In this episode, Chrissy Rey interviews Eve Simon, founder of Eve Simon Creative, about the essential steps to take before diving into website design. Eve shares valuable insights on planning, content creation, and choosing the right platform for your website. This episode is packed with practical advice for small business owners and solopreneurs embarking on their website journey.
Listen to the Episode
Show Notes
Eve Simon, a seasoned designer with over 25 years of experience, emphasizes the importance of “unsexy” planning work before jumping into website design. She discusses the significance of defining goals, understanding your audience, and creating a cohesive brand story. Eve also shares insights on content creation, platform selection, and the pros and cons of using website templates versus custom designs.
Guest Bio: Eve Simon
A lapsed Philosophy major with an MFA in theatrical lighting design and over 2 decades experience in the web industry, Eve is both an experienced creative thinker and a quirky addition to your next dinner party.
Over her career, she’s solved design challenges for exciting brands like The League of Women Voters, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, Habitat for Humanity, ALS Association, National Audubon Society, and the Ad Council. She has also spoken at major conferences, including three times at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin.
When not running Eve Simon Creative, a design & storytelling consultancy, she writes a lot and produces/hosts GenX Stories, an award-winning podcast about how the lost generation found itself. Oh, and she’s a bit obsessed with ampersands.
Key Topics Covered
- The importance of planning before design (0:03:16)
- Defining website goals and target audience (0:04:04)
- Creating a brand story or identity (0:04:21)
- Choosing the right website platform (0:12:21)
- Content creation and its impact on design (0:17:43)
- Using mood boards for brand development (0:28:18)
- The pros and cons of website templates vs. custom design (0:36:58)
Resources Mentioned
- Website Success Blueprint: https://websitesuccessacademy.com/resources/website-planner/
Transcript
[00:00:09] Hey everyone. This is Chrissy Ray and welcome back to Website Success. I’m doing another interview here. This seems to be becoming a habit, which is a good thing. And today I am talking with Eve Simon. She is the founder and chief creative at Eve Simon Creative. Before she started Eve Simon Creative, she spent 13 years in the agency world working with just about every platform out there, and she went out on her own in 2020 to work with small businesses and tech agencies to help them build out their design and storytelling practice.
[00:00:44] And just a little add on there, I have known Eve for, I think, 20 years. Ish years, 20, 20 years. And we have worked together on quite a few projects, so I’m very excited to talk with her because she is my favorite designer ever. So Eve welcome. And if there’s anything you’d like to add to that intro.
[00:01:04] No, this is that’s awesome. And, and I think it’s more than 20 years. I don’t want to, I don’t want to give us a number. We work together. We actually met through DC Web Women back in the day. And then you came on with various companies.
[00:01:18] I work for as a, as a contractor. And then once I went out on my own, there was no question when I was doing sites where I couldn’t build because I’m a designer, storyteller, not a techie, there was absolutely no question that we could partner together. And we’ve been doing it ever since I started. So yeah, this is awesome.
[00:01:35] Thank you for having me.
[00:01:37] Thank you. Thank you. So I brought Eve on because, like I said, she’s my favorite designer. I’ve worked with her on numerous projects over the years. I think it’s been since the 90s. I want to say it’s like late 90s. It’s been a little while. I’ve known Eve longer than my son has been alive and he’s almost 19.
[00:01:56] So, and I remember when your son was born, so it’s been a while. Uh, but again, the reason, the reason that I asked her on is because she really, she knows so much about design. She’s worked with so many different kinds of organizations. So I thought she would be really good to kind of pick her creative brain, to see what she has to say about design. And this, this is a topic that a lot of people have trouble with. So I guess Eve, the, the big question, my first question is when you’re getting ready to make a website, so let’s say that you’re DIYing it or you may be thinking of hiring somebody, but you’re just getting started. What should you plan for before you get started?
[00:02:38] This is a controversial question, I will tell you, because I don’t want to say age, but I’m OG. I’m an OG designer. I’ve been doing this for over 25 years. For me, when you get started, I don’t like to jump right into the pretty stuff. Because that doesn’t help you in the long run. And this is something that clients of all sizes, when I worked at an agency and we were working with a, you know, $250,000 project for a big name nonprofit versus now I work with an independent person for considerably less, you gotta do the unsexy stuff first and every website’s going to start with goals and audiences.
[00:03:16] You can make art without that, but you can’t design something functional without knowing those two things. And by that, I mean, why are you doing it and who are you doing it for? It’s just really that basic. It doesn’t have to be a big fancy document. It doesn’t have to be, you know, all that stuff. It just needs to be what are you trying to achieve with this? Cause obviously you’re doing it for something. And if you’re not go read a book, because it’s a lot of work. If you don’t have a reason to do it, and then who is it for, you know, it’s, you’re going to get a very different outcome if you’re doing it for a nonprofit audience than maybe Coca Cola, or you’re going to be doing it to get clients versus you’re going to do it for individual students, for example. So you got, you got to get all that, that out of the way, figure out your goals and audiences.
[00:04:04] And then what I’ve learned in this industry is you got to figure out your story. And story has a lot of different words that you can call a brand. You can call it story. You can call it brand. Your personal journey, whatever it is, your story is going to determine a lot of the goals in the audiences as well.
