A web design case study
When you think of truck dealers, you typically think of guys with greasy hair, tattoos, beer bellies, cigarettes in one hand and beer in the other. The managers at R21 Truck and Plant are the polar opposite of that image! Their yard is the epitome of neatness and cleanliness (which could put our office to shame at times) and they emanate an unmatched sense of professionalism.
When R21 sent us their meeting invite with map, we were at a bit of a loss how to get there. Has anyone heard of Doornkloof Oos?
They were kind enough to pick us up from a central location and chauffeur us to their offices. The deep rich colours of their yard (Komatsu yellows, coco browns, rich blues…) left an indelible mark on us and evolved into the design below:
Together with their feedback, we made some minor tweaks to the menu and thumbnails until the design received the official green light.
A Web Design Case Study
"I'm new to this web design thing. How does it work exactly?" is a question we frequently hear from new customers. In this series of web design case studies, we hope to demystify the process - starting with our latest web launch, 3P Consulting.
1. Meeting
It all starts with the briefing meeting. After sending through a rough proposal with cost estimate, we went to the 3P Consulting headquarters to chat about the website scope. The company provides consulting services to the public sector and wanted a fresh web presence in line with their new branding. The brief was to create a website with a "dynamic look" and dominant blue hues.
2. Electronic Design Briefing
Now there are as many shades of blue as there are fish in the sea! We sent off a few design references via email to get a feel for right combinations of blue-ness. It's important to note that we used industry references and online templates – this speeds up the design process and gives the client the freedom to say "I hate X… but I like Y."
We recently created the web design for Puo. This dynamic company offers educational products – ie. puzzles, flash cards, games and books – for children in major African languages. Their mission is to promote African languages – and African culture – in a contemporary context.
The brief was to create a design that would appeal to both parents and children, and blend with their existing set of characters:
Since we mostly create photography-based websites this was a bit of a stretch! However, we embraced the challenge and hit the net for some preliminary research.
1. Research
If you have a look at children's websites, you'll notice that many developers subscribe to a “more is more” philosophy when targeting young audiences. We were surprised to find pages and pages of rainbow coloured menus, flashing elements, dancing mascots, blinking fonts – in short, it was more disorientating than an 80s psychedelic disco!
Web Research
We immediately set to developing a specific brand palette that would inform the design choices. Beige-orange would be used as the dominant colour to emphasize the 'Puo orange', while blue would act as the counterpoint hue. Colours were chosen according to their 'calming' properties:
