An epic homepage re-do.

The company I was building a website for is a flower farm in Arkansas that wanted to open a shop in addition to her farm. She wanted it to still be in connection with the Flower Farm, but separate enough that people would not get them confused.

So I decided to create an entirely different website, but use the same logo in the corner of each website.

Originally she told me she would be giving me the logo and color palette, but when I called, she had no idea where to begin on them. I told her it was no problem, that I would just move forward with what colors I wanted, and some logo ideas, and she could tell me if she hated it later. Also, her shop specializes in teaching workshops on how to arrange flowers.

I chose the color scheme of teal blue, light pink and yellow, because they look so fresh and so clean, the opposite of what her site looked like before.

BEFORE (Not my Designs)

But in any case, with a white background, the colors I chose would stand out and yell, “SPRINGTIME,” (in a little, delicate chiming voice) while also providing enough contrast for excellent accessibility. That’s also what some of the transparent boxes accomplished — was allowing for better readability while allowing me to use a complicated photo in the background.

I played with several logo ideas, though it was pretty clear from the beginning that I was going to have only one F, and WallFlower was already a clever pun on it’s own, especially since the owner’s last name is Wall. HA. Too good.

I am always a fan of the high res pictures. Few words, great pictures that say more than you can describe, like the first. This picture says so much about the fun you would have in a workshop, and also provided a lot of the inspiration for my chosen color palette. I also always have these great pictures broken up with plenty of negative space. To let the reader breathe.

The fonts choices were motivated by thoughts like, “I don’t want this to seem stern, so nothing too rigid. Soft edges. But also I would like it to seem romantic, (because flowers are the epitome of romance obviously) so perhaps with a little calligraphic feel.” I knew I liked the font I chose for the Title primarily when I saw the “w” in “flower” looked like an unfolding flower. Meant. To. Be. Silly thought process? Maybe. But I’m diggin it. Subtlety is never a bad thing.

Last of all, I tried to tie in each page or section with the other sections. Each box didn’t have to have all three colors, but if they were both visible during the same scroll, I counted it as a win. That would keep the readers’ eyes going back and forth in a “z” across the page, following the movement of each color pop, and assuring they were engaged in the reading material. Try to not follow those little orange-yellow ZINGS as you look through the pictures. Just try.

And with that, I began the project. Here are the links and homepage I built first. The top banner scrolls with the page, and that is why it is featured in each shot.

BONUS EXPLANATION: These photos were free from a website that is super awesome about that, but I did have to still edit many of them in photoshop. Essentially none of them were the right size, and the two middle pictures were composed in such a way that there was not nearly enough negative space for words. And I don’t like putting words over pictures, it is way too busy, and doesn’t read well. Busy-ness is bad, because you want the viewer’s eyes to rest and read across the page comfortably, lazily even, like the feeling of looking at a flower. It’s contemplative. Elegantly simple. Instead of frantic and sporadic, which is what can happen sometimes. SO. I created more negative space on each of the middle photos, creating more of whatever wall pattern I needed to move the subject of the photo further to the right or left. Then I blurred or lightened that wall pattern so that the words would be more visible and have less competition right behind them.

With the bottom photo of the flower farm however, I wanted to create the illusion that the farm was larger and dreamier than the picture indicated, so I blurred the back third of the field and the barn that actually is a really run-down silo for housing potatoes in the winter (probably) and not cute at all in the original photo. But can you tell? Nope. No one can. It just looks like a big, beautiful flower farm where a happy farmer lives with his beautiful wife and healthy children. I also cropped the original photo so that the horizon line would be about two-thirds up the page, and create the illusion of a very filling, engulfing field, with the breath of blue at the top for air and the line of trees that draws your eyes to the text box. The diagonal line of the flowers is another bonus I liked, because a diagonal line indicates action (making the page feel vibrant and engaging) PLUS the fact that it leaves the page with no visible end point makes the viewer, even if briefly, imagine where it would end, and what the rest of the farm must look like. It’s exciting, engaging, youthful, and beautiful. Like a bouquet of flowers.

And that’s the beginning of the homepage! I will be back later with more pages and updates.