Five Technology MN » Design

Web Design Process: Sketch to Wireframe to Web Design Concept

Jason Landa — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 11:49:28 +0000

I thought I would share some of the thought process and steps that go into taking a custom web design from an idea to something you can see and understand. The web design process always starts with identifying the goals of the site and the user, the content to be utilized and the features needed.

Below is a project we have recently started with example of the sketch, the wireframe and the final website concept for the home page. With most projects, we are repeating this process for 2 to 5 types of layouts and pages based on content and functions.

Web Design Sketch
I like to start mapping things out on paper from what I envision in my head. As we discuss the goals and content of the website, I often sketch out how I see things coming together.

Web Design Wireframe
The next step is the team discussing the sketch and starting to formalize the content areas and web design elements needed. Things move from a loose drawing to a more detailed wireframe.

Web Design Creative Mock
Once the wireframe is completed, we then get down to the details of colors, shading, exact sizing and other finishing touches. The web design concept brings the initial ideas to life with the look of a website ready to be clicked.

As you can see, adjustments are made in between these phases as we work together on making the finished product the right tool for the client and the targeted user.

Hope you enjoyed this brief peek at some of the initial stages of the web design process. We’re moving on to coding this one!

Drive-By Design

Jason Landa — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:26:10 +0000

Five didn’t create the billboard design for S.K.I.N. Medical Spa, but we did design their logo and website. We just thought we would share our work and a great client being shown on a larger scale.

Custom Email Marketing Designs

Jason Landa — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:14:41 +0000

We thought we would share some of our recent email marketing designs with you. The visual branding and impact is just one reason that professional email marketing campaigns are a fantastic marketing strategy.

Email Marketing Done Right
Email marketing, when correctly designed, structured and launched is an incredible communication tool. Monthly or quarterly newsletters, announcements, service features, event invitations, sales, promotions and more are all great messages to utilize email marketing.

You get the benefits of:

Custom email designs
List building & segmentation tools
Best delivery practices
Performance analytics on opens, clicks and conversions
Consulting & support from our email marketing experts

If you’re organization is interested in the benefits of email marketing, give us a holler, we can help. You can also sign-up for the Five monthly e-letter on our home page.

Logo Design For A Start-Up Medical Spa

Jason Landa — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:55:16 +0000

Five was recently lucky enough to be chosen to design the very first logo for a new business in the skincare industry here in the Twin Cites. S.K.i.N Medical Spa became a reality this summer and we played a big part by designing their logo and website (more on the website in a later post).

Below are the logo concepts we designed to start the process:

With just a few minor tweaks to one of the logo concepts, we had ourselves a winner. Sometimes one of the concepts is just the right look, right off the bat.

Here is the final logo design for S.K.i.N Medical Spa:

A company’s logo is so incredibly important in it’s branding, personality, perception, pride and tone. Both S.K.i.N and Five couldn’t be happier with the final logo result.

Five Tees Up A Golf Course Web Design

Jason Landa — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:11:54 +0000

Five Technology is proud to release the new web design for Wild Marsh Golf Course. Wild Marsh is a fantastic golf course located just west of the Minneapolis metro area in Buffalo, MN.

Our web redesign aimed to capture the beauty of Wild Marsh and it’s surrounding nature, while making it easy for interested golfers to get all the golf course information they needed to make a tee time.

This web design project involved:

Custom web design
Built on the SMC for full content management
Online gift card purchase
Events calendar
Course photo gallery
Integrated weather feed for current & 5 day forecast
Printable golf web specials
Search engine optimization
Email marketing

We incorporated drop-down navigation for the website that displays both 2nd and 3rd level navigation to maximize the website’s usability. The drop down menu is also customized with a background image involving elements of the Wild Marsh logo (bottom).

The printable golf coupons & specials page:

We have celebrated the release of the new Wild Marsh web design with a respectful golf clap in the Five Technology offices. Twin Cities golfers looking for a great course at a great value will have to put this golf course on their list to play.

Website: http://www.wildmarsh.com

Logo Design Project Goes Clean & Green

Jason Landa — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 02:06:56 +0000

While our main focus at Five Technology is usually web related, we won’t turn away the opportunity for great creative work in other forms when asked. Easiway Systems of Minnesota wanted us to design their new logo as they sought to align their brand with their trusted reputation, outstanding product line and then launch a new e-commerce website.

Over the last 20 years, EasiWay has grown to be a leader in the screen printing industry, making the most efficient and environmentally friendly screen cleaning and reclaiming products and solutions. They desired a new look that was crisp, clean, had a water element and a touch of green.

Here are are initial logo design concepts:

EasiWay was impressed and excited with their design choices and it made narrowing down a few to explore difficult. Through further discussion and ideas, one logo design concept was chosen to work from. We then presented a few versions and ultimately came up with a winner.

