindset utilizing clean and simple sites that will drive your brand message, support your marketing goals and reflect your company's mission.
WEBSITE PLANNING
Have an idea for a business, but still need to work out a lot of the logistics before you can even think about a website? We will work with you to build a plan, project budget, timeline, and checklist of items you need to do to get ready for your web design project.
BLOG DESIGN + BUILD
Build your audience before you take your website live! A simple blog is the best way to drum up excitement, begin content marketing, and build a base of loyal followers that every company needs.
BRAND MANAGEMENT
Have a clear vision for your brand, but not sure how to show it? Together, we’ll define a clear aesthetic that you’ll be able to roll out across your website and social media channels.
LANDING PAGES
Not ready to launch your website yet but want to have an online presence to direct your follower towards? Start targeting your audience with subscriptions for a newsletter, company updates or sign-ups for upcoming events.
WEBSITE CARE
We provide proactive support to maintain and improve your website and marketing efforts. We provide fast and responsive website care for all the sites we build to protect and ensure the integrity of your website.
WEBSITE DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
We are in a world now where most businesses are online in some form or another. In fact, encountering a business' website or social media profile is a clients' first encounter. On top of this, there are now businesses that are 100% online which means that your website is your clients' first impression ... does it leave a good one?
HOW DO YOU ENSURE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION? GOOD DESIGN!
A poorly designed website is often not read, trusted or visited for any length of time.
Poor user experience is associated with rapid rejection and mistrust of a website and in turn, a brand.
Web development refers to building, creating, and maintaining websites. It includes aspects such as web design, web publishing, web programming, and database management.
There are five stages when planning, developing and building a website. Each stage has its own important function and cannot be overlooked or sped through without jeopardizing the quality of your digital design.
The purpose of most business websites is to drive sales. While successful sites engage, inform, and educate visitors, their end goal is to convert visitors into leads and leads into customers. In some cases, visitors may purchase tangible or digital products directly from the website, while in others they may engage in some way with the business, eventually purchasing products or services from the business.
If making sales is the end goal of your website, you must always keep it in mind. Too often the key point is forgotten in the quest for design features. Don't forget the reason you're building a site in the first place.
Additionally, investing in a website means investing in something that grows with your business. Plan for your website to change over time.
Planning is essential for most businesses and organizations. Unfortunately, when it comes to websites there is often a failure to plan properly, or at all. Sometimes organizations simply underestimate the time, skill, energy and expertise that goes into building even the smallest website. But often it is because people fail to recognize that planning for the website is just as important as planning for anything else associated with their business.
Phase 1
In this initial stage, you will define the goals and objectives of your website and begin to collect and analyze what information you'll need to justify the budget and resources required. You will work with your developer to determine your hosting, the best foundation for your website to be built on as well as the full functionality of the user experience.
When it comes to planning there are at least four key items to consider when coming up with your website blueprint. If you make sure to take the time to think through these four things, your chances for creating a successful website increase exponentially.
- What are you trying to accomplish?
- How can you provide your target audience with the valuable information they are looking for?
- Determine what you want your audience to do once they land on your site.
- Create a list of keywords that you will use throughout your site in order to move your web pages up the ranks of search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
Obviously, these are just a few of the items involved in developing your website, but many of them have to do with your own personal objectives. The four keys above are universal to all websites.
If you take the time to think through these items, you will definitely set your business up for success.
Phase 2
Web content is the textual, visual, or audio content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include, among other things, text, images, sounds, videos, and animations. Good content is what sets your website apart from the masses and delivers the right message into the hearts and minds of your customers. The success of your website is determined primarily by its content. Ultimately, content wins the wallets of your customers. All other components of your website (design, visuals, videos, etc.) provide a secondary support role. If you have effective taglines, great design will only enhance their effectiveness.
DESIGN ITSELF DOES NOT SELL
The importance of website design is usually the focus of your website but the true focus should be your content. In the rush to create the best user experience many website designers and developers forget that when it comes down to it, customers are not interested in whether the site has 3 or 5-pixel borders.
At the end of the day, your customer is coming for YOUR CONTENT!
MEDIA CONTENT
To put it simply, media or "multimedia," as it was often called in the past, is any content that isn't text. It includes animation, images, sound, and video.
TEXT CONTENT
Text is easy, it's the written content that's on the page, both inside images and in text blocks. Text content is everything from your homepage to the "About Us" or "Company History" page, etc.
Your content pages are important for your visitors to get to know your brand, what you stand for, what you do and how they can benefit from working with you or using your services. The text content is updated regularly to ensure that your users are getting the most up to date information regarding your services, events or upcoming company changes.
Phase 3
DESIGN
During the design phase, your website takes shape. All the visual content, such as images, photos, and videos are created at this step. Once again, all the info that was gathered through the first phase is crucial. The customer and target audience must be kept in mind while you work on a design.
The website layout is the result of a designer’s work. It can be a graphic sketch or an actual graphic design. The primary function of the layout is to represent the information structure, visualize the content, and demonstrate the basic functionality. Layouts contain colors, logos, images and can give a general understanding of the future product.
The design stage typically involves moving the information outlined in the planning stage, further into reality. The main deliverables are a documented site structure and, more importantly, a visual representation. Upon completion of the design phase, the website should more or less have taken shape.
Phase 4
DEVELOP & TEST
And now let’s come down to the nitty-gritty! This is where the planning, content creation and design come together. The process can be divided into two parts, frontend and backend.
Frontend Development
Frontend, as the name suggests, is the development of the client side, that is seen by the users. All the designs made during the previous stage are converted to HTML pages with necessary animations and effects. Considering the importance of mobile devices, making the website responsive and mobile friendly has become equally important.
Backend Development
Backend refers to the development of the server side, that is the soul of the frontend and makes the user interface into a working website. The backend developers create the server-side application, database, integrates business logic and everything that works under the hood.
After development, the website is now ready for TESTING! This phase is important to ensure that your users are getting the best experience and that your website is performing to its best potential.
Phase 5
LAUNCH
Finally, the day has arrived! All of the planning and work is ready to go live!
This is the time to take a moment and enjoy what has been accomplished. But don't get too comfortable even though this project is done ... there is still MUCH more to be done for your marketing and business.
We are here to support you through all of it!
Let's Discuss What's Next
Have a project or a question?
We'd love to hear from you.
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