The gist of this financial industry website project
A financial firm in Vancouver needed an uplifted website redesign to showcase their presence on the web to potential investment clients. The goals were to update the design, and to demonstrate professionalism, reach and credibility in their industry, which was not coming through on their old site well enough. This was achieved with:
- A great take on geometric design in the web graphics.
- ‘Rich’ business-focused colour palettes to match the existing brand identity.
- Readable, yet elegant typography.
- Custom diagrams and strong stock photography.
The new website now achieves all the goals it set out to do. It was a great success in terms of establishing the scope and size of the company, while not being overwhelming or uninviting.
Click one of the images to open up a slideshow!
A website project to uplift a company’s brand and presence on the web
The scope of this site was rather simple, with very little functionality requirements. The company needed to show that they were much bigger in size, and more influential than their old site was conveying. Being busy themselves, the task to produce the website was meant to be quick and easy. A discovery questionnaire was used to determine styles, wants and hoped-for outcomes. Existing design material was also reviewed, to ensure branding consistency across marketing materials. A team approved the design with flying colours, mentioning it was a job well done, compared to other attempts they had made to re-do their site in the past.
Overall, the process involved a lot of independent decision-making, which the client entrusted me to do with my expertise and the designer’s input. While this type of site could have increased in scope, to include SEO considerations, or more content, the client simply didn’t have the capacity, or desire to go through that process. However, the way it was set up did not prohibit those goals from happening in the future, should client want to use their new website as a tool for further web promotion.
We took care to set up ‘jump to’ links, plus side menus, to help users navigate the site as easily as possible. We also included, like on all other sites I make, icons for indicating PDF or other file downloads. For this client, those icons were important, since downloadable documents made up most of the ‘media’ (i.e. public relations) section of their site.
The original design we made for this client did have a spot for high-resolution logos to appear on the home page, displaying the company’s clients or affiliations. These were meant to aid in boosting credibility. However, the client decided to opt out of using these.
A custom-drawn diagram was also made for this client, to showcase their multiple locations around the world. This was an important feature to the client, to show the size of the company to potential investors.
My favourite part of this site design is the way the geometric pattern turns into a tinted overlay on images and textured backgrounds. It’s a very unique take on a web design feature – one that provides seamless branding integration on different parts of the site. The pattern also comes off as professional, calculated and business-orientated.
The gold colour in the motif is also not often seen on the web, as it can be hard to achieve while remaining readable. But in this colour palette, the web design did extremely well with a gold addition. It played into the other branding details the company was using.
Features of this website design and development project:
- Genesis framework WordPress web design and development, with custom styles.
- Responsive web design and coding.
- Retina-friendly displays of imagery and icons.
- Custom-drawn vector diagram.
- Geometric pattern and tinted overlay on images.
- ‘Jump to’ anchor links and sub menus on sidebars for easy navigation.
- Newsletter signup form and contact form with custom designs.
- File-type icons to go with download links, aiding in usability.
- Optional log-in link leading to a third-party system the client was using.
- Stock photography help with regards to decision making, cropping and integration into the website.
- Editable, widget-based home page.