August tends to be a slow month at Flat 6 Concepts, so we decided we would take the downtime to redesign our old Flash website. Let me tell you, a branding firm redesigning its own website can be a daunting task.
As an expert in any creative field, you are intimately familiar with the endless possibilities and design directions that are possible. In a medium like web design, it becomes even more so - you are dealing with a trifecta - design, user experience and programming. What information should I include? How do I code this? Should I include every social media and link known to humankind? What information is the most relevant to my clientele? Should I include all the design work I have ever done?
Edit. Edit. Edit. That's what I always tell my clients. As more and more information goes online, the less time we have to dedicate to each website. And your website better be eye catching from the get go. Just because you have a website does not mean it will bring you more sales or more clients.
So with our new website, I did my exhaustive research, I looked at what other competing website and branding design firms (both large and small) have done, all the information they included, the various links and blogs they embedded. Some of them were overkill, some of them were not enough and some of them were gorgeous. But none of them had what I wanted for our site. Our aesthetic. The Flat 6 Concepts aesthetic. And although having a lot of stuff embedded in a website can be good (?) how does the user experience translate? I for one, when I visit a website, I want to feel that I "discovered" it, not merely come across it. I want to feel good about being on it. I want it to unveil itself to me and seduce me. I want to be able to navigate easily and expect the next page I click on, to be consistent with the previous. I want to see beautiful pictures. I want it to be orderly and clean, and have lots of space for the layout to breathe. I want it to function properly and load quickly, and have beautiful typography. Above all I want the design or product I am looking at, to be crisp, large and displayed clearly. Edit. Edit. Edit. If you are an interior designer, show me your interiors, not a thumbnail of your interiors. And show me your latest work. No one cares what you have done 10 years ago.
Back to the Flat 6 Concepts website design.
I decided that I wanted to show a diversity of work and not every ad, brochure, website, newsletter and environmental signage we have ever done. I wanted it to be as simple as possible. But not any simpler. Wait, Albert Einstein said that. We agree with the smart guy. Further, I wanted it to have everything a client needs to make an informed decision. It also had to be accessed with a maximum of three clicks. The clicks were important to me. I find it fascinating when I come across a site that has a myriad of information but I can still access what I want with two or three clicks. On our new website a client can view our recent work on any mobile device, he or she can explore our facebook page, link to this blog, read our tweets and follow our inspirations on Pinterest.
Simple. Nothing more. Nothing less. (Atleast for now).
The only thing I would add, would be a button that dispenses a freshly drawn espresso when someone clicks "like" on our work, but I guess we will have to wait a while on that one.
You can check out our new site by clicking here.
And regarding that espresso, you can always stop by our office anytime.