[00:04:21] But without it, you got no structure. I’m one of those people who feels that structure makes you more creative. So if you have guardrails, and you’re going to do this to this, and you’re achieving this, then you can fill in with all the different colors and all the pretty stuff, but if you don’t have a structure and it’s open ended, then you’re going to be in trouble.
[00:04:41] So I figure out who it’s for, figure out what you’re doing, figure out what you’re trying to say, what your story is and, and what your selections of structure. When we talk about navigation, you, you’ve got to know what pieces are going to build your story. Unlike a lot of print pieces. Um, when you open a magazine and you see things in order, you don’t see a website in order. So you gotta assume that people are gonna have to know about you coming in from different places. So that’s also something to think about. That gets more complex.
[00:05:10] Only then can you start really thinking about the pretty stuff. You gotta think about structure and intent and all that. Once you get into the pretty stuff, that’s what people call brand. I call story, but it’s brand. But knowing what colors represent you is probably one of the more challenging things you can do at this phase of the game. Because if you haven’t done the unsexy work, you may just think it’s a preference. And it’s like, Oh, I like purple. I mean, I’ll tell you personally, I love purple. If I had my druthers, every site I did would be purple, but I’m a designer. So my job is not my personal thing. It’s for someone else. It gets tricky when you are the someone else doing your own website, picking these things and picking these intents from a position of not personal preference, but maybe business need or business preference is going to be the biggest challenge I think you have when you get started.
[00:06:08] You may not know what your typography is, you may not know what the right fonts to choose from, you don’t know what the colors are, but every selection that you make should have an intent and a reason in my mind. There are going to be a lot of designers who will, who will tell you opposite and you start with the pretty and all that, and you back into the other stuff, but for all the work that you and I have done over 20 plus years, we know what happens at the end when you do that which is, it doesn’t achieve anything, or suddenly they’re like, Oh, we need to add something. Which would have been much easier in the beginning.
[00:06:40] Right, yeah. Yeah, and I’ll add a little plug here because I do have on Website Success Academy in the resources, I’ve got a Website Success Blueprint that basically covers a lot of what Eve just talked about as far as the upfront stuff.
[00:06:58] So it goes into, first of all, what is your offer? What are, what are you trying to do like in the first place? Not even your goal yet, but what is your offer? What are the features and benefits of your offer? And then what are your goals? Who is your target audience? Creating an ideal client avatar and, and thinking about what does that ideal client need to see in order to work with you. So even thinking about what your content is going to be, before you get to even think about what your logo is going to look like or which colors you’re going to use, but that’s, for me, that’s like the third phase. So I, cause I usually do planning and then content and then the design.
[00:07:38] So that’s right. You got to wait to actually come up with the brand and the design. If you have to have those other things in place first.
[00:07:46] And some people may not like to hear that. It’s hard to hear, but can I can also put off somebody saying, Oh, I’m not a designer or, Oh, this is too much work to do.
[00:07:53] I guarantee you that you will reap the benefits, even if it’s the world’s most simple site, because then it’ll be fast in theory, then you just get some quick answers, you know what you need to do. And you have a blueprint and those guideposts to help you through it. I mean, It’s probably a very controversial thing for a visual person to say, don’t jump right into the visual. But I think it’ll be easier for most of most people who are listening here to get some of that stuff out of the way and actually build some confidence in yourself and in what you’re doing. It’s like, Oh, I do know what I want to do. And then within that process, some ideas will come at you, which include color and maybe include imagery, maybe include typography, but you sort of can’t jump right to it.
[00:08:38] So, um, thank you for, for having an entire set for that because not everybody wants to think that way.
[00:08:44] Yeah. Yeah. And, and I will add that for, for anybody that’s having trouble getting started with figuring all that out, if you at least know the basics, if you’ve got like some inkling of what you need, as far as like what your offer is and just kind of some rough idea of who your target audience is, you can use AI to help you refine that.
[00:09:04] You can use ChatGPT or claude.ai. And you can, you can bounce ideas off of it and say this, you know, this is what I think. Can you expand on it? Can you tell me what you think their challenges and pain points are? And you obviously want to confirm that with real humans and make sure that it’s accurate.
[00:09:24] But I’ve, I, in my experience, it’s pretty good at guessing that kind of information because it’s been trained on a lot of the information that’s on the internet. So it, it, I found it to be pretty good at figuring out. At least the paid versions that I’m using are pretty good. I haven’t even tried it with the free version, but it’s worth trying it out if you need somebody or something to bounce those ideas off of to figure that out.
[00:09:50] I think that’s also a good point, too, because sometimes you can feel very isolated and very alone when you’re doing this. Well, AI scares the hell out of me sometimes. This is an interesting use of it where you can actually bounce things off of somebody who’s not going to judge you and, and it also builds your confidence saying, I don’t really don’t know what I’m talking about.
[00:10:08] Well, I, if you, when you put these things in, AI is going to tell you, you do know what you’re talking about. And then help you refine that. So I think that that’s actually, if you’re sitting by yourself, and it’s like, I can sit and talk to myself, or I could talk to an AI. Yeah. Maybe that is a helpful approach to some of this stuff.
