Don Wright Designs & Photography

A Checklist for Clients | What We Need to Build Your Website

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:01:35 +0000

Every web or print designer knows

the woes of waiting on client materials while they pressure your for progress reports. It’s something that everyone learns either the difficult way, or the really difficult way. I recently read about 35 different types of content interview questionnaires, and even wrote my own content questionnaire from scratch in order to extract information and graphics from all clients in a blissfully easy way in order to promote timely delivery, a pleasant overall experience, and be aware of all needs for project from the beginning. While some designers find it troublesome to “pester” their clients from the get-go, those who do the pestering do it because they know that doing so will result in the best possible experience for both the client and our design/development team

We all need the following things in order to begin your website project or digital marketing campaign:

1) A budget

Knowing our client’s budget helps us pre-determine available funds so we can maximize your dollar for your needs. Each project outline and estimate is based on
A) hours of time and necessary resources involved to complete it
B) Resources needed such as stock photography, logo design, and interactive media possibilities.
C) Campaign dollars for pay-per-click advertising
D) Expenses for recurrent services such as blog post creation and creative writing to further improve your website for search engine optimization.

In other words, we recommend a 3 minute informational video for an $850 project if it also requires logo design, copy creation, and photography services – the budget simply won’t allow it, so we’ll instead brainstorm and propose the most COST EFFECTIVE way to promote your business, given your allocated budget.

2) A complete list of the client’s design requirements

The client must make clear at the beginning just how much design work their project calls for, e.g. Tri-fold binder, letterhead, and business card layouts. Occasionally unexpected new design needs emerge and in turn will increase the overall cost. This is why at Don Wright Designs, we intentionally over-estimate every project so that there are no surprises once our client receives the final invoice.

It is very difficult to estimate a project if very little information about it is provided. We frequently (along with every other web designer on the planet) get the all-so common phone call:

client: Hi there, I’m calling because I heard you build websites and I’m wondering how much they cost
me: you mean how much website’s cost?
client: right, how much does a website cost? . . .

This question is usually followed by my analogy: “a website is like a house, it depends on the size, materials needed, hours of labor, grounds keeping, and price of the Joneses’ next door who you want to out-do . . . ”

3) A clear outline of what the design is intended to accomplish for the client

Whether it’s a print ad–campaign, posters for a flea market stall or a 60-sec video short for Vimeo/Youtube, every design job involves a goal to be fulfilled. It’s important that the client has thoroughly thought through these questions before they begin discussing concepts with the designer. Additionally, it’s critical for the designer to ask questions about the client’s objectives since the client is, after all, hiring the designer to provide the services.

An outline of Your Target Market/Customers and Demographics

From the beginning, we built and tailor all of our services to reach your IDEAL customers. A website for a new T-shirt company which primarily sells to high school males will need to be developed with the needs and tastes of that market, and will therefore look completely different than a company which sells shawls and blankets to grandmothers and grandfathers. Our clients need to understand that every aspect of both your VERBAGE and your CONTENT as well as photos and graphics will GREATLY depend on a thorough understanding and perspective of your target demographic.

4) Timeframe and Delivery Expectations

Even if your project isn’t of utmost, time-critical scope – we need to be made aware of any needs related to your release schedule in order to effectively manage our time and our other clients’ timetables to effectively meet the needs of your project. If you have a tradeshow approaching where you wish to present your website, PLEASE let us know so we can accurately negotiate these delivery times based on your schedule and our current workload.

5) High quality images and graphics

Prior to site design and even MOCKUP design, its YOUR job to provide us with any relevant logos or artwork that you wish to incorporate into your website presentation. Ideally, any logos or artwork should be provided to us in the proper format (.eps, .pdf, .psd, .ai) so that we may present your final mockup and graphics with branding which coordinates with your current marketing materials

Any photographs you submit to us should be of HIGH resolution (300 dpi and fullsize, not to be confused with web-format or compressed images for email). Although the FINAL image will be presented and published on the web, if we’re provided the high resolution images we are able to crop and resize accordingly per our needs for your site design.

6) Graphics, Images and Text in FINAL FORM

This is most important. Clients frequently send us their logo, and a few paragraphs of text about their business and then leave the rest up to us. This doesn’t work AT ALL. While the paragraphs of text describing your work certainly help getting us started, it won’t be enough for us to properly build your site from start to finish. Any text, photographs, illustrations or other material provided by our clients should be received before our work commences. It is a drain on time and resources if we are left waiting for these things halfway through our project and, even worse, causes delays to our other clients who might be waiting in line. All materials provided by the client should be in their final form with no future revisions necessary. Any changes which have to be made after the design work has been done will cost time and money as well as postpone the delivery date.

