digital
“Love this – thankyou!”
David Kendall, Serco, Penned Up, Prison Literacy Project
BUILDING WEBSITES
You can have a website designed in Figma and then built with a CMS, a website built around a theme (e.g. a WordPress theme) or you can have one built from scratch to your specifications. Usually, you’ll get sent JPGs of page and UI designs to look through and to go through with your marker pen (if we’re working in Figma, that probably won’t happen; you’ll get a link to use and you can leave comments on the design itself instead).
Do you need hosting? If not, great, we can work with yours. If you do however, then we have access to high quality shared hosting on Krystal. Space is limited though, so make sure that you bring it up sooner rather than later to make sure that we stay on top of it. If you host with Krystal, then your site will probably be built on WordPress and your security and your updates will be included in a (very reasonable) yearly fee.
Should you need long-term website support and administration outside of the Krystal system – on your own established system essentially – then you will perhaps need to look at the 6 month contract offer (less than £3000 every 6 months for a web administrator who can design, code and generally work on your website for you), mentioned on the homepage and talked about in-depth on the blog.
The way that Engine Head works on websites is, 8 times out of 10, gradual. Unless its a brand new site, a carefully thought-through rebrand and relaunch or just a new page that needs to be added to the existing site, it makes a lot of sense to make lots of small tweaks over a long period. Big, sweeping changes run the risk of spooking your customer base and having the opposite effect to the one that you intended when you decided to refresh your brand and your digital assets.
Changing a website carefully over time – always toward a specific goal – is a very sensible way of doing things. Your audience don’t get any shocks or scares and smaller changes are much easier to measure and assess.
You can use whatever Content Management System (CMS) you want to use, whether that’s Squarespace, Wix or WordPress. WordPress is our comfort zone though and if you have no preference, that will be the default.
USER INTERFACE DESIGN & UX
Engine Head have been doing this so long, it was called Front-End Development when they started! Whatever project we’re working on, we’ll design and build good-looking and useful UIs, based on data, based on your branding or both.
Website administration & support
If you need someone who can code, update and design new pages, add new plugins, decode hosting communications and generally make sense of the digital world then we should talk. We’ve been doing this for many years and have a wealth of experience in this area.
Its also useful for you to have someone on board who can design, manage printing, maintain your website and generally do creative stuff for you so you can get on with running your business. Read more about the offer for that, here.
Need to ask a question about all of this? You can do that here. Looking forward to hearing from you!
ON THE WEB DESIGN PROCESS
Its worth noting that sometimes design and creativity will make visuals that you don’t like. This is normal. Its a valuable part of finding visuals that you love.
AGENCY STANDARD WITHOUT THE COST
You can hire me to make your life easier like any other freelancer or you can add me to your team for a longer period. I’ve worked for prisons, charities, design studios, engineering companies and more. My current clients include Transive, Serco, Eclectic Components, Sheffield Hallam University and a host of smaller, creative businesses and artists such as Karin Hessenberg.