Bare in mind before we proceed with this post, my homepage alters a tad, but we all start somewhere hey.
Being a web designer, I need my very own website to speak on behalf of my physical human self that has skin, eyes, toes etc. It’s got to show me off as a web designer so you’ll not only remain on my site and want to start a website project with TCQC, but also be visually pleased and know that this sort of website is what you’ll be expecting to have produced for your/our project. Because let’s face it, if you see a flakey website that has horrible colours used in themes, or just looks as though it has been rushed with no attention to detail then you’ll probably think this isn’t what you’re after. And just like that, a potential client is lost. So this is why I took my absolute time in designing, implementing and making sure my TCQC website was nearest to perfect I know as well as best showing my creativity and attention to detail. In this blog post I will show you my process of designing a website, and using my proud TCQC website as an example.
So to start with, I’ve got a good idea of a basis and type of website I want and how I want it to look, in this case my TCQC website is an information website (with a dash of portfolio type thrown in). In this stage I am no-where near my iMac and instead I’ve got A4 pieces of paper and a pencil and I start sketching (very roughly, don’t judge) how I would like my homepage to look; I basically place my design ideas from my brain to paper… no matter how amazing or terrible it is, the tweaking comes later on.
The homepage, in my view, is what the rest of the website will base from including navigation menu style, footer menu as well as the colour scheme and theme (I usually determine what fonts and images to stick with later on once I’ve got a true manifest of the website). See below my original sketches of the TCQC home page (FYI sketches are ideas that are plotted down on paper that may not be completely accurate but adjustments and details are ironed out when we come to the actual designing) as you’ll see, near enough identical!:
Next comes the designing of the TCQC homepage. I’ll be focusing on the sketches I drew earlier and basing from this to see if everything aligns how I first thought and if there are any extra features I can add or images or pieces of text. This stage is obviously the most time-consuming however this isn’t an issue for myself as I thoroughly enjoy designing and building a website. I’m the biggest attention to detail person you’ll know so when it comes to perfection, I take my sweet time in making sure it is done so. People usually wonder “why does it take a month or more to build a website? Surely you can design one quicker?” and they are wrong (in the nicest way possible). When it comes to designing, you must think that we designers want to make sure every page is immaculate. Think of an e-commerce website selling hundreds or thousands of products, this will take a lot of time to produce and implement but with massive reward at the end (for both designer and customer)!
Once the design is finished, it’s now all about making sure the content is up to scratch including spelling, grammar, punctuation, the correct use of images/photos, making sure all links are correct including page navigation, SEO, favicon, mobile design versions of every page, colour scheme, theme and much much more. It’s got to be perfect in my eyes, especially as it’s for someone else’s organisation… a potential customer could all come down to the correct use of ‘your’ and ‘you’re’. This doesn’t differ for my own TCQC website, because for one potential customer to see a depressing website, that’s it they’re gone, so it’s quality over everything and I feel I have that with my website and expertise.
If you like what you see so far, and want to start a website project with TCQC, fill out my contact form and we’ll begin!
