Custom Graphics, Galore!
Lotus Soul Awakening is a website that I created for my client, Tonya Dokman, who is a psychotherapist, life coach, and reiki master.
Custom graphics make it pop! We decided on a color scheme based on the warm and soothing feel that she wanted her website to have.
She loves the ocean and sunrises are very symbolic for her, so we used both in her design scheme. You can see that reflected in her logo, header, slider, and other graphics.
Also, it was important for her to convey healing and transformation. As the lotus is a symbol of turning muck into beauty and power, we incorporated that into her logo and domain name. I used the Nirvana WordPress theme for this site, as it allows for an integrated look that is simple and beautiful. The full site can be viewed at www.lotussoulawakening.com.
Marketing Magic
It’s important to have a contact form that is simple and allows for the customer to easily contact the practitioner. Other designers may disagree, but I believe that it’s helpful to also have the email address and phone number easily available.
Yes, this can make it easier for people to spam the practitioner, but it also makes it easier for customers to contact them. If we try to filter out all the bad, we also filter out all the good.
Links from the service pages to the contact form are also very important for customer use. We have those well-integrated on the reiki & coaching pages of Tonya’s website, as well as other key pages.
They all funnel to this one page, making it very easy for the potential customers to contact her and make use of her services.
Tech Savvy
I’m sure that we’re all familiar with email signup incentives, right? They can be really helpful, in engaging with potential customers. You give them something of value, in exchange for their email address. It’s a win-win, as long as you use that information, wisely.
We decided to create a signup incentive with a free chapter from one of the collaborative books that Tonya had helped author, in exchange for signing up for her email list.
Once we set this up, with the book file embedded via a Mailchimp plugin, it was integrated into her website. Why do the work, manually, when it can be done automagically?
“I am so excited about my new website — Lotus Soul Awakening! This is the first leg of launching my longtime dream to open a healing center.
It’s the first door into that sacred space for those who are ready to do their deep healing work towards not just surviving, but THRIVING, and living life to the fullest!
Thank you Claire Amber! You knew how to tap in and capture the essence of who I am and my message, and it is so beautifully expressed here in your web design work. I am forever grateful to you, and am so happy the Universe made sure we crossed paths. Love and Light.”
Using Animation
It’s important to catch your viewer’s attention, because if you don’t, they may easily navigate their way off of your website. With Divinely Inspired Careers, I used slides with prompting questions to help Lea’s potential clients self-identify & immediately get an idea of what she has to offer.
As there are plenty of other complex graphics on her site, we made each slider simple, bold, and very easy to read. We also laid out the page options in columns, below the slider, to ensure that the navigation is very easy and simple to understand. This gives an overview of her website with images, rather than blocks of text.
I’ve since learned that sliders can seriously slow down a website, but they were so cool, at the time! And they are/were integrated into most of the themes from Cryout Themes, who was on the cutting edge, back in the day. Wow, how things change, right?
Content Creation
Lea is a good communicator. That made creating the content for her website, Divinely Inspired Careers, easier than it might have been, otherwise.
I think we did a good job of balancing the rather wordy content of Lea’s website. One trick that I used was breaking up the text with sub-headers, to make it more digestible. I also created graphics overlaid with spiritual quotes, to help enhance the tone of her website.
Unfortunately, Lea’s site is no longer live, but I felt it was such a great example of what could be done, at the time, when the only options were text and text-wrapped images, LOL.
“Claire took my ideas and created a beautiful site that really aligned with my business goals. In addition, she did a great job of creating something that matched what I wanted the site to look like from a spiritual perspective. She was always willing to go the extra mile, working with me on every detail to create a site I was happy with.
Claire has wonderful artistic ability and a great eye for color and design. I love my site and have already gotten lots of feedback regarding how great it is. I definitely recommend Claire as a web designer. She has great technical skills, amazing follow through, and her design skills are fantastic.”
Balancing a Bold Color Scheme
This was the first professional (self-hosted) WordPress website that I designed, using my new moniker and image, which was derived from the cover of my book.
Because the header is very colorful, it was important that the rest of the color scheme be kept simple. There’s a fine line between dynamic and circusy. I used white, slate grey & black to contrast to the fuchsia highlights and multi-colored header.
I have a somewhat edgy, funky, unique, sparkly personality. I wanted that to be reflected in the design scheme, because authentic marketing is very important and I knew that my ideal clients would resonate with those qualities.
Effective Single-Page Layout
Bicycle Power is an bicycle repair organization that serves those in the homeless and low-income communities.
As Glenn serves a population that often needs uplifting, and he loves the color orange, we decided to use that as the main color, with blues for contrast.
The color scheme worked perfectly with the orange bicycle pump that he had on-hand, as well as the blue tools and hat that the repair technician is wearing! It all seemed to be in divine alignment.
This one-page website has all of the pertinent information that Glenn’s clients will need, including his location, an idea of how his services work, a little bit about the history of Bicycle Power, etc.
Glenn also has a section about how technicians can get involved, as volunteers. There are links to other local resources, as well. As his service relies on donations of money, space, and supplies, Glenn used this site to show to potential supporters.
I’m sad to say that Glenn’s website is on-hold, right now, while he’s undergoing some personal challenges. So, I won’t be able to show you a live example.
But, his is a great example of an effective one-page website, created with Divi, so I wanted to at least share these screenshots with you.
“I am very happy with the fine work Claire Amber did in designing and building my website. The final result certainly exceeded my expectations for beauty and legibility, and since it has been live, I’ve received countless compliments on it. Furthermore, I recommend Claire to all my colleagues who need websites.”