Starting from nothing and helping build a new website that has never existed before is one of our favorite endeavors at LimeCuda. All that exists is a blank canvas and we get to be the first artists to create an online portrait of a business or organization. The rush is like some caffeinated pill of creativity.
About to begin that new website journey? This article explains the first of three high-level areas to start thinking about.
The Groundwork
You need to have a company / organization name, yes, but what about the domain name? This is a critical decision that will follow you for years.
Does it need to be a .com, .org, or something else ? How long will the name be? Are there misspellings to capture? Is it readable? Find available names (and purchase) using a registrar like GoDaddy.
AUDIENCE
Spend some time writing out what the audience(s) of the site are, what you should communicate to them, what they expect, what they will need to do, and what are the next steps you want them to take.
Branding & Design
You need a professional logo. If hiring a branding agency or graphic designer isn’t an option you can use something like 99Designs to get a great logo / brand for hundreds instead of thousands.
Ideally, you have firmed up the following design elements by the start of the project:
FONTS
Use web-safe fonts like Google Fonts. A typeface can dramatically affect the feel of a website. Make sure it matches your brand personality.
COLORS
Color says a lot about a brand. Used effectively it is a powerful tool. You will end up needing to have color codes like #96c940 you can use on the web.
Think about what colors will be used most predominantly – will the site feel dark or light? What color would be most ideal for a Call-To-Action color e.g. buttons?
You can use a free color palette generator like Adobe Color to to generate a color ideas.
LOGO VARIATIONS
You’ll likely need full color, black and white, small versions for Social Media, perhaps different versions for horizontal and vertical, etc.
Ideally get source / vector versions from the artist to give you flexibility with scaling or with other people working on the brand down the road.
