Website Design

Client

Designs Northwest Architects

My Role

Project Management
UX & Visual Design
Squarespace Development

Summary

Website redesign and refresh for an award winning architecture office in the Seattle Area

Visit the Designs Northwest Website

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Designs Northwest is an architecture office in the Seattle area. They wanted to refresh their website in a way that would get visitors right into their work, display their particular style, and tell the story of their office (both in the past, and what they’re working on currently).

APPROACH

Discovery

Structure & Wireframe Design

Visual Design

Development

Ongoing Maintenance & Analytics

1. Discovery

GOALS, AUDIENCE & MESSAGE

The discovery phase is about uncovering the intended audience, who the message of the website will be crafted for, and how the message will be conveyed.

In this stage I kick off the project with the client by asking a standard set of questions and then discussing with them to dig in more.

Discovery Process

Discovery Intake Questionnaire and Discussion Starter

View Documents

2. Structure & Wireframe Design

SITEMAPS, WIREFRAMES & CONTENT

After getting aligned on the goals, audience, and messaging of the project, the next step I take is to map things out with a sitemap (how the website’s navigation and page structure will be), and then to think about what content will fill out each of the pages.

After a sitemap is generally agreed upon, I block out each of the pages quickly and loosely with placeholder images and text content. This step helps clarify if all the content that’s needed is actually present, and laid out in a compelling way before I start investing time with visual design.

3. Visual Design

Colors, Fonts & Images

Only after the structure and content of the website is loosely set do I start overlaying visual design elements to make the website’s look and feel come to life.

From a blocked out website to one with consistent colors, fonts and images is where the magic happens and clients start to really recognize the website as their own.

4. Development

WORDPRESS DEVELOPMENT OR SQUARESPACE

I do custom website development in WordPress the vast majority of the time. Though depending on how much control the client requires in terms of being able to update the site themselves after it’s built, sometimes I use Squarespace.

In this case, I built the site in Squarespace, which allows the client to take advantage of the drag and drop builder interface to make any changes they wish.

5. Ongoing Maintenance & Analytics

STAYING UP TO DATE & ANALYTICS

Generally after finishing a website project, I like to offer the clients a support and maintenance package to take care of their site, keeping it up to date and fixing anything if something goes wrong.

I also build in standard with any website I do analytics so that both I and client can track and see how people are using the website and if it’s behaving as it should to get people to the content they need.

Ready for More?
View Another Project –

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