Several years back we created a new website for The Mercy House. The old website was outdated and sorely lacking meaningful information. As a mission oriented church located in Anderson, Ind. they needed an updated website to keep in touch with church members and the surrounding community. We created an informative website using Drupal, which was the best free content management system (CMS) at the time. Looking back on the website now, it is very drab; but at the time is was rather indicative of the mood of a small, young church struggling to get by.
After a while, as leadership changed, it became more difficult to keep the website updated. It was no longer meeting the needs of The Mercy House and no longer reflected the overall mood of the community. It was time for an update.
When speaking with the pastor about what he wanted there were two main ideas. It needed to be easier to use and update than the current website; and it should have, “Lots of large background images.” The former problem was easy; we rebuilt the site using the up-and-coming WordPress CMS. The latter desire (large background images) was more difficult. When using large background images a designer runs up against a couple different problems. The first is size, if an image is too large it slows down the loading of a website and annoys the visitors. The second problem is that of window resizing. If your image is a fixed size and a visitor opens his browser window to a larger size what does he see? Does he see the image repeat itself? Does he get a stark line where the picture ends?
How do I make it look like a gigantic image while keeping the file-size reasonably small? This is why I love being a designer. It was a tricky problem but as seen below, I finally came up with a solution. The background image is technically the size of an average browser window, however about three-fifths of the image is actually just white. Lots of white reduces the size of the image significantly. It also solves the window-resizing problem. Since the right and bottom edges are solid white all we need is white for an extended background.
A few months ago, Casual Creations was only a concept. The client loves to bake and thought that making desserts for small gatherings, such as bridge clubs, parties, reunions, etc., would be an enjoyable way to share her love of baking while earning extra income. I was tasked with developing a name and tag line, creating a visual identity, and creating marketing materials.
There were two main challenges when working on this project.
- The name and tag line. We needed to convey the idea of homemade desserts that might not be picture-perfect, but that still tasted delicious. After much brainstorming, “Casual Creations: Desserts like grandma made,” came to the forefront.
- Reconciling my own design ideas with the real world. I originally envisioned a beautiful, stylized illustration of a lemon pie, using only white on a rich, lemon-yellow background. Unfortunately, if the yellow is dark enough to read white text, it no longer looks lemony. While struggling with this concept, Debbie, my client, received a beautiful red Sunbeam mixer for her birthday, providing a focal point for the solution.
In the end, I was able to create a brand that evokes grandma and her kitchen. We determined that, instead of letterhead and envelopes, a price sheet and dessert labels were more important for this business. For the website, we continued the idea of grandma’s kitchen by not only making an “online business card” but also making it a place for Debbie to share other recipes with her customers.
Update: Sometimes it’s just as exciting to see what the client does with the finished product. Debbie told me several months later that she punches holes in her price sheets and dessert labels and ties them together with a red-and-white-checkered bow that matches the ribbon she ties her desserts up with. A perfect touch to the brand. Way to go, Debbie.
Often, I don’t know what to have for dinner. Sure, you can ask Google, “What’s for Dinner?” but it never seems very useful because my problem isn’t that I can’t think of anything, it’s that I can’t decide. We decided to take the hard part out of deciding and created a website that won’t just make a suggestions, but will tell you “What’s for Dinner.”
