Category: Before and After

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New Website For Senior Living Community

Redesign projects are always particularly satisfying for me, giving an old dated website a new lease of live with better functionality, is very pleasing all round.

One of our St Louis clients, The Fountains of West County, approached us needing a revamp of both theirs and a sister web site.

The first of these went live this week.

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We gave the site a fresh new look and took advantage in the redesign process to improve the site architecture making it easier for users to find exactly what were looking for easily. The site was built on WordPress and is mobile friendly.

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And for a peep back in time because who does love a good before and after, here is the original site.

 

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Updated Website for Chicago Therapist

As a web designer, one of my most satisfying projects are fixer uppers – sites that have usability issues, lack a professional feel or are missing out on creating that great first impression.

When David Cohen, a Chicago Addiction Therapist, contacted us, his site could definitely be classed as a fixer upper.  It lacked that professional feel, made the user work too hard to understand his services and on top of that, was performing poorly in the search engines.

Time to work some magic!

My first objective was to improve the user engagement and I did this by completely reworking the content.  On the home page I added a slide show with well defined call to actions, encouraging users to schedule an appointment. It was also really important that the home page offer a snap shot of the type of help David offers with substance addiction and copy was added to that effect.

chicago therapist website

The inner pages of the site were given a similar content and engagement make-over, including the News page…David is very active in the media and has regular mentions in the press.

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And with all good make-overs or re-designs to is always interesting to take a look back to see what we started with.

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If you have a website that needs improvements please don’t hesitate to contact us for a hassle free no obligation evaluation.

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A Responsive Website for a Chicago Wedding Officiant

The website for a Chicago wedding officiant I gave a sneak peak to a few days ago is now live.

re designed website for chicago wedding officiant

 

This was a re-design project of an original site that had been created on Wix…an easy to use website creator but lacking in functionality and true  internet marketing (SEO) capabilities. Here is a quick snap shot of the site prior to redesign, note the mobile version looks completely different from the desktop version.

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Client, Toni Maddi , was very keen to keep the ability to update the website herself but really wanted a site where she could have full control of SEO. WordPress was the natural answer and it was this platform we used to build a fully responsive website for her wedding officiant business.

We created a very clean looking template design and updated the color palette a little. Toni had lots of fabulous photographs of wedding ceremonies she had conducted and these were used liberally throughout the site. All the pages were optimized for the search engines and we built specific landing pages for the locations and areas she serves.

The template was coded to respond to whatever device was being used to view it giving the visitor a consistent experience regardless of device they were using.

Here it is on an ipad

responsive design chicago wedding minister

and again on an iphone

responsive design Chicago wedding minister
The site has been live for less than 24hrs but I have just heard from Toni that she has already received an inquiry through it!

Read more about this wedding officiant web site on our website design portfolio

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Website Redesign: A Gallery of Before and Afters

There is something very satisfying about looking at before and after transformations regardless of the medium.  Think about the TV shows ” What not to Wear”,  HGTV’s  “Devine Design” and even “Hoarding-Burried Alive”  They are all about transformations – making something or someone look and feel better.

Now as a website designer I can’t make a site “feel” better but I can make the user experience more enjoyable and less fraught.

Amateurish to Professional

Site visitors will form an opinion of your site within the first 3 seconds of looking at it. It is important to make those seconds count with a professional look/feel.

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Drab to Fab

A simple shift in color palette and a few graphic tweaks can make a site go from drab to fab. This site was transformed into a more fresh and invigorating experience, which was much more appropriate for the products it promotes.

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Getting the visitor to do something

A call to action or getting a visitor to engage and do what you want them to,  in this case donate.

chicago_website_redesign_4 Content Reorganization

The bigger the site the more important it it to have a well thought out navigational system ensuring your site visitors can find what they are looking for quickly and with the minimum of effort.

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Don’t Make Me Think

If your visitors have to work too much when on your site, then you have a problem-they will be hitting that back button.   The same is true if they don’t understand what you are offering as was the case with the original Paper Shower web site.

 

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Redesigned Website for Paper Shower

We have  work with businesses all over the country on web and graphic design projects, but it is especially rewarding working with  businesses based in our local vicinity.  Our newest client, Paper Shower, is located right here in Lincolnshire IL .

Launched yesterday was a redesigned version of their web site papershower.com

paper shower body wipes web site redesign

Paper Shower offers a range of unique body wipes which combine a large wet wipe with a dry towelette and are great for active people who are looking to freshen up on the go – bikers, runners, while camping, hiking and traveling  or even on the golf course.

Why Redesign?

website redesign lincolnshire ilThere are several reasons for the need to redesign a web site and the old Paper Shower site fulfilled quite a few.

Firstly the site was making the visitors work too hard to understand the product, it was only after clicking through from the home page that the concept of the product having both a wet and dry towelette became obvious.

Secondly, almost no consideration had been made as to who the product was being marketed towards – it was too generic.

