Web Design
Recently I had the opportunity to do some freelance web design work for Aspire Strategist Portfolios, a company that provides portfolio management services for their clients. They came prepared with their logo and branding, which was great to use as a jumping off point for informing the site design. I started doing some mock-ups for pages to get feedback on site organization and style, and from there worked with the clients to deliver a website they could be proud of. To stay within the budget, I did some basic graphic design work making any info-graphics myself, and used all publicly available, royalty-free for commercial use photographs and video as well. Working on this project was a lot of fun, and I’m excited to potentially do more of this kind of work in the future. Feel free to check them out at Aspire (aspiresp.com)
Web Design
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Initial Concept and Look/Style Development of the site, including integration of any existing content and client feedback.
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Configuration of website using desired hosting platform (Squarespace, Wix, WordPress etc.) & Build Navigation.
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Additional Graphic Design, and Photo-Editing services, creating content to elevate site messaging & purpose.
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Implementation of some basic custom CSS, or additional code like HTML or Java for things like site hover effects.
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Regularly checking in, making sure the site meets their needs. Implement feedback and offer suggestions.
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Maintain client confidentiality, and assist with password protecting site pages and content as needed.
Examples
Home Page
The home page needs to communicate a clear visual style that supports the mission statement and set the tone for the rest of the website. The Aspire SP team already had their branding, so from there I needed to build on the nautical themes in a way that supported what their business was there to do; work as a team to deliver excellent services to their clients.
I specifically chose images that showed crews working together to achieve their goals while making sure the mission statement and goals were clearly communicated, and a clean simple layout that allows for easy navigation. Links were available both in the navigation bar and below the relevant content blocks.
For example, “Get to Know our Team” is a link to the “Our Team” page, “Our Commitment to Clients” auto-scrolls down the page to the relevant content-block, and the buttons below the reports links are a quick-alternative way to navigate straight to the various reports Aspire SP provides to their clients.
About Us Drop-Down Pages
These are examples from the Our Team & Our Story pages, which explains to the viewer who they are in terms of their collective and individual professional experience and work history. The “About Us” Page needed a balanced layout to display the work experience of the five leadership team members, and I wanted it to also be interactive and visually appealing to the viewer.
After some back and forth with the clients, we agreed on a drop-down menu where visitors to the site could click on their name and title, which would then display their work histories. I added an overlay hover effect that would transition their headshots from grayscale to color for some visual interest, a line to connect them to emphasize that this is a team, and an interactive background that would move with the menus as they expanded.
Our Story Page
This page explains how the team at Aspire met, and their professional work history. I wanted to keep with the nautical theme, but also tie it into the information on the page, as their business is currently located in NYC and that’s where they all worked together previously, I opted to use pictures that showed both the NYC bay and waterways featuring skyscrapers in the background.
Services
For this page, the clients wanted me to display their written explanation of what services they provide, but also requested I create some custom graphs and info-graphics to intersperse throughout their explanations. After some back and forth we landed on the finished product to the right, which, while not being particularly nautical, is still in keeping with the color palette of the rest of the site, and is bright enough to grab the viewer’s attention.
Client Communications & Market Insights
These two pages were created to showcase the kinds of reports that Aspire SP create and provide links to those reports that are only accessible to paying clients who would then have to put in a password to access them. The Market Outlook Jan 2024 is a document that I re-formatted to have a cover that matched the website, and have a bit more visual appeal. I also reformatted the rest of the document, but the document itself is only available for viewing by paying clients of Aspire’s. The cover page displayed here has a hover effect that again colorizes the image, and also serves as a link to the page with the full report.
Contact
And finally, we have the contact page. The page consists of just a simple form that’s hooked up to the preferred Aspire SP email, and any other relevant contact information like phone numbers, location, etc.