We ask that you consider what primary NAVIGATION tabs you’d like to feature (Home, About Us, History, Staff Bios, Products, Specials, Contact Us, etc . . . ) Within each of these categories, you might have SUB-CATEGORIES (directions, portfolio, locations, types of products, etc) and we need to be made aware of these SUB-CATEGORIES as well!

Ownership info for third party images and copy/text materials

When you provide us with images and text sourced from an outside party, it’s absolutely critical that you also provide us with permissions from the outside source to use this material on you website or marketing materials. This applies to text, video, images, graphics or animations, as well as any special fonts or other multimedia.

7) Examples of prior design work or inspirational reference material

If your company or business has published seasonal or campaign specific material SIMILAR to that which we’re designing for you, it helps us greatly to study any past design examples. This helps us discuss with both you and your target market what did or didn’t work in the past, especially when we can analyze your audience’s response to said material

If a client has a seasonal marketing campaign, or their corporate identity needs to be revised, it will help to provide past design samples to the current designer. It’s useful to discuss what worked or didn’t work for the client last time, particularly in terms of customer/audience response or the direction which the client and/or their organization wishes to take in future.

This article inspired by a recent blog post by Tracey Grady, a designer in Australia.

Skin Spa Logo Design | Heritage Medical Association

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:05:08 +0000

Logo Design and Brand/Identity

Many of our clients find us while they are in the process of completely redeveloping their brand or identity and we absolutely LOVE the opportunity to start from scratch with a unified direction and approach to reintroducing their business to their target demographics.

Recently, Heritage Medical Association contacted us with some web design needs and we then had the opportunity to begin developing some branding for their never-before-seen Spa facility. Part of the project outline involved designing a logo for the Skin Spa, in which case we always provide a variety of options from which they can comment, alter, tweak and tune

Click the image for a full-screen sample of what to expect when we combine marketing direction with visual presentation and please leave us some comments on what you think!

Website Design News | Nashville TN Web Design

admin — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:10:27 +0000

Many of our clients have asked me why my business is called Don Wright Designs instead of Don Wright Photography. This was something I was aware of, but was somewhat of an eye opener for me – the reason is simple: I started my business as a web designer.

Yep.

Those of you who have started keeping up with our work here in the past 2-3 years may have not been aware that photography is something that I’ve slowly fallen into and I’ve loved every minute of it. I found my web design talents worked VERY well with my ability to shoot design-related photos, and over the years I’ve somehow developed more of a photography reputation than an interactive design reputation. I scratched my head and considered this for awhile and then realized exactly how this has happened.

I’ve never advertised web design services, yet somehow there has never been a shortage of web design or graphic design related work.

So Why Now?

Because this site will soon become a “Web Design Only” Endeavor . . . why? Because I’ve created two more sites!

All Things Photography & Photography Lessons

Nashville Wedding Photographer Don Wright

I’m hoping this will help differentiate my Wedding Photography Business from my Web Design Business. Additionally it opens another outlet for my other Photography-related endeavors like Fine Art, Portraiture, and Automotive Photography.

Comment on this post and let me know how I can provide you with the content you’re looking for more clearly, quickly and easily. Is this a mistake?? Should I stick with one website for all subject material?

The Thomas Law Firm | Murfreesboro Web Design

admin — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 04:33:07 +0000

We’re excited about releasing the almost-complete THOMAS LAW FIRM website, its been a pleasure working with our newest clients and we can’t wait to unveil the video portions we shot to further educate potential clients about the TN legal system and help guide them along the way! Thanks so much for your business guys! Its been a pleasure.

Website Design | CMS System | Photography | Video Production

Latest Website Redesign | Murfreesboro TN Web Design

admin — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 01:25:36 +0000

Sports photo is a great local sports photography company who approached us asking for our help to redesign their website and deliver a final product that they could update on their own, without needing to call someone for changes every few weeks . . . we delivered just that, and for less than they had budgeted for!

Their Old Site

VERSUS

The NEW site!

We look forward to polishing a few tweaks for it, but overall were very happy to help them put a new face on their business’s online presence!

Website Design Process | Nashville Web Design

admin — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:46:50 +0000

Building a new website is something all successful business will undertake eventually. It can be a daunting task which is often shrouded in doubt and mystery, which is why we’ve tried to create this informative post to help hold your hand along the way, hopefully making your experience more comfortable from start to finish.

