Commissioning of the company website was an interesting project. We decided to work with a family member in Karachi, Pakistan with whom we are interested in forging a long-term business relationship. It really is nice to be able to work with people you want and choose your partners.
We really wanted a very fresh-looking and funky website. The colours are vibrant or as a friend said, "It looks like candy!". The images are of our staff with big welcoming smiles. A professional photographer was hired for a day to take pictures of our young and energetic staff. We were very happy with the results. Our office is painted in yellow and that on the day of the shoot, it was particularly sunny giving the photographs a warm glow.
As for the design of the website, the basic layout was decided upon early on. It was the little details that took a long time to finalise given the 5-hour time difference between Liberia and Pakistan. Scores of e-mails were sent back and forth and, a few telephone calls had to be made as well. I also sent the various drafts to friends for instant feedback and my friends were extremely helpful.
I was not very happy with boring fonts like New Times Roman or Arial for the basic text. But if you notice, almost all websites use this basic font. I guess I wanted to be different and edgy. My graphic designer friend recommended looking up fonts on dafont.com. It is an amazing resource. After experimenting with a lot of fonts, we decided to do was to put in a very retro-looking font for the main text. It basically looks like a type-writer font.
We also used a graphic font that is entitled 'Africain' to give an African-looking aesthetic sense. It needs a bit of tweaking but so far it looks good.
I really wanted something like the one below but the geek font does not seem to upload on our website so we just have to stick with the one above.
I think the website is more or less final. We have achieved our goal which was to have an online presence and project a certain image.
What was the feedback like?
We received a great response and people like our funky website. The response to the type-writer font is mixed, though. Some people love it, others hate it. Here is my favourite response to the typewriter font.
"Yes, it is true that the font is different, but I think it still works. If it was more extreme, then it could affect the perception of seriousness of the company, but I think this one is within the limits, and it shows freshness and a young spirit. I guess it is subjective and when you try to be different there is always risk. It worked for me!"
The best part is that we have two websites already in the pipeline for our clients. I can safely say the website was a success!
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