[00:10:25] Yeah. And I think it’s really good because a lot of, at least a lot of people that I work with, they’re solopreneurs. They’re working independently. It’s just them. And They may not really have somebody to bounce ideas off of all the time. They might, you know, they might have a business bestie or somebody that they can talk to, but I work from home. I am in my basement in my office and I, some days I don’t even leave the house. Some days I don’t go anywhere. And so sometimes it helps to have that AI. I do actually run the things past humans that are in the target audience to sort of confirm what, what the AI is telling me. Cause sometimes AI makes stuff up, but it is known to do that.
[00:11:07] You gotta be careful, but you know, it’s good to have that when, when you’re working independently.
[00:11:12] I think that’s an interesting way of thinking about it. I like when you say talking about running past people in your target audience, because that’s going to determine so many things. Because you do have to teach an AI some things. And then if you ask like your mother, what do you think about this? She’ll be like, oh darling, it’s wonderful. But that’s not your audience who’s going to say, you know what? That color actually grosses me out. And it’s like, ah, right. Or that’s not what I mean. So so I think that that’s maybe a very good step.
[00:11:41] And then that builds your confidence and saying, OK, well, I’ve determined who I need to talk to now. Mm hmm. But I do think you need to make that next step to talk to somebody.
[00:11:50] What would you say is a good process? I know we kind of talked about it sort of high level, but what are some other things that people should do before they get into creating their brand? And then maybe a little bit of what they should do when they get to the point of creating their brand?
[00:12:05] This is also going to be controversial because you got to, you got to pick a platform. You got to kind of know how this is going to go out in the world. And normally when you’re also picking a platform, you’ve got to think about your presence and that’s a URL.
[00:12:21] So that’s a www. evesimoncreative. com. You know, what is it, how are people going to get to you? So again, maybe that’s again, the unsexy stuff, but understanding how it’s going to be built on what. And how people get to it. I think that’s probably the first thing that goes in your mind with all this other stuff.
[00:12:39] And it helps with story. It helps with, you know, I, I could have made myself not eve simon creative. And I actually went back and forth over, do I name a company as a company name for design stuff? With just me, cause I’m a solopreneur. And then finally it’s like, then, you know, you go through the process saying, you know what, no, I’m going to do this.
[00:12:59] And because I’m a visual designer and WordPress scares me, which is why I work with you so much, and I send you projects that are built on WordPress. If I’m going to build this myself, I got to use a platform that I’m comfortable with that works with my designer brain. And it’s suitable to my skills, which we can get into later, which one I chose.
[00:13:17] So I think that that’s an important piece to figure out, like, how is this going to be done? Because the worst thing is that you go do all this other stuff and then you’re like, now what, how do I get it out of here? Onto us out of your brain. Sorry, I’m pointing to my head, uh, to the screen. And, and that can be daunting if you’re not in this industry.
[00:13:36] So take, like, it’s a small step to be able to say, it’s a small step, but a big step. It’s a small thing to say, I’m going to do it on Squarespace and my URL is going to be X. Dude, you’ve done a lot already.
[00:13:47] So, so small is big and, and to, and congratulate yourself for, for doing things like that. So that’s how I would start is to, is to think again, that’s how my brain works. I think holistically about the whole thing. And I think about what we’re trying to achieve and then sort of whittle yourself down to specificities, which get into visual design, but don’t go right at it and do the things that make you comfortable and where your skills live.
[00:14:11] Be comfortable asking for help from people who are the experts. I think that’s something important for a DIYer who sometimes thinks, well, I’ll just figure it out. And most of the time you can. But you’re gonna hit something you can’t. How many times have I sent you an email that says, How do I do this? Yeah. Yes. What is this? Yes. Or am I wrong to think this?
[00:14:34] So it, but it takes a while in this industry and it takes a while, you know, maybe if you DIY, it’s your first project to gain that confidence.
[00:14:40] So I think anything you can do that it’s within a comfort level that you can do and put a stake in the ground is a step further down the road. And you can, then if you don’t.
[00:14:50] And I, and I will throw in here. Choosing your platform, so whichever website you’re building, whichever website builder you’re going to use, that’s a really big thing.
[00:15:01] And it’s a really hard decision for a lot of people to make. So if you’ve done that, bravo. You’ve done, you’ve done one of the hardest things that you’ve had to do. But I want to make sure before you pick your platform that you’ve done the research to figure out if the platform is going to work for you for at least a little while. It doesn’t have to work for you forever, but it should work for you for at least, at least, you know, the next couple of years. Uh, and you need to make sure that it will do everything that you think you’re going to need to do in the next couple of years, as far as the website.
[00:15:35] It doesn’t have to do everything. I know I’ve worked with a lot of clients and a lot of potential clients who, they want to pick a system that does everything. So it does their website, all of their courses, their membership, their email marketing and their CRM. And I, I’m not a fan of putting everything, like putting all of your eggs into one basket. Because if you have a platform that does everything, it probably doesn’t do everything really well. It probably does like one or two things really well, and then the rest of it doesn’t do very well. So you might need to pick like sort of the best in class for each of those things. And that’s tricky. It’s hard to find that, especially if you don’t have the experience. So definitely do your research, talk with experts. I’m, I’m available. If anybody wants to bounce ideas off of somebody besides AI, I I’m here to help. So, and she’s definitely not an AI. I will tell you that. Are you sure? Unless you become an AI over 20 years, you didn’t start as one. Yeah, no, I didn’t start as one.
