Landscape Architect
PROJECT: A landscape architect needed a complete website re-design. Their existing website’s code structure was outdated, and their online visual presentation looked obsolete and uncredible compared to their competitors who had invested in the newest most efficient modern designs. Their existing website lacked visual interest and did not do a good job of properly showcasing the caliber of this company’s work and their outstanding achievements.
Home Page – BEFORE
The homepage they had before we started the project was simple, with no information about the company except an image slideshow. To begin the creative development process, this company showed us three examples of websites of other landscape architects that they absolutely loved. We took the best design ideas from each website example and used them to create the new design.
Home Page – AFTER
The new homepage design incorporate a lot of white space to create an elegant museum-style display. The focal point is an elegant slideshow that displays some of their most captivating work. Their new logo overlaps the slideshow, acting like a stamp of ownership on their work.
One of the biggest problems with the original home page, was the complete lack of information about the company. The caliber of the company’s work and achievements are hidden except for what you can see in the finished work that is displayed in the slideshow.
Part of the re-design process involved isolating some of the most impressive and most important aspects of this company and bringing those elements to the surface by showcasing them on the home page.
If a site visitor is clicking through websites, window shopping for a landscape architect, they will almost always at least scroll the homepage. This homepage was designed with that in mind, so a site visitor would get an overview in just a few seconds of this company’s most impressive features.
As you scroll down the homepage, organic images of their work and descriptive paragraphs about their company and design process float upward making a sophisticated, elegant first impression.
The next section on the homepage showcases a series of geometric planters that were designed by the company, and includes links to an online shopping cart where they can be purchased.
An impressive video of a multi-million dollar project the company was involved with, that was featured in Architectural Digest is showcased.
Two of the most recent books the company’s work is featured in are showcased.
Links to the company’s social media websites are included at the bottom.
Portfolio Page – BEFORE
The existing design for the portfolio page incorporated a grid structure with a sorting feature that allowed site visitors to choose to view landscape projects in specific categories. For example, you can choose to just view residential work or just view commercial work.
Portfolio Page – AFTER
The new design for the portfolio page kept the sort feature and the grid layout structure from the previous design, but changed the visual appearance to fit into the new design scheme.
The rectangles that feature the projects include an animated roll over feature, and the project title overlay the images in an elegant fashion.
The page header loads with a motion animation effect.
Project Page – BEFORE
This is the page design for the company’s individual projects that they had before we re-designed the website.
Each project page followed the exact same layout, which is standard design for a website that follows a template structure. The template system shows photos of the work, a short description of the project, and includes a strip of thumbnail images of the project that you can click through.
It also inlcudes a footer area at the bottom, that was only visible on the project pages, which is odd for a website’s design. Usually, if there is a footer, it is visible on every page at the bottom of the website to maintain design consistency. This is one of the things that was cut in the website’s re-design.
Project Page – AFTER
The new project pages were re-designed so each project has its own custom layout.
There is an elegant slideshow at the top of the page, in the same style as the one on the homepage, that showcases all of the images for the project.
The images are showcased individually below, in different sizes to create visual interest.
The sections of text that describe specific images from the project are placed near the images to illustrate the project.
Motion animation was added so that the images and text float upwards as you scroll down the page, which creates an impression of high quality and prestige.
There is a “View More Projects” section at the bottom where you three other projects load that you can click on to you view.
That section is programmed to load projects randomly, so that every time you visit a project page, different projects are suggested.
Studio Page – BEFORE
The studio page they had, which was their company’s “about” page, was a simple page with a lot of text. Instead of having all of the information on 1 page, there were two additional sub-pages that included information about the company’s staff.
Studio Page – AFTER
The new studio page is a simple design that includes images of the company’s work and a description of services with the main points bulleted to highlight their importance and to provide a quick and easy reading experience. Some of the information from the old design was moved to the home page.
To fix the problem with the large areas of text that describe the experience level of the staff, the section about the staff was designed in a simple grid system that showcases the photos of the company members.
When you roll over an image with your mouse, an arrow pops up. If you click on the arrow, the description of the experience of that staff member is viewable in an elegant lightbox display.
A site visitor can quickly scan the page to see who they’re working with, and then if they want more information, they can click on the image of the staff member or the pop-up arrow. Thus, the information about everyone’s resumes and experience does not clutter the page and distract a site visitor from the impressiveness of the brand.
The company’s affiliations and memberships are viewable at the bottom.
Press Page – BEFORE
The press page the company had listed their awards and recognition, but the information was very small, and the images were fuzzy and blurry.
Press Page – AFTER
The new press page was designed to completely transform a site visitor’s experience and impression of the company.
The awards and recognition were added as large, pristine sharp images, so they can be viewed and appreciated.
A site visitor has to scroll down several levels of awards and recognition to view everything, which causes them to interact more with the page.
This produces a greater sense of respect and admiration for the company and their work because as you scroll, the awards and recognition keep loading and loading and loading.
It makes a statement that this company is absolutely qualified for whatever landscape design job the site visitor is looking for, and creates an expectation that they will accomplish that job with a level of pristine excellence.
The same roll over arrow feature that was used for the staff member bios is repeated for piece that is listed on the press page.
The arrows take a site visitor to the exact webpage where information about the award or publication can be found, or if it is no longer viewable online, they take a site visitor to the main website for the award or publication.
Contact Page – BEFORE
The contact page the company had was a simple functional page.
Contact Page – AFTER
The new contact page was elegantly designed to seamlessly integrate into the website’s new design style.
The images and green contact button provide a level of visual interest that makes you want to contact the company.
