Full Graphic Design As part of your new Web site, we're happy to create a unique graphic design that matches your existing branding and still works effectively and flexibly on the Web. For example, here are two sample designs from our clients: www.hospitalitydoctor.com www.intentional.com.au Our in-house graphic designer Natasha creates the design. Natasha has been working with us since 1999, and understands the specific requirements of graphic design for infopreneurs. She has extensive Web graphic design experience, and follows strict guidelines to ensure that the design works on a variety of computer systems. What you provide We ask you to e-mail us your logo and any other relevant promotional material that reflects your brand. Note: We don't do branding or logo design. We strongly believe that should be a business decision, not a Web site decision, so go through your branding process first, before doing the Web site graphic design. That doesn't mean you have to wait for a Web site, though. If you don't have a logo or brand designed yet, we recommend you use our simple template design option for now, and upgrade to a full design after you've sorted out your branding. What you get At the end of the process, you end up with a "template" for your Web site. All pages of the site will use this template, but of course each will have its own page content. You also get a newsletter template with the same branding. This is automatically added to your outgoing e-mail from the Web site, in your e-mail newsletter and on-line courses. You also get a "secure server" template with the same branding. This is used for the shopping cart on the site, so that when customers are placing orders, they are reassured by seeing the same brand throughout the site. Our standard package includes all three template files, as described here. It does not include creating additional templates for different parts of the site. For instance, if you want the home page to have a slightly different look and feel, or you want different sections of the site to have a slightly different look and feel, that is extra work, and we'll quote you for that separately. How the process works Consultation This is generally done as part of a full Web site package, so we start the project by sending you a questionnaire, and then conducting a consulting session, to plan the entire process for building your Web site. As part of this process, we'll talk about your brand, your likes and dislikes, and your preferences for the graphic design. This becomes a design brief for Natasha. Alternatively, you can do this as a stand-alone task, without a consultation (e.g. re-doing a design on an existing site). In that case, we e-mail you a very brief questionnaire, and ask you to e-mail all the information for the design brief to us. It's not the usual way we do it; but if you're very clear about your requirements, then we're happy to do it this way, and you take full responsibility for providing this completely and accurately. Design brief These are the sort of things we would typically include in a design brief: Font and colour preferences Logos, photos and other graphics that are important in your branding Positioning of the menu (e.g. along the top or down the left-hand side) Labels on the menu buttons Optionally, any additional "pop-up" menus for certain buttons Contact information in the page footer Other features to appear on all pages (e.g. a newsletter sign-up box) Drafts Armed with this knowledge, Natasha gets down to work and creates 2 or 3 draft design layouts, based on the design brief. For example, here are three drafts she created for one of our clients (click each of them for a bigger version): As you can see, these are similar in some ways, because we've put a lot of work into the design brief, to save time and effort for everybody. Review process You review the drafts and send us your comments, suggestions and requests. Natasha then incorporates these ideas into another draft. Occasionally, we go through this process a few more times until you're happy with the final version. For example, here is the final version of the design for the same client above: When you're ready, you "sign off" on the design. Your input into the process is now complete. What happens then? Natasha then converts it into the right format for use on the Web, and we install it on the Web site. All pages of the site will then automatically use this template. In fact, if you've created some pages on the site already (this happens in some projects, if we're working to a tight deadline), they will automatically change to use the new design.