A website may be your shop window or your display cabinet, to use a more museum-friendly metaphor, but it can be a difficult one to set-up, keep tidy and make reflective of the breadth of your work.
Having previously worked together at English Heritage, we started formally collaborating as Bright Culture back in 2014. We created an initial website in 2015; registered as a Limited Liability Partnership in November 2016 and now, just before Christmas 2017, we are very pleased to unveil our new website.
Over the past six months, we have been working with Felix, Karen, Julian and Francesca from Wave Design Cooperative to create the website and a set of illustrations that really reflect why we do what we do. It’s been an exciting process to see it all come to life; we’ve learnt a lot about the process of putting together a website and also of working with an illustrator to move ideas from our minds, on to paper. So a few reflections as we launch:
Don’t skimp on the brief: How do you write a design brief that captures what’s in your head, let alone the heads of three people. Investing time in getting the brief right and giving as much relevant information as you can to the designer is critical.
The devil is in the detail: A grand vision is one thing, but finishing off and completing a website really is in the detail – much of which no one but yourself will ever notice! Having said that, do let me know when you start spotting the typos etc….
The ‘good client’: We generally provide services for clients. On this occasion, we were the client and I think it’s fair to say that we weren’t always a ‘good client’. There were times when other demands meant that we just couldn’t respond as quickly as the designers would have liked. Our launch date was put back when we needed to prioritise completing an activity plan. That’s the reality of the working life, but it was also interesting to experience it from the perspective of being a client!
And finally why did we choose Wave? Well obviously, they responded to our tender with a good pitch. But two others things made them stand out: firstly I had spotted their illustrations of vegetables in Infinity Foods in Brighton. These were huge banners, different to anything that we wanted, but they looked great and struck a chord with me. And secondly, we loved the fact that Wave is a cooperative, unashamedly using their design skills and vision to promote a better world.
So, after all of that, we hope you enjoy our new website.
Happy Christmas and here’s to a good 2018.