Branding and web design - How Jade got the website of her dreams to kick-start her small business
If you’re launching a new independent business and don’t yet have any branding or a website to promote your small business, this will give you an insight into my process, starting from our Connect Call through to the final sign-off and website launch 🥳
When Jade got in touch with me to say she was launching a new business and needed a website, I was super excited to help bring her new elegant brand to life.
Here I’ll take you through some of the steps we went through so I could create a visual identity for her branding and web design that aligned with her business and really resonated with her ideal client. And how I then translated that into a beautiful Squarespace website, to help her kick-start her new business.
From Discovery Call to Brand Strategy - Solving a problem
During the half hour Connect Call with Jade, we delved into what she needed from her branding and website. The first thing she said was “I don’t know where to start!” so I reassured her that I’d be guiding her through the entire process from start to launch.
I recommended my branding and web design package for small businesses so we could launch her business in style with the Squarespace website of her dreams.
With her project secured in my calendar and the formalities in place, we then discussed what the main purpose of her website was. We also explored her main website goal - what was the one main action she wanted visitors to take so this could inform the strategy of the customer journey and what the key calls to action should be.
We looked at competitors in the market and highlighted aspects of designs that she liked and also those that we wanted to avoid.
But first, we needed to get the branding in place…
Bringing a brand to life - Why it’s about how a brand should feel rather than just looks
When embarking on your branding and website journey, one of the main things to consider is to really hone in on your ideal client and how you want them to feel when they see your brand and land on your website.
It’s so easy to get caught up in how something should look. But to start your branding journey it’s all about the less tangible things to begin with, like capturing the essence and the mood you want the brand to convey.
That’s where mood boarding comes in. A mood board is:
“a tool to communicate feeling” Fiona Humberstone
I was lucky enough to attend Fiona Humberstone, aka The Brand Stylist’s Mood Boarding with Flair brunch in London.
I spent the morning learning from the very best how to create a mood board that helps to elevate a brand design. On returning home I revelled in putting my inspiring morning into practice for this project. Out came the scissors and magazines and up went the Pinterest board to start gathering inspiration.
From my discussions with Jade, several words jumped out at me when she was talking about her ideal client and what they would want from her website. We narrowed this down to 3 key words to act as the guiding principles on how the brand should feel, which I kept referring to throughout the whole process to ensure the branding and design stayed true to that ‘essence’.
Elegant, Simple, Soft
Website structure, design and development - Bringing the website to life
With the mood board created (in Canva of course!), it didn’t take long to narrow down the colours that would give Jade’s brand a feminine but sophisticated palette. Again tapping into that ideal client and taking into account their age, their tastes and what would resonate with them.
This also filtered through to the logo design, the graphics and icons that help to make up the full brand identity to be used on the website and across all marketing and social media channels.
I used a great site called Coolors to experiment and explore colour combinations and refined them down to create the perfect palette.
With the branding in place, it was time to move on to the core structure of the website.
I drafted out a site map, which lists all the relevant pages that need to be designed, including the less glamorous but still essential pages such as website terms and privacy policy and the 404 error page (I always like to have a bit of fun with these).
Having the site structure signed off it was time to start bringing the website to life. Building out the pages, adding the colour palette. Then formatting the text and images so that they are optimised for search engines, accessibility and readability. There’s a lot more to it than just adding text to a page!
I couldn’t be happier with how the colours and branding worked so seamlessly with the design.
I was able to make full use of the newly released Squarespace features, such as the gradient header which added an extra touch of elegance to Jade’s site along with the new addition of accordion block to expand the answers to Jade’s FAQs saving on scrolling space and time entering code #winning.
Website Launch and Handover - The beauty of self-sufficiency
One of the really exciting parts of my job is unveiling the final design to my clients and then seeing the delight on their faces (let’s be honest it’s also a relief too!)
I absolutely love being part of my client’s journey to elevate their business by creating the website of their dreams. I was so touched to receive a lovely message from Jade to say that her website
“looks so much better than I could’ve imagined.”
One of the key principles of my business is ensuring my clients feel confident in managing their own sites, adding pages and updating their text and images. So this forms part of my launch support and handover - after all Google loves a regularly updated website!
I hope you feel all inspired after reading my bespoke branding and website client case study: Branding and web design - How Jade got the website of her dreams to kick start her small business.
From discovery call to launch, I covered:
how to build out the strategy by stepping into your client's shoes
why focusing on how you want your brand to feel rather than how it looks truly elevates the design, and
the stages of website structure, design and development including making the most of Squarespace’s newly released features
the importance of a client being able to manage their own website and not being reliant on anyone for updates
References from the blog
Jade’s elegant new website can be found here: https://www.hairbyjadelitten.com/
The Brand Stylist: https://thebrandstylist.thinkific.com/courses/the-mood-board-seminar
Canva: https://www.canva.com/
Coolors: https://coolors.co/
Want to treat your business to a new or revamped website? I’m now taking bespoke branding and web design bookings.
Why not book your Connect Call today so we can secure your spot in my calendar 🗓
