His website is a tool for him to showcase examples of his past works, categorise them into types of work and enable potential customers to get in contact with him.

This is a fully responsive, custom template built for the WordPress CMS (Content Management System). Some key features include an integrated contact form, customer testimonials which are linked to previous works and a photo gallery attached to each portfolio item.

Design

I really enjoyed creating this design which was heavily influenced by three main factors:

1. The content
2. The existing logo
3. A photo taken from his portfolio

Each item in the list above had an impact on the design in a different way.

The Content

This is where I believe design starts. There’s no point in something looking great if it doesn’t get the message across in a clear and concise way. Once Leigh had provided me with the bulk of the content and what he wanted to communicate to his customers it was all put on the page and organised.

One of the driving factors of the content was an easy and accessible way for customers to get in contact with Leigh to request a quote.

The Existing Logo

Leigh’s existing logo design, created by the talented Anna Badger, inspired a large part of the website design.

The font used for all headings on the website is the same font as the logo to ensure the website conforms to Leigh’s established brand.

Also inspired by the logo is the black, block border around elements and the uniform, brick-like look and feel of the content blocks.

Portfolio Photo

The colour palette was inspired by a photo from Leigh’s portfolio of completed work.

I used this photo on the landing page to show a completed project with vibrant colours. Those colours are then echoed throughout the design to tie the whole website together.

Development

For this project I created a custom built template for the WordPress CMS so that we had complete control over all aspects of the design to get Leigh exactly what he wanted. I chose to implement this website using WordPress so that Leigh could easily update any information and add new pages and portfolio items quickly.

One of the key features that Leigh requested was a ‘contact details’ section which ‘followed’ visitors around the website to make it as easy as possible for the customer to get in contact with him for a quote.

Services Used

1. Design
2. Development
3. Hosting
4. Email setup and management
5. Content management
6. Search engine optimisation

Interested?

If you would like to learn more or are looking for a quote then please contact me.

The stats

Did you know that over 50% of all website views are from a mobile device and it just keeps on growing.

This has increased massively since only 5 years ago and the trend does not seem to be slowing down. The only sure thing is that in the coming years there will be a huge amount of different screen sizes. To maintain your brand image or, more fundamentally, just for your website not to hurt potential customer’s eyes as they read it.

Okay, it’ll look nice… why bother?

There’s actually quite a few reasons to make your website responsive (mobile friendly), aside from the huge potential market of customers you’re missing out on.

Search Engines

Google and other search engines like mobile friendly websites and rank websites with a responsive design higher on the list.

Social Media

A huge amount of people using Social Media now do it primarily on their, you guessed it, mobile devices. This means that as you post a link to Social Media, the majority of people who will click on the link through to your website will be on a mobile device.

Easy Maintenance

If you have had experience with old-school mobile websites then I can see why the idea of making a website mobile friendly makes you shudder. Fear not though, with a responsive website, it is just one source of information to keep up to date which makes maintaining your website easy and the changes happen for all devices.

Future Proof

Responsive websites adapt to the device screen size. That means that a responsive website will work and look good on any new devices that are released in the future. When there are new devices released every few months, it’s a no-brainer for me that websites should have a responsive design.