[00:16:37] Yeah, we’ve actually met in person. So yeah, there is that. Yes.
[00:16:42] As part of the process, , because I, I’ve worked with, with You know, I’ve, I’ve worked with other designers. Don’t let it, I know, but I’ve, I’ve worked with designers who want the, the content done before they do any design. And I’ve worked with designers who want to do the design before they do the content, which, which do you fall into?
[00:17:03] I’m going to give you the answer that you’re going to hate. And then your listeners are, Hey, it’s going to depend, uh, depend on how much content you have. It depends on how much you already have and need to be rewritten. I mean, there’s something that’s out there called the content audit. That helps you determine if you have an existing site that you’re redesigning.
[00:17:20] This is based on a redesign. What’s going to stay. You determine sort of stay, go rewrite and, and their technical challenges to the go part that we, we would deal with another time. I am of the, the mindset that however it happens, you need your content by the time the website is ready to be tested.
[00:17:43] How you do that can vary. If you do all the content up front and that’s the writing. And that’s, that’s even going back to the high level. What is, what are your buckets? You know, it, is there an about section? Is there case study section? Is there services? You know, what, what are all the things that are going to be part of that?
[00:18:01] Sometimes from a design perspective, it’s good to have a estimate of amount of text. Like when you’re designing something that’s going to have an image and a promo, but you’ve designed a promo that’s a paragraph. Content comes back three paragraphs. That’s a problem. So you want to get some of that crap out of the way.
[00:18:20] So you need to know sort of relative sizes. And if it means you use a placeholder, which I’m not a huge fan of, I’m a fan of using real content. But if you have to use a placeholder until that content is finalized, so be it, but it should, it should duplicate the general size, how much you’re going to need to do.
[00:18:38] You and I both know that the thing that holds up website launches more than anything else isn’t technology, isn’t design. It’s content. Oh yeah. And it’s people who realize by the time the site gets to them to test that like, Oh, I need to write stuff. So 100 percent it needs to be done early on in this process.
[00:19:00] How it’s done can vary based on where you are in the product. If you’re in a brand new website, I would say you probably write it first. If you’re coming at it from a redesign, I would say get the content audit down so you know what’s staying, what’s going, what’s going to be rewritten, what the approximate lengths are before you hit design.
[00:19:17] Okay. Sometimes. There are multiple processes that can be done simultaneously. So if you’re the type of person, it’s like, okay, I’m going to go, we’re all in agreement to where we’re going. I’m going to go to the right and visually design it. You’re going to go to the left and write the stuff. We’ll come back together when the site is going to be built and then we’ll plug it in.
[00:19:38] But if you’re doing it on your own, you got to do one of, one of the other first. I mean, You could split it and you could do a little bit of one and then a little bit of another and then going back and forth. I don’t recommend doing that personally.
[00:19:51] I don’t either. I don’t either. I think it’s
[00:19:53] So, so that, so we’ll amend that.
[00:19:55] So then, if it’s by yourself, I say you gotta do at least the first draft of your content before you, before you design. At least the first draft and understanding content on, on a word document or in a Google page or whatever it is, is very different than when you put it in your website. And suddenly you put it in your website and you go, Oh, that’s what that means.
[00:20:18] So you, there may be two round two or round three where the content’s edited on your platform. But. If you don’t have something, you can’t edit it. So, if you’re by yourself and you got no one else to help with, and you’re not dealing with a solopreneur who’s helping you moderate this, and they’ll go off to design and you do the copy.
[00:20:39] In that case, I would say, get that first draft done first. And it can be helpful. It’s like when you do your structure and understand what your pieces are going to be, start writing. And start pulling, you know, looking for your sources saying, God, I don’t have that. Maybe that’s in my resume or maybe it’s on my LinkedIn bio, you know, start pulling and literally just cut and paste, cut and paste. Just get it down on paper and then you can refine it. I mean, that’s, that’s just the writing process, which can be again, daunting. Yes. If you’re not an author, take breaks. I will advocate for that throughout all of this, that if you’re feeling overwhelmed, just walk away and, and have a glass of water or do something and then come back to it and it’ll feel more manageable, but take it to appreciable chunks, and this can be a big chunk. This is a, maybe the center part, part of your website, more so than visual design, which is hard to hear. If you think that design is going to solve everything, it’d be in a beautiful coat of paint and, and, and lipstick on a pig will solve everything. It doesn’t. It’s your content that’s actually making the difference.
[00:21:42] Right. So getting that under your belt, if you’re starting from scratch, getting that under your belt is, is a good place to start. So you’ve turned me around. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:51] And, and even so, even when, so when I work with clients that, where I build the website for them, we, When we’re doing a project where we’re only doing the build for them and they’re providing us with their graphics, their design, their colors, their logo and everything, they’ve already got all that.
