This past week I took the time to run the Dragonspire Media website through a major visual overhaul. I’ve added some new design tools to my repertoire that have made building attractive websites much easier and more enjoyable. I’ve wanted to update the Dragonspire website for a while now because the design I put up back in April was something I put together as a quick and dirty site to give the company an established web presence.
But I was never completely happy with the original layout. Sure, it looked pretty good in terms of the photography, but it pushed all my content down below the fold, so site visitors were forced to scroll just to find out what Dragonspire Media was all about, and in web development, that’s a big no-no. You always want to have at least some content front and center on your landing page to grab the reader’s attention the moment they enter your site, and the original design didn’t do that.
So, with my updated toolbox in hand, I spent about 36 hours redesigning and rebuilding the website virtually from the ground up. Some of the original copy content survived the overhaul, but it ended up spread around the site to new locations. But I also needed to write a lot of new copy, providing more detailed information about what services Dragonspire Media provides, and that information needed to be organized and arranged in a way that was attractive and eye-catching while being a first-hand demonstration of the kind of design we can provide our customers. It was also an opportunity to play with the new tools and deal with the learning curve on a project that was my own. Whenever I learn something new, I prefer to experiment on my own web properties so I don’t run the risk of destroying a client’s project.
In the end, I’m extremely happy with the new design and layout. There’s more information about Dragonspire Media, our mission and philosophy, and the services and packages we offer our clients. We’re more than just a web design company, and the updated website reflects that. In addition, both the portfolio and blog sections display much more attractive layouts, and the site as a whole now matches the vision I had for the site when I first launched the company back in April. The response I’ve received from the people who have looked at and reviewed it has been overwhelmingly positive, which is the most gratifying response a web designer can receive.
I’m looking forward to future projects and demonstrating even more of what Dragonspire Media can offer to our clients.