Part 3: Design Process
Once the Domain name and hosting has been organised the final part of the process is to build the actual website.
This page explains how we approach this and is important to understand as it is the key-point in keeping our prices competitive.
The layout
In our first meeting we will try to discover what it is you're wanting to achieve with your site, your preferences for colours and any sites that you've seen that you like and see if your plans are possible within our custom WordPress framework.
We do this to gauge what you're after and it's our aim to have a layout that you're happy with fairly quickly. We do not produce multiple options unless requested as this greatly impacts the cost of the design. We often have clients extremely happy with what we've come up with on the first layout however most people suggest changes to which we include in the second layout.
Our quotes are generally based on two layouts but minor tweaks don't impact heavily on the cost.
A layout is produced to give you an idea of how the headers, footers and menus look and a rough idea of the content area, including font sizes and colours. As a layout is a single photographic image, it's not possible to demonstrate the full range that a real web page may have so you should note the following
- The page will include filler 'lorem ipsum' text unless we've already received the site text
- Any text we may include could be cut due to size limits of the image
- Moving elements are unable to be demonstrated
- Layouts are designed with the WordPress framework that we use. Building outside this framework is possible but will increase the cost.
Template construction
Once you are happy with the layout the second stage is to convert it to a WordPress template. We have our own custom framework which includes features such as social media, SEO and the ability to have multiple columns.
We start the template locally before uploading it to the server for adjustments and fine tuning. Of course by this stage we will need to start adding text and images to complete the look...
Content population
Your content should be supplied in a Word document or via email and clearly state which page it is for. If you wish to purchase stock photography we recommend iStock photo, and we can purchase images on your behalf. We buy iStock credits in bulk which helps keep the cost down (although we have to then add GST).
iStock credits translate to $2.20 per credit.
In a hurry to get things moving?
One of the best things about working with WordPress is we can quite literally put the cart before the horse!
If you have your content ready to go, we can put it up on the site immediately after we've installed WordPress. We will then add a splash page to tell people your site is offline and coming soon.
You will be able to log in and see and edit the content at any time (Of course, the design won't be in place at this point so the site will not be visually appealing).