Similar to the home building process, or let’s say convenience store business as this scenario hits close to home. No pun intended. Reason being, my father owned a chain of convenience stores. When I was younger, I could count the numerous occasions where he would take me out to look at the stores all across the USA during our travels. It’s funny, he always wanted me to try the food, and being the health nut that I am, the thought of it disgusted me. Even in the last 10 years, I always told him to have gluten free options in his stores. Yeah – that didn’t blow over too well, especially back then when gluten free was less of an option. I learned a lot about the business though, especially about how the stores had competed for the best gas price on every corner. Most importantly, every store wanted the best brand, same goes for a better customer experience. For example, a lit store and canopy was a huge factor for safety purposes. Also, advertising on the gas pumps and how the store looked played a large role in how a customer buys.
The Blueprint.
Think of the blueprint as a roadmap to your success. The blueprint would indicate the layout of the following: a bathroom, coolers, food and/or drink stands, indoor/outdoor lighting, etc.
Well, now step out of the convenient store and think about your website for a moment.
Go Custom!
Essentially, a custom built website is created from scratch with a blank slate or canvas.
First Step:
A wireframe is an image or set of images which displays the functional elements of a website or page. It is typically used for planning a site’s structure and functionality (i.e. blueprint).
Second Step:
A couple of different mockup designs would get created and presented. A mockup is a scale of a design, used to demonstrate and evaluate the page elements for promotion and marketing purposes. A mockup is a prototype if it provides at least part of the functionality of a system and enables testing of a design (i.e. prototype or set of drawings).
Third Step:
Once mockups are agreed upon, the site then would get developed in various programming languages, which essentially is what makes WordPress tick. This is a very large component and takes a tremendous amount of time to develop, especially now, as it is required to have the capability for the website to be readable on all platforms; i.e. mobile and ipad devices. Most importantly, the end user has the luxury to make updates at any time without relying on a web developer (i.e. architecture).
Theme Based
Most of what comes with the cost of a website these days is building a site completely from scratch like you had to 10 years ago. Only now with technology improving, people are turning to a pre-existing WordPress theme as an option for their website which in the end saves time and cost.
The beauty of WordPress is that there are tons of pre-existing premium themes in an online catalog environment. However, the process of finding the perfect theme can be overwhelming at best. There are simply waaaaay too many options.
The site structure is already predetermined with what elements of design is built throughout.
Often a big concern is if the colors of their logo will match with a theme. We always reassure that the websites we develop are.
If we go back to our convenience store example for a minute. It’s likely all of the signage has been picked out for the store at some point so we’d want to determine what colors of the walls and tile would look good.
I help bring an artistic sensibility to every web project I work on, but also “paint” within the complexities of the digital world.
Is your website built utilizing a theme?