Part 1: Data Gathering

Once we receive an inquiry about building a website for you or your business, we begin by scouring the internet and your own marketing materials so that we might learn more about what you do, as well as research what your competitors currently offer. We’ll analyze your current website, as well as your competitions looking for cost-effective ways to help properly market your services online. We commonly ask for some sample websites that you like, which we hope to use for inspiration when beginning your own site’s design.

Part 2: Initial Meeting

The next step will be meeting with you so that we might gather data vital to the creation of a Web site that represents your business. We will ask questions about your current imagery and branding, as well as work with you to determine what direction your design should take. Using our knowledge of Web design technology and our understanding of how people use the Internet, we will create a design that is useful, effective and memorable.

Part 3: Mockup Creation

After obtaining all the critical information, we will use what we’ve learned through our data research and our initial meeting to create a non-functional design sample of the art and data structure we plan on building your site upon. This will then be reviewed by you and your peers and upon some final tweaks and approval, we can move on to Part four!

Part 4: Development

This is the stage where we begin work behind the scenes to transform graphic designs and written content into fully functioning Web sites. Enhancing usability, accessibility, quality and search, our work provides the best possible user experience to the largest possible audience. From social networking, to good old-fashioned organic SEO, we cross every T and dot every I to insure your website is optimized not only for today, but is also malleable for any future updates, changes, or revisions. Upon finishing this step we will begin group testing for input from non-biased parties to ensure that your site is extremely navigable, easy to read, and loads as it should in a variety of modern web browsers.

Part 5: Delivery!
Our favorite part is the final step of delivering your polished, updateable and custom website to proudly show off to the world. We will be by your side to monitor your site’s visitors, hottest content, and ways to improve your exposure to your target geographic and demographic regions!

Real Estate Flyer Samples | TN Real Estate Marketing

admin — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:17:39 +0000

Many have seen them and felt their glossy goodness . . . but some haven’t and have asked for some samples to see online, so here they are!!! (CLICK FOR FULLSIZE)

$275 gets you 500 of these glossy, heavy-weight flyers CUSTOM DESIGNED for your listing (includes all shipping, design and printing fees)

Mike Mcdonald 2010 | Nashville Web Design

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:13:35 +0000

Our latest web design work was for Mike Mcdonald’s Political campaign. Mike wanted a clean, modern website that allowed his team to update on their own, from adding photos to creating new links and pages – we also handled all of the photographic work featured in the site’s design and we’re very happy with the results!

News Update | Nashville Photography and Design Blog

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 03:15:42 +0000

Well, I got in from St. Louis after shooting some more Graduation Ceremonies this week and now I’m hard at work finishing up some virtual tours and editing Adrianna and Tony’s favorite picks from their Engagement Session. We also had a great meeting with Kaycee Wright the other day to discuss her 2011 Wedding and, once again this has been the busiest 5 weeks since I’ve been in business. Thanks to EVERYONE for understanding and bearing with us while we hire some extra help around here, and also thanks to all the photography students for putting up with our weather that has been messing up a lot of the scheduled photography lessons.

These past two weeks we’ve shot 7 Virtual tours, built 2 Real Estate Websites, Shot over 6300 College Graduate’s photos, and I personally am really looking forward to getting back into a regular schedule this week since graduation season is over!!

We’ve got a few really important weddings coming up @Kyle Callea @DianneSepe @JayBeebe @StevenSevatah and we can’t wait to start showing off our latest wedding work. Thanks again everyone for hanging in there with us while we try to get everything caught up. Tisha Harvey: We are DYING to show you your wedding photos, so let us know when you get back in town from your wonderful honeymoon!

Welcome Groupon Students | Nashville Photography Lessons

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:27:18 +0000

We sold over 130 Lessons this weekend and now it’s time to start scheduling!! My phone has been ringing off the hook all morning and I have just been informed that GROUPON does not release your EMAIL Addresses to me but they CAN send you an email with this LINK!! Yay!!

Why do I need this information?? So I can do my best to customize your class based on your needs!! If you want to learn NIGHT photography, my scheduling team needs to know that so we can schedule your lesson, wait for it . .. . . AT NIGHT!!! Before your lesson, please read and re-read MY FIRST PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE so you’ll know or at least BE FAMILIAR with some of the terms I’ll be using.

Please fill out the form below in order for me to begin scheduling appointments . . . . which will be scheduled in the order received. Thanks so much and I look forward to working with all of you!!!

[contact-form 1 "Contact form 1"]