[00:22:11] The content, that’s a lot of times the hardest part for them, but we won’t actually start building anymore until they’ve delivered their content. So we’ll give them templates to put all their content into. I give them Google Docs to put all their content into and I’ll create a sitemap for them and. And tell them which pages they need to write and give them.
[00:22:30] Yeah. The, the templates have. Instructions for writing what like what kind of content needs to be on each type of page like your about page and your services page and things like that, but I will not start. I will not push one pixel until they have delivered their content because I, there are, I’ve worked with clients.
[00:22:49] I’ve got a client right now who was supposed to deliver. It’s currently July. They were supposed to deliver their content in, I think it was April. And we were supposed to launch their website in June, and I still don’t have their content. Yeah. So I’m still waiting on it.
[00:23:07] And the point there is well taken, because even if they say, just go, I’ll work on it, just get it, get it ready.
[00:23:13] It’s still not going to launch, guys. You’re still going to have, you know, even if it was just difficult to build when you don’t even know have a sense of what the content is because you don’t know if it’s going to be three paragraphs or two lines. Right. So, so know that the end result is the same. If you wait to the very end to get your content, your website’s going to be on hold anyhow.
[00:23:35] So you might as well just do it in the deadlines that are, it’s hard. I, I a hundred percent. It’s a hard thing to do. And again, it’s the same kind of brain thing. Like, some people are not, can’t do writing and think that writers have to do writers. If this is writing, this is about you. You should be able to, to, to get your story out there.
[00:23:54] And one thing I will say here too, which is also saying a lot of controversial things. Don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. And this is going to be throughout the process. This is in design. This is in writing. Because I know people who get paralysis when they can’t finish something. Just get it done.
[00:24:08] It’s, it’s, it’s a first draft. Actually, the, the guy who ran the Washington Post called reporting the newspapers the first draft of history. I mean, so even they have a first draft, get the first draft done, and then, and then there can be changes down the road, but, but you have to.
[00:24:27] Yeah. And one thing to remember about a website is that it’s updatable. You can change the content after you’ve launched. So like, like you’ve said, it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just, you just need to have it and have it be good enough to launch. And then if you want to make it perfect later, you can do that and you can update it. It’s not like a printed document where you put it out there and it’s out there as it is forever, unchangeable, until you go through it with a marker or something or print a new version of it.
[00:24:57] But it’s relatively easy for most websites to, to change what, what the content looks like. So definitely, definitely need it. Make it get it up there.
[00:25:08] Get it up there. Yeah. And the codicil to that is you just mentioned about updating the website should never be done. So if you say that’s done, we got to have a conversation because it’s a starting point and the beauty of all these digital things because one you can change things, but two, you can put it out there and test it.
[00:25:28] So do it the first time and say, Okay, here I am. And they go, Oh, I thought you did X. I forgot about doing that. Or I thought that you’re more positioned like this. You then can start making refinements. And then in three months, six months, maybe there’s at some point you have a plan where you feel strong enough to do it of how frequently you’re going to change it.
[00:25:50] Maybe there’s like, I just, I just was interviewed by fast company for something about my podcast. And I made sure that before the pod before that was released, I made some changes to the website. Because it had advanced from that period of time. And it was going to be something that people were going to see. And I wanted to refine the story a little bit. But that had been up like three years. And it was time to make a couple tweaks.
[00:26:11] So you’re the audience or whoever’s going to see your website. Because if we do this right, it is a marketing channel amongst other marketing channels that drive people to it. People are going to see this and they’re going to have opinions. And you got to encourage that. And know that the next step is just phase two, and then there’s phase three, and then there’s scalability to infinity kind of thing.
[00:26:34] Now, if somebody is DIYing their brand, their website, they’re just trying to DIY everything. Do you think that it would help them to have a brand board or a brand guide or something like that, where they’re creating a document that sort of documents everything about their brand? And if you think it’s a good idea, how would somebody that’s DIYing it go about making one of those?
[00:26:59] These are all so very good questions.
[00:27:00] Brand nomenclature gets weird because there’s, when you have a branding agency, they’re going to use everything with brand in front of them. They have a brand board. They’re going to have a brand document, a brand vision, and all this stuff. Website design gets a little different because there’s a lot of feel when it comes to engaging with a digital product that way. So for me, when I’m working with my clients, more often than not, I do something that I call a mood board. And, and I find that even the nomenclature of that eases people’s minds just a little bit, because it’s not, it doesn’t have to be scary. And it, and it reflects a feeling. It doesn’t need to reflect specificity for me. Sometimes I go into a couple of details, like, um, I need to know what your headlines going to look like, or what does a button look like, but for the most part, those come in at the dead last, it’s all about what is the environment. I think this is a good time for me to mention that my training is actually in theatrical lighting design. So that might help in why I do it this way, because I came from a background where everything was literally air and there was nothing that you could touch. So how do you make a feeling when there’s nothing you can touch, which is an interesting challenge on the web. So I found that mood boards. Do that for me.
[00:28:18] I do them in, in Photoshop. I do them in, you know, you can do them in Figma. You can do them in a lot of things that you can start taking digital pieces and start combining them.
