Aim for the emotion in Website design. Start with more photos and less words.
After 7 years, it was time to move forward with a new Website design. In learning Begin Anew’s goals for the new site and reviewing references from many other regional and national non-profits, one thing became very clear in our meetings, we needed to focus on the emotion of the students and their families and recognize the donors, volunteers, strategic partners and team members that make Begin Anew’s mission of “Empowering individuals to overcome the obstacles caused by poverty by providing education, mentoring, and resources” come to life.
Website Redesign for Begin Anew
A long history with Begin Anew
Although photography has been the majority of my work since starting DoubleBee Photo, I also do art direction and design work as Zanimal Creative. I was fortunate to be able to redesign Begin Anew's Website in early 2023. I've been working with them for several years, since doing their initial brand development with BrandWise in 2015. When we built their original Website, we used the Squarespace platform for the user friendly content management system (CMS) and all the integrated tools that are included. It also eliminated the need for an outside developer which helped with the budget. Squarespace proved to be an effective tool for them over the years, and as we had hoped initially, allowed even entry-level team members to make updates to the site including adding pages, text, images and video content themselves.
Squarespace is even better now.
Squarespace has also been making improvements to their platform along the way and has developed a new 7.1 framework that allows more design flexibility. It includes a new grid based page layout option called Fluid Engine that allows you to place, size and layer elements using the adjustable grid and breaks free from the restrictive template format. It also includes an asset library and the ability to adjust mobile and desktop layouts independently. And it’s really user friendly. The new platform is an entirely new architecture and therefore requires a re-build from 7.0, but it’s worth it. It is so much better in terms of design capability now.
Strategic goals and tactics
After 7 years, it was time to move forward with a new Website design. In learning Begin Anew’s goals for the new site and reviewing references from many other regional and national non-profits, one thing became very clear in our meetings, we needed to focus on the emotion of the students and their families and recognize the donors, volunteers, strategic partners and team members that make Begin Anew’s mission of “Empowering individuals to overcome the obstacles caused by poverty by providing education, mentoring, and resources” come to life. We developed a creative strategy and used it as the basis for the Website design, navigation, copywriting and photography.
Tactical objectives included using more images and less text. We needed to show Begin Anew’s vision for the future, “Teaching one generation to change the next.” We expanded and updated banner ads throughout the site with the Vision message showing families of students and the pride on their faces. The banner ads were originally designed by one of Begin Anew’s board members and we all thought they were great and needed an expanded presence.
Copywriting and creative team
We needed to streamline the information and navigation and simplify the messaging for a multilingual audience. It was important to bring out the emotion in our copy as well as our photos. For this project I partnered with Michael Dukes, of BrandRecharging.com and Lee Lipscomb of Lee Lipscomb Designs. In addition to copywriting, Michael was able to offer some UX (User Experience) insights that really helped us streamline the flow of information through the website and develop a more efficient navigation structure that included a significant reduction in pages. Lee provided art direction support in collecting photo and design references and was instrumental in developing the look of our header images as well as the plan for future video stories. We shortened messages wherever we could and added emotional words to headlines and copy to show how welcoming and inclusive the programs are. We also emphasized that the education programs are absolutely FREE. We made the site multilingual too, with site-wide translations available in Spanish, Russian, Arabic and English to better serve the students. This is an integrated service from Weglot that can be directly connected through Squarespace.
Visit Begin Anew’s Website yourself
Here are a few screen shots of Begin Anew’s website, but please check it out for yourself. Begin Anew serves a diverse group of people throughout Middle Tennessee with three FREE education programs:
They also offer FREE children’s programming while the students attend class. If you’re looking for a non-profit to support either as a volunteer, donor or strategic partner, it is a great organization that makes a direct impact on people’s lives every day.
To learn more about the photography for Begin Anew’s Website, please read the Doublebee Photo blog post.
The Logo Process
Here is an overview of our typical logo development process. We start with rough pencil sketches and connect with you at each phase to make sure we are on track throughout the process. This means clients are engaged all the way through, and no one is surprised with the final execution or the final invoice.
PHASE 1: Discovery, strategy development, project management
This will include development of creative and strategic goals, objectives, tone, mandatories, and review of relevant references including peers and competitors.
PHASE 2: Concept development
This will include initial rough sketches showing various configurations, basic type styles, etc. References may also be shown for discussion, i.e.: other logos that are similar and relevant to this project. Sketches will be narrowed down and one to two directions will be flagged for further exploration.
PHASE 3: Logo execution
This phase will include rough computer comps of one to two approved directions executed to a tighter, more finished level. These directions will be narrowed down and final version will be taken to mechanical art and rendered on computer in black and white.
PHASE 4: Mechanical art and color exploration
This phase will take the chosen concept direction to final art. Color options will be shown, and once color is approved, the art will be provided to you in multiple digital versions: PMS, CMYK and RGB and saved as JPG, PNG and EPS formats for various print and screen uses.
Logo sketch for Begin Anew
Final Logo for Begin Anew
Warm up your cold calls
I've been talking to a lot of marketing people recently about the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of cold calling. I've heard a lot of people say they'd rather have a root canal than make a cold call.
One person told me he and his partner once made over 2,000 cold calls without getting a project
Ouch. Now that's cold.
Everyone agrees that getting referrals from a personal connection is the best way to develop prospects, but that's not always possible. You can go to networking events, ask your existing contacts for help and you can mine your clients for additional projects, but at some point you're going to want to reach out to someone who has no idea who you are.
Photo by Sophie
Believe.
You can do your homework in advance. You can name drop some of your big clients. You can talk about your expertise and do your elevator speech without taking a breath. But mostly you should try to connect with someone on a personal and non-sales-ey level if you can. And I think you've got to BELIEVE. If you don't believe it's worth doing, it isnt.
Don't make getting a project the goal of the call.
Adjust your measure of success. This is the start of a relationship. You've got to establish a connection, i.e. trust. The prospect needs to know that you're legit and a potentially good fit before they'll even consider asking you for a quote. They've also got to be in the market to buy. Your goal here is to spread the word about your company and start a dialogue.
Regarding the actual call, I've had the best results by being blatantly direct. "I know you don't know who we are. I'm calling you because of x. I'm making some cold calls today to people I'd like to work with. Here's who we are and what we do and I'd like to e-mail you a link and follow up with you next week."
I've gotten zero projects from that first call, but I don't consider that a failure because my goal for the call is to connect with a person not with a project.
Be patient and persistent.
Over the years, I've told countless students to stay in touch and be persistent. Don't be a pest, but stay in touch. I almost never hear from them again and the ones that do follow up really stand out. That same lesson applies with cold calls. Start a relationship and stay in touch.
Wendy's brand transformation
The classic American restaurant, Wendy's, began its transformation in 2012. This article from 2013 is a great reference for a brand that evolves nicely with the changing times. It includes side by side comparisons of the older packaging, stores and even uniforms to their new look.
http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2013/02/25/wendys-rebranding/
A Ukrainian-born actress walks into a bar...
I have to admit, I was surprised to see that Mila Kunis was the new face of Jim Beam. But by choosing her, a very historic and traditional brand added some new life and international flavor.
Check out the article and commercials below.