rtCamp asked me to redesign their website home page. They wanted a minimal design that highlighted the company colors and used typography to give the design a storytelling feel.
I ended up creating 3 designs for them to choose from.
I began the project by combining their Solutions section and their Services section into one single section and editing the summaries for each option in order to make it easier for customers to understand the wide variety of services they offer.
I also edited the testimonials they were displaying on their home page (adding more details about the work and the results to make them more compelling) and added a few new ones. All the information was taken directly from their case studies.
The First Design
For my first design I went for a somewhat modern style and alternated between white and black backgrounds for each section in order to highlight the company colors and create a clear distinction between each section.
I based the structure of the sections on their current home page, but added and edited most of the section headings and introductions, separated the testimonials and case studies into two different sections (and edited and added to them as described above), and placed the Solutions section above the testimonials and case studies to feature what they offer more prominently.
I liked their use of blue (the previous company color) for the buttons on their current home page so I decided to use blue in my design for both the button and all of the links. Making the links blue draws more attention to them, which will help encourage people to explore the site.
The Second Design
While working on the first design, I had an idea for a different design that would be more focused on the story of rtCamp and have more of a friendly feel to it than a sales-focused feel (though I believe it still does an excellent job of convincing people to work with rtCamp – possibly even more so than my first design!).
Since light text on a dark background can be difficult to read, especially in large quantities, my second design minimizes the use of white text on a black background, using it only for section headings which were edited (again) to fit the more friendly theme of the design.
It also follows the current structure of their home page more than my first design by placing the case studies and testimonials above the solutions section. (Although I do like the placement of the solutions section in my first design, since the second one was more story focused than sales focused, it made more sense to place case studies and clients above solutions.)
I kept the use of blue links and buttons not only to encourage exploration of the site, but also because it enhances the friendly feel of the design.
While working on the second design it occurred to me that the top section could be used for an extremely minimal design – rather than putting information about clients and services on the home page, visitors could just click the links to find out more. So I created a third design where anything that has its own dedicated page (except the contact form) is presented as a very short summary with a link and that’s it. It doesn’t highlight the company color as much as the other designs, but it is VERY minimal. And it could be made even more minimal by removing everything below the first section. (I would keep the “Let’s Talk!” button though, to encourage people to contact them.)
Although I think placing the Solutions section at or near the top would be best (so people can see exactly what they offer instead of wondering what “Beautiful & Robust WordPress Solutions” means until they reach that section), I think my second and third designs are more visually pleasing, more clearly structured, and a better fit for a minimalist aesthetic even though they don’t highlight the company colors as much as the first design.
Which design would you choose?
Sharise Mershon Design 