[00:28:26] I’ll give you one example that I had recently with a client that changed her mindset about what the website needed to do, that she felt that she had a very nostalgic old school feel to her. And that is typified for her in like colors and photos and faded things and pearl necklaces and, and a black and, and white polka dotted dress by the seaside. There was this things that felt that way. But as a designer, when you look at that, it feels too on the nose because then you go to a website and go, Oh, she’s talking, you know, maybe she’s selling something that’s nostalgic versus, you know, It’s her soul out there that is nostalgic.
[00:29:06] So the process of doing a mood board together actually solidified that for her, because the pictures that I chose were of her, she actually did a photo shoot. That’s another thing that, that sometimes content can be written, but content can be visual. So she had done some photos that reflected who she was by the sea in this dress with her pearls on, and then it was mixing that with things that the colors that, that felt older that didn’t feel bright and modern that felt older, but still relevant. You know, all these things. And it took a little while and it doesn’t have to come to you right away. I did the walk away thing a couple of times. Typography that fits old, old school, but yet she’s, she’s now, I mean, 2024. And so once I did that and I showed it to her, she was like, I get it now that I don’t need to have that level of specificity. I can suggest it. And so like little things like type treatments or photo treatments ended up like Polaroids. And the pictures in the Polaroids were faded a little bit because that gave us a little bit of the feeling but didn’t have to say, I’m an old picture.
[00:30:16] So the mood board got us probably three quarters of the way because then I could follow the feeling of that board when it came to actually, I built the site in Squarespace for her.
[00:30:27] But if we hadn’t done that. All I would have had in my head was she wants nostalgia. She wants something that feels homey and comfortable. That doesn’t mean anything until you actually see it.
[00:30:36] So I will always do a brand board. I will always do a mood board rather.
[00:30:40] Brand boards are a little different because they get to the specificity of who you are sometimes through logo and type. They do color palettes. It can be very, not technical, but it, it, it, I think it’s a little scarier, especially if you’re a DIYer.
[00:30:55] Now, if you don’t have access to Photoshop, you can do it in Canva. A lot of people are using Canva. You can also just go get magazines, and tear things out and get a piece of paper and just put them down and start seeing what works for you. And maybe then that moves digital at some point. There’s lots of different ways to do it. But I think it’s an important step to start getting, once you get sort of the unsexy stuff out of the way, get your visual stuff on the table somehow. And I think, I think a mood board is a really good way to do it, to get started with it.
[00:31:23] Now, if you come at it with something that’s already defined, like I actually have a client right now who had all of his stuff done. He has colors. He has a logo. He has a feeling. But it’s again, a little on the nose and I’m in the process of doing a mood board with him to try to find a way to pull things out.
[00:31:41] So we’re not looking so deep down to specificity. He actually, he’s a coach that has a very sort of spiritual sense to himself, himself purposely, but not putting the spirituality on the client. And it came out in a meeting that he’s like, Oh, so when I put something that’s like, you know, it was a beautiful sunset or somebody sitting by the sea, they think I’m selling things that are based on that. They don’t believe that I’m selling this overall holistic feeling.
[00:32:07] And it and it’s suddenly a thing went off in his head. He’s like, Okay, we can’t be that on the nose. It has to be something that we we find the way into it slightly differently, which doesn’t mean we abandon it. So this is an important stage to start sussing that stuff out.
[00:32:21] And again, each of these could be difficult. I’m not going to say they’re not. But once you’re past it, you’ll look at all the things you have. And then actually doing the final work is less onerous because you’ve already made decisions whether you realize it or not.
[00:32:34] If somebody doesn’t have their logo, their colors, their fonts or anything like that, do you think it would be helpful as part of the process of creating those, because again, they’re probably going to DIY or DIY most, some or all of it. Do you think it would be helpful to do that mood board before they even do that process where they create that, the logo and everything like that?
[00:32:55] Yes and no. Sometimes one can inform the other. Sometimes you can sort of say, Oh, wow, now that I’ve determined that it’s, that it’s not the Pearl nostalgia, but it’s a, it’s a different kind of nostalgia that can determine maybe what your, where your logo goes.
[00:33:12] More than not, if you’re DIYing it, you’re going to be doing a logo with type. Just just picking it a typeset and that you may pick something because that’s what you think it is about time You actually start figuring out some of the other pieces of it doesn’t fit anymore. So I think that that’s I hate to leave nuance and I hate to leave this or that If you feel you can’t go right at it, don’t. Do the mood board and then maybe back into it.
[00:33:37] The other thing about that that I’m going to say is that the choices that you make at this point shouldn’t be arbitrary and they also shouldn’t be driven by your personal preferences. And this is again controversy that people are going to come here saying, but it’s my website and I want it to be my stuff. It’s your website for an audience. So what does the audience want? What do you need the audience to feel kind of thing? And, and, you know, when you’re starting to pick things, it can start to feel arbitrary, saying, well, I like orange. I guess I’ll use orange. Well, maybe that’s not the best for how you’re presenting your story.
[00:34:10] So again, better to make those decisions early. Have the fight with yourself early, too. Because then it’s like personal versus business let’s you get that out of the way rather than you’re facing down a color picker in your platform, and it says what are you color palette? You’re like, I don’t know I guess we’ll take these five. You know, everything. Everything has a meaning. Color in particular has a meaning. And if you’re putting things on your website that at least three quarters of them aren’t there for a good reason, you gotta go back and rethink it.
