I certainly gave it a shot. This website is an imaginary pet sitting business, in this industry nothing is more effective than kindness, friendliness, and a love of animals. In this design the focus was creating a brand and atmosphere that communicated just that.
Quick Note Before You Get Started:
The company model is all imagination, this means the website strategy does not present the same level of research and discovery that a real business deserves. The project’s purpose is to practice and present design skills.
All the names and/or places presented are fictional.
All images are free stock, available photo credits are found at the bottom of this page.
You may notice pieces of text missing from the website, some content, for example about sections or profiles, are specific to the company; this makes any content created without a company unrealistic.
Certain feelings are more difficult to communicate in web design. A serious, professional look and feel is easily achieved with the native clean colors and sharp lines of the web. A friendly, happy website takes more attention to detail. Consistency throughout the website and brand is necessary to continue the desired feeling throughout the website experience. It is done through the choice and use of colors, fonts, and visuals.
The bright colours I chose for this pet sitting website go a long way in the happy feeling. Yellow is known for being the ‘happy colour,’ by adding ‘playful’ orange and ‘content’ turquoise I endeavoured to create a friendly and comfortable website. The hero (the main heading in the first section) is bright yellow to establish this feeling right away, while I used the turquoise for the testimonial to subtly communicate trust. The use is the same throughout the website. The colourful squiggles, with consistent formatting and placement, also contribute to the friendliness while not distracting or adding clutter. Imagine if every line were a random colour or different lengths and thicknesses, the result would be a make.
For a company's website to effectively reach their desired clientele, thought and research needs to go into who that clientele is, what they believe in and what appeals to them. For example, pet owners don't want a serious, ‘no nonsense’, unfeeling sitter. They want a happy, playful animal lover. Those with exotic pets don’t want to be left out, they will be looking for someone who understands and loves their pet as much as they do. A designer appeals to these thoughts and feelings by creating a comfortable atmosphere for such a person and by addressing their concerns. While the design plays an important yet subtle part, much of this communication is done through content.
Take the hero statement for example (the main heading in the first section), the words appeal to the needs of the pet. To create the trust a pet owner will need to leave their beloved family member in someone else's care I used a serif font to begin establishing the feeling of trust. The visuals play an important part as well. The first graphic you see is fun and happy, a visual an animal lover will identify with. The ‘Meet the Sitters’ section profile images feature each one's love of animals, and in a real project scenario, I would have emphasized the need to have sitters with every kind of exotic pet as well for those owners. An owner of an exotic pet will not contact a pet sitting company that obviously only works with dogs and cats, the care and attention these unique animals need is completely different. The website must embrace these differences!
I struggled to find the right images in the free stock libraries, this left me imagining what the potential could be if this company were a real client with on brand photography and graphics.
The hero graphic of the cat and dogs is okay, but how could it be better? In my imagined company they are inclusive with the exotic pets, a graphic created specifically for their brand could include these animals while at the same time being created with a cohesive artstyle as is seen in the colors and details in the website design. A custom graphic would communicate in a visual way the company's mission, values, brand, and desired clientele.
What about the portrait or profile photos of the sitters? Each sitter's expertise with animals could be highlighted by which animals are with them in the photo, making sure that there is a sitter for every pet owner to identify with. The website wants to communicate a company that is friendly, outgoing, and their love of animals. Proper photos in this section could feature the sitters bright smiles, and happy, comfortable animals. Carefully chosen colour schemes in the photography would create cohesion with the brand and website design. Take for example how well James’ or Rachel’s photo fits with the website, two different approaches I was fortunate enough to find, while Laura’s in particular, is dim and fails to draw the viewer in.
It is essential that visitors intuitively know which elements on a website are clickable links and where they will go if they do click. We humans don’t love the act of making decisions, and clicking is one of those decisions. Visitors will rather scroll than click any day of the week. Designers however can encourage the behaviour a company desires by creating a ‘comfortable’ button. It must be easily identifiable to successfully present the decision in the first place, if a visitor cannot identify a button they will not click it. The cursor simply changing when they hover over is not sufficient in most circumstances, especially considering the amount of mobile users that do not even have a cursor. The button must also communicate clearly the destination, an unknown creates uncertainty.
With this website design it was fairly straight forward. There are 3 types of buttons, used differently for the hierarchy, bolder brighter colors bring them to the forefront. Their consistent outlines and typeface make them easily identifiable. But what about text links? Industry standard identifies them by an underline and frequent color. The only two on this website are found in the footer, but in this case I used the squiggle graphic found throughout the website as the underline and changed their color. Do you think they stand out as a link?
#1 - cat clipart PNG Designed By tree from https://pngtree.com/freepng/dogs-and-cat-clipart-cartoon-happy-cats-and-dogs-cartoon-isolated-illustration-vector_11092017.html?sol=downref&id=bef
#3 - by Los Muertos Crew: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-striped-shirt-with-parrots-perched-on-her-hands-8838169/
#4 - by SHVETS production: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-male-in-glasses-with-dog-7533347/
#5 - by Yuliya kota: https://www.pexels.com/photo/cute-cat-smelling-unrecognizable-bearded-man-on-windowsill-at-home-3791595/
#6 - by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-girl-yellow-animal-4056475/
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