Why I love a Make-Over
Ask my husband and he will tell you I am a sucker for a make-over movie. From She’s All That to The Breakfast Club I will be there, enraptured, devouring every moment. It should therefore come as no surprise that when I was able to have my own little make-over recently with the fashionable Poppy from Style by Poppy I savoured every moment. What I have realised is that movies, fashion and personal styling are not the only make-overs I enjoy.
One of my biggest professional joys is making-over a website. Over the years I have met with numerous clients who were unhappy with their current website. After discussing what they would like they have allowed me some creative licence to realise something new for them. Often it is not the content that needs to be updated – only the look and feel. This is music to my ears. It means there is no delay in logos, images or text. Everything is already in place – it just needs to be refreshed.
It is not just websites created by others that I enjoy making over. There are a growing number of sites that I created that I am now giving a make-over to:
When I first met Trudy from Trikki Kidz I had been running my business for less than 6 months. Trikki Kidz is a childcare centre and Trudy was after something bright and colourful. And colourful it was! Bold blocks of colour dominated the initial site. Over a year later and with a new logo in place, Trudy contacted me to make some changes. I got to work and changed the look to a fresh, clean site with lots of white space. It was still bright, just not overwhelmingly so. One of the secrets about this site is that I didn’t change the Wordpress template theme! Not that you would know from looking at it.
Bustamove is another site that I created in 2015. I was determined to give Jenni a site that she was happy with and although I succeeded I had felt more recently that it was begging for a make-over. My opportunity came when Jenni requested some changes and I took the initiative to create and present her with a new look and feel. Jenni gave the changes a thumbs up and now we are working on ways to further improve the site.
Around a year after launching, Chantelle got in contact to request some small updates to her site, which made a huge difference. Chantelle offers incursions to early childhood education centres. She was after a simple look and feel, and that was reflected in her initial site. Her business did not even have a logo. That all changed when she had some unique Bitmoji images created by a local artist. I took great delight in deciding how to incorporate them into her site. Changing the colour scheme and font to match the newly designed logo made the world of difference and brought a new sense of fun to her site – in perfect alignment with her business’ brand.
While I am proud of all my work, I have no hesitation in changing and improving on what I have previously created. My client’s business might have changed, or the look they wanted a couple of years ago now leaves them cold. Regardless of the reasons I am grateful that I have been able to build a relationship where my clients want to continue working with me and are comfortable in being honest about their refreshed vision.
Speaking of relationships, I recently watched Olivia Newton-John: Hopelessly Devoted to You. Might be time to break out my DVD copy of Grease….