Yesterday morning I hit the “go” button on the website. I took down the holding page, took a deep breath and launched the Flourish website.
After more than six months developing the brand: from selecting a name (that’s another story for another day) to developing the logo, choosing colours and rolling out the corporate identity, the website seems like the final step in making it all feel real. I’ve bought the champagne, ordered the cake and am looking forward to my first official day in business as Flourish!
I’m not certain we won’t tweak the design of this site. I for one think that the illustrations might be a little ‘plain’ compared to the homepage. And particularly for our ‘engaging’ brand, I’d like them to have a little more texture, a little more going on. But the challenge is that it’s hard to use stock images without them using cheesy. And you also need to have a theme. Now the obvious theme for flourish is gardening – and I love the images I’ve used on the homepage. But there’s a fine balance between metaphorical gardening images, and the whole thing looking like a seed catalogue! It’s a difficult balance…
So for now, partly because I’m exhausted, and partly because I want to see what the team think, I’m going to leave the website as is. We’re passionate about never missing deadlines, so I was delighted that I launched 24 hours early. And yes, if you look closely you’ll see that one page is waiting for content (the portfolio plugin I’d planned to use just didn’t work so it looks like we’ll need to code it by hand) but overall I like it. We do need to get the portfolio coded (and fast) but because our blog is so rich in case studies I felt it was ok to launch without it.
I’d love to know what you think about the illustrations. Are they too plain? Or do you think everything else (background and blog) are so full on that it’s nice to keep things simple? The jury’s still out for me, but I’m glad to have it launched. I’m off to slouch on the sofa with a cup of tea and a magazine.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Congratulations, Fiona, on so many levels!
You are a clever writer, dropping little goodies like deadlines into your pieces. The website looks v.good.
Really tricky on the plain images. On the +ive side, they leave the page looking relatively ‘clean’ / uncluttered, but on the other hand they’re a bit simple to really promote the design abilities Flourish has? It depends on your target market possibly? I think your new design and brand will certainly connect very well with people in the creative & charity industries (for example), along with home-based businesses. But, will it attract the ‘harder’ corporate market place ? Not sure. However, perhaps plain images but with a few “technical drawing” style images thrown in? Perhaps they would clash with your softer overall style?
Hmm – don’t really know what I’m talking about and will leave to the expert…… you!
Best wishes,
Stephen R Hillier
Well I think it all looks fantastic, – I love the colour, love the illustrations, and feel that i’ve been part of the story because i’ve been reading the blog as it’s been developed.
Of course if you were being really flashy, you could have the “plain” illustrations, alternating with “coloured” ones! – but then flashy isn’t really your style, and this is a stylish website. – Congratulations.
Hey well done! Looks great all round. I like the plain images – gives a sort of ‘blank canvas’ feel – ready to get stuck in to some good designing for your clients….also goes along with the other images you’ve got on your flash homepage (although those are on a colour). Hmm – yes I’ll come back to it again but those are my first impressions!
All the best – Naomi