EasiWay’s new logo design:

The team at Easiway Systems was great to work with and we are now creating their new product labels as well as their e-commerce enabled website. Stay tuned for the launch of the new website in the near future.

Big Omaha Conference Kick-Off

Jason Landa — Fri, 08 May 2009 05:19:43 +0000

The Big Omaha Conference roared to a start Thursday night in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. I tip my hat to the minds that pulled together a great new web, creative and entrepreneur conference in the Midwest and sold out it’s 300 attendee spots. Those great and creative minds are Jeff Slobotski and Dusty Davidson.

You are missing out if you’re not in Omaha. I made the voyage down from Minneapolis to check it all out. I’m a big fan of people taking ideas and working them to reality like Jeff and Dusty did. That’s real inspiration to me.

Local web talent What Cheer and marketing mix Secret Penguin hosted an open house that got the evening started. Things shifted around the corner at 7:30pm to Slowdown, where Gary Vaynerchuk got things up another level by doing his Wine Library TV episode LIVE to a packed house. Gary will be presenting Friday at Big Omaha as well.

Here are a few photos and video to give you a taste of the night.

Gary Vaynerchuk doing his Wine Library show LIVE at Big Omaha

Big Omaha Conference Kick-off With Gary Vaynerchuk from Five Technology on Vimeo.

Big Omaha co-creator Jeff Slobotski at the kick-off event with me

Badges? You better believe Big Omaha has some stinkin’ badges!

It was a great night to catch up with some great web design and marketing minds I have connected with in person and online. Drinks and dialogue with Eric Downs, Steve Gordon Jr., Jeff Slobotski, Robert Murphy, Michael Kelley, Brad Wisler, Chris Burns, Nathan T. Wright and a slew of others.

Things get even better tomorrow with a line-up of great speakers. I’m pretty excited to hear from Matt Mullenweg of WordPress fame.

If you’re not here in Omaha, you can tune it to the chatter http://twitter.bigomaha.com. Holler at me tomorrow if you are here and I’ll be recapping Friday and the whole weekend next week.

Web Design Footers Are Important

Jason Landa — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:58:09 +0000

Why is it that the end/bottom of the page gets so little attention? The footer in your web design, in our opinion, is a very important web design element and often goes underutilized.

You are engaged in the page content, you read it line by line, scroll down, and then you hit a dead end …. nothing.

So many times the footer of the website is merely the spot to tuck the standard copyright line of text and maybe a disclaimer. Let’s put an end to that, OK?

Web Design Footers For Great Usability
This recent post from Web Designer Wall looks at sitemaps being used in footers. A fabulous idea for usability. Give your users access to whatever they want next, don’t force them to scroll back up. Smashing Magazine also offered a post a while back that highlight some creative footer examples as well. Hey, footers can be fun too!

At Five we never ignore the website footer, but that post did get me thinking on how we can utilize the footer even more to aid a website user.

We currently make sure our web design footers contain:

Repeat of main navigation
Explanation of the site (main purpose, main service, main area, etc.)
Contact info (address, phone number [LARGE], contact/email link)
Logo (often displayed transparent or reversed out, just a subtle branding)
Copyright, disclaimer, privacy or any other site wide link need

The web design footer ideas below contain some things we have done and some we will look to add to our future mix:

Blog headlines or other constantly fresh content
Icons/links to social profiles (Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube)
Full sitemap (easy one click access to the entire site)
Map (great way to further the address of a retail/office location)
Integrated reviews from other sources of your business

Those are just a few and there are many more, do you have one or a care to share a great link with us? Please do and please start giving the footer some respect, it matters.

Web Design Gets New Print Design: The Five Technology Brochure

Jason Landa — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:40:17 +0000

It feels like a major accomplishment and it was. Five Technology finally has print material! Thanks to some great collaboration with @shelleyp (Thank you Shelley!), the Five Tech brochure is alive. It’s no easy task for a web design and online marketing crew to move our services and offering to a traditional media format.

We decided to embrace the perception of web geeks and show that we have some great personality with the cover. We truly are creative, business savvy and geek powered. Anything to get people to open it right?

The inside panels and back cover our web design, portfolio, content management system and Internet marketing offering. This brochure will serve as an intro piece, leave behind and a few other uses that will surface.

We can now cross one more item off our never ending list!

A Bit of Web Design Recognition Feels Good

Jason Landa — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:40:26 +0000

It’s no secret the passion we have for the web and design. It’s a good feeling when our clients compliment our work, but we also enjoy when our web designs make the pages of the various CSS & web design gallery sites.

Our latest project release, a website redesign for Buffalo Chamber made the cut and has appeared this week on a few different gallery sites. It’s fun and flattering to have our screenshot appear along side plenty of other great designs and creative interfaces.