Lastly the site was not at all optimized for the search engines, the home page itself was a collection of images and as a whole had very little keyword rich copy.  Ranking in the search engines was poor and  traffic was minimal despite  great PR coverage the product has had over the last few years.

 

Our Web Re-Design Approach

Understanding the issues facing the old site helped us create a strategy for the  re-design and re-launch of the new site.

Competitive Analysis

Any SEO project needs to kick off with a through understanding of  the online competition. We took an in depth  look at other body wipe websites and our analysis  resulted in the compilation a list of favorable key phrases.

Web Content
We wanted to address several things with the web content

  • Communicate the uniqueness of the product in a simple format that did not require the user any effort
  • Engage with the target market of outdoorsy / active people
  • Add more call to actions to purchase product
  • Enrich it with target key words and phrase for SEO benefits

We started with the creation of a set of web banners that incorporated the product and an outdoor scenario or an occasion where the product would be useful. Each banner also carried the phrase Wash > Dry > Done, which was elaborated on with keyword rich copy underneath which quickly and easily explained the product.

paper shower body wipes golf
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The home page was updated to include more details of the product range and examples of who may find the product useful. We used video and client testimonials throughout the site for easily digestible communication.

For better engagement with the target audience we created a set of landing pages

and also added a blog

We are in the process of completing the internet marketing of the site but are confident that the  re design and optimization will result in increased traffic and sales.

Read more about Paper Shower in our web design portfolio.

© 2013 Chicago web designer

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Web Site re-design for Chicago Suburbs Business: AED Battery Exchange

Launch today is a freshly re-designed website for AED Battery Exchange aedbatteryexchange.com. Located in the far north suburbs of Chicago, they are leading the way in re- celling batteries for Automated external defibrillators and wanted a web site which truly matched their innovative product.

Also on their want list was a professional looking site which was easy to navigate and appealing to their target audience.

We created a very clean look and feel, the home page featuring an eye catching Call to Action banner to “Find your AED battery”.
AED battery exchange

They batteries were categorized in terms on manufacturer and featured images which can be enlarged so the user can clarify the correct battery.
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The site is definitely a step up from their old one

aed battery website chicago

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New website for Solon Gershman Inc

Launched today is a re-designed web site for Solon Gershman Inc, a St Louis commercial real estate company.

New web site for Solon Gershman

We completely reworked their old site, creating a fresh new professional look which is easier to use and consistent throughout. The home page features a slide show of properties with easy access to property search tools and the latest company news. The  site  integrates data from a 3rd party property listing service and offers the site visitors a seamless experience.

Solon Gershman website


Just in case you were wondering here is what the old site looked like.

©: 2011 Chicago web designer

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Is your brand image consistent?

I am working on a couple of branding projects at the moment, one is creating everything from scratch ( see the start here)  and the other is a brand consistency project.

Is your brand image consistent? Do your customers have the same experience however they interact with you. From visiting your web site, to paging through a brochure or even receiving and invoice, all these interactions offer an opportunity to convey your unique message. Lack of consistency creates confusion and sends conflicting messages to your clients.

For example your web site projects an air of professionalism and trust through design, a well thought out color palette, fonts, imagery and excellent copy. Does that image carry through to your brochures, folders,  flyers or whatever other marketing pieces you use, or have they been hastily put together with no thought as to what they communicate?

Here is brand consistency in action, from web site through to presentation folder and DVD labeling the client is getting the same message.

Professional website

DVD folder design

Interested in how we can give your collateral material a more branded and polished look? Checked out our Branding Services.

©: 2011 Chicago web designer

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A Teenage Chicago Penthouse, in my Basement!

Who doesn’t love a before and after comparison, I do them for web sites quite a lot, ( here here and here)  to showcase how a few design tweaks can make a huge impact on the appeal of a site. But today I am going to show you how I used my graphic design skills and tools to transform a very dingy, quite disgusting Chicago basement room into a light and airy teenage “penthouse” hang out.

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My canvas for this room was horrible wood paneling which has the texture of drift wood but nowhere near as pleasant. I primed then painted everything white, it took 3 coats before it looked good.

Then came the fun bit.

To be certain the skyline idea was going to work in terms of scale and look/ feel, and what colors looked best, I did a little Illustrator and Photoshop mockup.

First I designed the skyline in Illustrator. It was then imported  into Photoshop and superimposed  a photograph of the wall I intended to paint. ( I used the multipy function and distorted the illustrator graphic to fit the wall dimensions) After a bit of color tweaking, playing around with different shade of gray we settled on a simple black and  gray color palette.

painted skyline

Because of the rough nature of the paneling my initial plan to carefully tape off and paint the skyline failed so I ended up painting the whole thing free hand. If you look carefully I did not stick religiously to the illustrator design but it was enough to point me in the right direction. It turned out pretty well.

I have a bit more work to do on the furniture on the other side of the room… more painting which I will share soon!

© 2011 Chicago Web Designer