Orkney Crofts
Simon Treasure came to us with a vision: to have the best website on Orkney for his new self-catering cottages, Orkney Crofts.
But what makes “the best website”?
Appealing look
The design must tell you know right away what kind of place this is. For Orkney Crofts, his target market is high-end, older people looking for an eco-friendly, luxury holiday on Orkney.
So we choose a warm palette of mochas and chocolate brown with accents of pale blue and daffodil yellow.
From a colour psychology standpoint, chocolatey browns and earthy mochas are in one way about warmth, security and serenity because they remind us of earth, soil and a connection to the planet. In another sense they’re about sophistication and luxury. The particular shades of brown I used have elements of grey and cream, so they’re reminscent of fine, dark chocolate or creamy hot cocoa.
The accents of yellow and blue mirror the sky and wildflowers found on Orkney and introduce lightness.
The right logo
Logos are important because they give you an instant snapshot of the business. They send a message so it’s important to make sure it’s telling the right story.
Simon’s brand is about combining old-fashioned and rustic with modern and sleek so we needed a simple logo that could showcase both.
Questal, the font I’ve used, is a modern twist on an old-style font. Again, the colours reinforce the old (brown) with the new (baby blue and pale yellow). I added the flower accent because Simon’s an exceptional gardener and flowers are a big part of the Orkney Crofts experience.
Helpful content
This is where we put in a lot of time and effort, which is very unusual for a web designer, but critical for small business success.
Most designers just take care of the code and design, leaving the client to do all the work on content. Unless you’re paying hundreds of thousands for a corporate site, in which case there are whole teams whose job it is to think about this.
But when someone comes to your site, they want to know something and do something. Help a visitor find what they want, and you help them become customers.
In Simon’s case, potential customers are thinking: What does the place look like? How do I get to Orkney? What can I do once I’m there?
It’s our job to make sure we give them those answers as easily and quickly as possible.
We do a number of exercises to develop the site map then do user testing. Finally, we work with the client to edit and rework their content so it’s easy to read and optimized for search engines.
Easy to use = gets used
The last part of getting the “best” website for Simon and Orkney Crofts will be building the content management system that will let Simon make all his own changes himself without having to know HTML, FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Administering his website will be easy and completely within his control, which means he’s much more likely to use it and keep the site fresh and up to date.
Visit Orkneycrofts.com.