[00:34:42] You know, the color, color choices, frankly, are personal preferences, but then there’s also color that means something. So you may love red, but red is the color of emergencies. So if you’re, if you’re gonna have all this red on your website, you may not realize that you’re pushing people away then drawing people closer to you because you happen to like red.
[00:35:00] And that’s part of the research too. There are plenty of websites out there that are gonna tell you what color means, right? No, just just do a Google and I’ll tell you a how you pick color and how you pick colors that go together, because there’s kind of color palette software that you can pick and there’s triads and there’s complementary colors And there’s all these different ways to do it.
[00:35:17] I actually wrote you wrote something for you about color. It’s it’s really really personal I’m But it’s also got to be brand consistent and it has to work because they’re colors that twitch against each other. They call that vibration. So you could pick a color, it’s like, Oh, it looks good together. But when you put it in the context, it’s like, Whoa, I can’t read anything. Or why does my head hurt kind of stuff. So do the research and figure out what you’re picking and what means what you think it means. If you say, I am here to help people buy better apples. Do research about about purchasing. What colors encourage people to purchase? What colors encourage people to feel comfortable or what is a what is an apple mean to them? Is it you know freshness because it’s picked? Is it baked into a pie so it’s homey? I mean there’s just lots of stuff and and you’ll start winnowing it down based on the research you find just be patient.
[00:36:11] So, Eve and I were just talking offline and we decided she has so much information to share and I would love to have Her share more information than, than what we’ve been able to cover in this episode.
[00:36:24] And I don’t want the episode to go too long. So we’ve decided that we are going to break the questions up a little bit. We’re going to have a part two. So let me ask my last question for part one. Again, keeping in mind that a lot of the folks that are listening are solopreneurs, they’re doing this by themselves. They’re probably going to use a template of some sort. So can you, for, for anybody that doesn’t know. Can you explain what a template is when it comes to a website and what are some of the differences between using a template and a completely custom web design?
[00:36:58] Deep breath. Template can be a dirty word cause people look at that and they think about like a PowerPoint template where you pick from the thing. And it’s, um, in the web world, it doesn’t have to be. Everything is a starting point. So whether you start with a template and refine it, or you’re fresh and you design it and then you have to figure out how to build it.
[00:37:22] For a DIYer I think starting with a template is probably going to be the safest thing because you can get a site up fast. You can see a bunch of different ways that it’s accomplished. And most importantly with templates, there are usually built in mobile versions. And if anybody here who doesn’t, doesn’t care and say, ah, just a phone, everything is going to be in a phone. I’m surprised that there’s still desktop websites right now in 2024. Yeah. So, so good, good templates, um, are done where they have well articulated, mobile versions that you can start with. Everything is a starting point. That you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
[00:38:02] I think custom design is fabulous, if you are set up for it. But, it is often reinventing the wheel, because it’s been done before. And, and nothing on the web has not been done before. So, take the win. But, don’t take it as is. So that’s the caveat here. Because, there’s template sites, like, I personally use Squarespace. Because, you know, the Squarespace, there’s Wix, there’s Webflow. There’s a lot of those that are similar in, in, in the, how they’re done. I find that the interface is intuitive for my brain when it comes to Squarespace. And it comes with built in templates. And you can actually, when you log into Squarespace to set something up, you can select a little icon that shows it as a desktop or select an icon that says, this is what it’s going to look like on a phone and it allows you to make changes on the phone version that don’t impact the desktop version, which as you know, when you’re doing. Media queries raw, that’s a pain in the ass. So, so, most of these, like Squarespace, used to be able to, they did all these different templates out of different names. And there are different versions of it. And then they all had their own customized color palette with it. They had customized like where, how images are done, customized typography.
[00:39:13] They’re now doing a version of Squarespace that they’re all following sort of one, but then they’re modified. So even a template, if you choose a Squarespace template, someone has made a decision about what that is based on one template, pretty much.
[00:39:26] So at this point, it becomes not even selecting a template. It becomes selecting a style and much like when you start looking at like a stock site, you look at all those images. The images are done with the intent of a photographer. These templates are done with the intent of the template maker. So, I would say if you’re going to do this, you’re going to pick, do a DIY, pick a template that’s pretty close. Some of them will have drop down menus. Some of them will have big, wide, full bleed images, which is edge to edge. Some of them will not. Pick something that is close. Make sure you look at it in the version, because it’ll give you an option to preview in Squarespace, and I assume in Wix and others. Preview it and look at it in the desktop and the mobile, because changes will happen between them.
[00:40:07] Make sure you’re comfortable with it, understanding, if you can, in the back of your mind that you’re probably going to change the type. You’re probably going to change the color palette. You’re going to do different images, kind of thing.
[00:40:17] I recently just did a, evaluation for somebody who hired a designer who just took a template, left the colors, left the type, left everything positioned where it was and just subbed in different things. And it shocker shocker doesn’t work.
[00:40:33] I mean, it’s a website And it does the things, but her unique content and her story wasn’t even close to represented. Right. So that’s what you don’t want. That is a big exnay on the, on the emplatay, whatever you want to call it.
