On our Instagram we asked if anyone wanted us to take a look at their websites to review. Many of you responded but we could only review a few at a time. So today we will be reviewing three of your websites including: The Leighton Co., Studio A, and Propegy. The feedback for these three websites will come from the creator and CEO if Quill & Co: Marisa, and our marketing and design assistant: Rachel.
The Leighton Co.
Becca and Scott of The Leighton Co. are a married couple who capture the stories of their clients through photography and cinematography. They specialize in documenting weddings, couples, and lifestyle.
Now that you know a bit about them let’s take a look at their site!
Our feedback for The Leighton Co:
Consider adding a mission statement / some direction to the home page hero.
Great font pairings!
Keep an eye on how long the line length gets on different screen sizes.
Consider playing with some layouts that will guide the user’s eye through the website.
Remove social share buttons from header and place in footer instead.
Pick one gallery style to keep consistent throughout portfolio.
Considering changing large blocks of script text to an easier to read font.
Pick photos with a reasonable resolution level to appear sharp but don’t take too long to load.
Love the use of video!
Make sure to keep font sizes consistent and large enough so that it’s easy to read. We recommend 14px or higher.
We love that you didn’t forget to put your location on your website!
We love your brand colors! Make sure to pair colors together that give enough contrast and are easy to read.
Studio A
Alecia of Studio A is a highly educated and experienced wedding photographer that has dedicated her work to capturing more than just “the pretty flower and a WOW wedding dress”. Rather than creating highly posed and literal picture perfect moments, she captures the depth of connection, understanding, and commitment of the couple.
With that in mind, let’s that a look at her website:
Our feedback for Studio A:
A strong first impression when landing on the site.
Consider photo layouts to create more dynamic sections.
We’d recommend upping the font sizes of the body copy.
Consider adding images of what is included in opt-in sections to make them more enticing
White space is good, but too much white space can feel empty.
Specify that you have brand design coming rather than brand photography.
Size your images to compliment the amount of text partnering it.
Love that you first introduce story and who you are attracting before you talk about you on your about page.
Strong call to action color choice
We love the big images!
Great job having opt-in sections and calls to action throughout.
Great to have call to action sections to keep visitors on the site.
Make sure text on top of images has high contrast for readability.
Propegy
Haley, the women behind Propegy, creates connections to grow businesses using LinkedIn. She does this by teaching entrepreneurs how to network on LinkedIn through her experience of growing her business. She believes that with a bit of compassion and a lot of strategy LinkedIn can be used by anyone.
Now that you’ve learned a bit about Haley, let’s take a look at her website:
Our feedback for Propegy:
Love the personality of the organic elements!
Love the zig-zag element of large areas of text to draw the user’s eye through the website.
Keep an eye on how long the line length gets on different screen sizes.
Amazing Copy! It is very personable and feels like your speaking to the audience.
Remove ‘home’ button from navigation and link the logo to the homepage.
Great job adding small elements to ground ‘floating’ elements.
Great job having a call to action in each section.
Consider adding a mockup of what you get in the course to make it feel tangible.
Make sure your images/graphics are loading properly.
Keep fonts consistent throughout entire website.
Consider using a version of the script font that doesn’t have tails at the end of each word.
Make sure to scatter used elements throughout the website so that they feel familiar.
Up your font size of the body copy.
Balance out white space and images in heros.
The footer could be centered.
Consider adding “how did you hear about us” to your contact form.
Wrapping Up:
Websites are made up of many small details that work together to create the over all design. Ensuring that these details are purposeful and carefully considered is what makes up a strong and professional website. These three websites show that when studying a site these details become apparent. We are aware that it takes a whole lot of polishing and many rounds of refinements to perfect everything. With two fresh sets of eyes and experience with designing websites we hope that our feedback is helpful for these business owners and can help others spot these details in order to refine their own websites!
We love to see pretty websites and hope to review more of your websites in the future! So make sure to follow our Instagram if you aren’t already to catch our next call for submission. If you don’t yet have a website of your own or aren’t happy with your current one. Make sure to check out this blog post all about how Emma was able to use one of our website templates to create her stunning new site. Or this blog post to see the beautiful website built for Emily.