Recently, I wrote a post for Agency Access’ The Lab about what photographer’s should consider when redesigning their website. I answered the question, “Do clients expect cutting-edge design from your website or are they just interested on the work being displayed? ” Well, recently Ron Berg redesigned his website and it is not surprising that he and I talked about all those same things that I mentioned in the post before starting the project. When I asked Ron to share with us some of his thoughts on the process, here is what he shared.
“Some of you may or may not know, but my old website had won approximately twenty awards; including being selected into Tashchen’s Book of ICONS for the Top 200 Web Design Portfolios Worldwide in 2006. Since it was not a contest or something we submitted for judgment, we were totally surprised. When we received the call from Taschen to say that we were giddy was an understatement. I still love going into a bookstore and seeing it on the shelf.
Of course, nothing can last forever. So in 2011, when Heather Elder began representing me, we knew it was time to evolve the site. The awards had done their job well for us but the needs of the viewer had now changed. Our goal would no longer be that of of winning awards, but of functionality (with some nice deign added in too!).
We understood that the users wanted to be able to get in to and out of the site easily. Navigation was key. Also, we needed to show the images larger, add video and enable the site for sharing images via social media. I was hesitant at first but after discussions Heather had me convinced that we were going to turn the existing award winning site on its ear and start fresh. As we all know trends and techniques in the worldwide web change exponentially. Therefore five years had become a lifetime.
It was no surprise that the design took almost a year. From designer, to photographer, to programmer, to rep….then back again, then back again, then back again….It almost takes a perfect storm to make it literally picture perfect in the end.
We chose LiveBooks because we liked the ease of which we could customize our look and upload images. Livebooks‘ design allowed us to duplicate the loading feature of my previous site, (my favorite part) which we was important to us. The rest though, is new design that compliments our new portfolio, direct mail, emailer and source book ad templates.
While I know I won’t be seeing this site in one of Tashchen’s books, I do know the site is current with how people are utilizing websites nowadays. The feedback we have been getting is strong so we know all the work was worth it.”
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