[00:40:48] But pick a template that you feel comfortable with. It can be done in WordPress too. There’s so many WordPress templates out there. If you’re feeling a little bit more daring and you’re open to some tech, some tech changes because applying a theme, they call them themes, as you know, in WordPress is it a little more challenging than, than picking a template, quote unquote, in Squarespace. Which is why my brain goes towards that and your brain goes to the other.
[00:41:11] Know yourself a little bit about where you feel comfortable, but don’t push it. If you’re finding, if you’re going down a road, let’s say you’re going down the Squarespace things like, I just doesn’t, Oh, I want to, I want to have more control because that’s usually what will happen is if they go with the Squarespace, they want more control. If they go with a WordPress, they’re like, I don’t want to make all these decisions, you know, or I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to attach it to my domain kind of thing. Squarespace helps you do a lot of those things.
[00:41:36] So custom development is a wonderful thing. When you and I have worked on projects, most of that’s custom. Yeah. And so, what’ll happen is, we’ll have all these conversations about the goals, and the audiences, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We’ll figure out the content. And then I’ve gone off and I’ve literally designed the pages in Photoshop. And what is a header gonna look like? What’s a footer gonna look like? I will document it for you. I’ll make sure you’ll say this is, you know, you can go and look at something and say, this is the color, this is the font, this is blah, blah, blah. But then somebody on your end has to freaking go and build code. Right. And then you open yourself up to, it’s built beautifully on the desktop, but then the mobile still has to be done. And if you haven’t had the time and the budget to design the mobile, you’re like leaving that decision up to your, your developer who’s like, I don’t know, I’m going to try that. This is what we’re going to do unless you tell me something specific.
[00:42:30] So it, you know, there’s a place for both. My gut tells me that it is less expensive and less onerous on your self, pick a template and modify it from there.
[00:42:44] Yeah, I agree. For someone that’s DIYing, templates are really the way to go. Don’t try to do something custom if you’re just getting started. That’s, that’s my recommendation. And we use templates. So when, even when we do projects for our small business clients, we’ve got packages that we do, and we’re using templates with those. There’s WordPress templates that, we show them the library of templates. And we say, pick one that is, similar to what you think you want and just, you got to imagine it with your logo, your colors, your content in there, your calls to action, which we’ll talk about in the second episode, but that you got to imagine, you got to use your imagination and think about what, what it’s going to look like with your stuff.
[00:43:25] Right. So, and I think to, to that end too, is a lot of people try to get a little fancy. Like I’m on a lot of Squarespace facebook groups where they’re like, I’m using custom CSS, which is cascading style sheets. I’m using custom type. And then when they’re like, why is my site taking so long to load? Because those things add weight. And most template systems. I don’t know how necessarily what’s available with WordPress, but with Squarespace, there’s a lot of freaking fonts that are available that are in Squarespace. That if you need to go and get a custom font because you have a custom type in your logo or whatever it is and some, you know, it’s not available. It’s not a Google font because they’re mostly Google fonts. I, at this juncture as a DIYer, I would stop and rethink it and say, is it, is it really, you know, can I find something close and, and, and not DIY that. Right. Because, because that’s gonna, that opens up a can of worms because then I know so many people who do like custom fonts because I have to have X, Y, and Z font.
[00:44:25] I just, I did a project for somebody whose son in law insisted on a certain font and it had to be embedded. And I’m like, here we go. And it didn’t work. It’s not suited for her content. But in his brand mind, it needed to be connected that way. So there’s always going to be discussions with that, but yes, we both good.
[00:44:45] We both agree that, that, that starting with a template site, when you pick your platform, starting with a template, but mod, but modified. Yeah, you know, modify it. I mean, for you, when you have your packages, they pick their colors, they can put their logo and they can pick their colors. There’s a couple different options they can do.
[00:45:03] You never want to do something where you don’t have an option. And you never want to do something that someone chooses for you. And you know, you’re square peg round hole because your stuff doesn’t work.
[00:45:11] Well, thank you so very much. I know we’ve still got a lot to cover. So make sure you come back for part two, and listen to Eve’s thoughts on things like What are some of the design elements that every website should have?
[00:45:25] And what is a CTA call to action? We’re going to cover some of those questions and more. Eve, thank you so much for talking with me today and for agreeing to come back for a second round. Do you have any closing thoughts?
[00:45:37] Only that I love talking about this stuff. I’ve been in this industry for so damn long. So I really thank you for giving me the opportunity to babble about some of this stuff. Thank you for the opportunity to do this because I just live and breathe this crap.
[00:45:49] Awesome. So everybody, thank you for listening. Make sure you come back for part two. In a week from this episode, we’ll have a part two. So make sure you come back and listen to it. If you haven’t already subscribed, hit that subscribe button on whatever platform you’re on. Make sure you go to the website. So if you want to check out the Website Success Blueprint that I talked about earlier, or I’ve got a content planner, working on a brand planner for folks that don’t already have their logo and all that stuff figured out. They’re all under resources on websitesuccessacademy.com. So again, thanks for listening and we’ll catch you in the next episode.