Blog
How To Guide: Creating a Website
Written by Louise
So I’m not at all technical (at ALL – I can just about log on to my computer), and Jimmy is not at all clear (but VERY creative with a shed load of ideas), and yet I was asked to go and build a website for this Music Label/Recording Studio/Scholarship Programme/Song Factory that we all purported we were. How does someone like me do it??
Well, the answer is that I didn’t really. I mean, I didn’t actually build a website. I work in a library, so I did get a few books out based around the theme of “make your own website” – but the only thing I learnt from them was that, if I was going to satisfy all of Jimmy’s “community” ideas, and all of my “creative, design-based” ones, I was going to have to persuade Jimmy to part with a rather large sum of money to have professionals do it for us.
You know, giving a website designer a brief for a small, musical company that’s only just started, is actually harder than it sounds. I’d only ever looked at the internet as a way of extracting information (or shopping, let’s be honest). I’d never really examined the page I was looking at, or clocked why I found it so easy to navigate my way around. I’d never even really noticed the aesthetics… So, Jimmy put me in touch with David (I had my first ever conference call. Scary), and David told me first of all to just have a look on the internet and jot down what websites I liked and why I liked them. I now have a document on my computer called ‘Websites I like’. It lists facebook, Cath Kidston, the V&A shop – all in all, perhaps not the most helpful compilation. BUT they are popular websites because they are clear and (relatively) simple (grr bloody facebook – if it changes it’s look ONE more time…). I had endless chats with Jimmy about our identity, there are endless pages in my notebook with website plans (how do you work your way through a website?), and I talked pretty endlessly at Wes about who we were, what we were trying to achieve etc…
Meet Wes. Website designer, extraordinaire. Recommended by a friend; lives and works down on the Kentish coast (surely an inspiration); swims in the sea in his lunch time – who better could you ask for??! Also, you should check out nebul0 strata’s website, obv. Wes told me to cut the crap, basically. All he needed was a basic website plan and a feel for the kind of graphics we were after. I am a pretty massive innocent drinks fan, so that was my main starting point – am shameless thief – and I got so fed up with trying to find appropriate graphic-based websites that I gave up and just made a ‘mood board’ (secret ambition to be interior designer) with pictures and ‘feel’ I like. I couldn’t actually believe that Wes and Su liked it – I was finally allowed to be all artsy and creative! Also, we took main colour-board inspiration from the Spanish villa (you must have seen endless pictures by now, and are probably green with envy).
Yeah, TIP: like with writing, do what you know and use what you know. Easy to say when you are employing a talented website designer. NOT easy when you are non-technical and trying to build your own website. If you are doing the latter, KEEP IT SIMPLE. Like the meerkat. Am sure Wes would say the same.
Do you know what, though. Our website has grown and grown. Already. And it’s not even launched yet. I guess, when you are starting out, you don’t really know what you’re going to need. And we are super lucky to have such understanding designers – Wes is also pretty ‘up’ on his music scene, being DJ himself, and so was perfect choice.
I feel like Chelsea Mummy: “dahling, why stress and bother yourself over a dinner party when you can just get someone in to cook?” No. Seriously. You want to look professional, it is worth investing the money (as long as you promise to do LOTS of upkeep (like having very expensive Chelsea property (who do you think was Christmas window shopping on the Kings Road today? (and returned home with only wool to knit own Christmas pressies, I might add)))).
I’ll let you know if I think of anything else you might find interesting.