One of the first major websites I developed, this site was created for Anchor Street Collective, a brand-activation company with a large list of past clients and an even larger portfolio. Their previous website was a simple "under construction" one-pager, and reached out to me to create something that would allow them to show off their work and clientele, as well as a place for people to contact them if they require their work. They had a somewhat tight budget, but they assured me they didn't need to launch the site by any particular date or really anytime soon (just a "the sooner the better" sort of thing). Their main wants were simple - a portfolio page to display their past works (each with their own text, images, and videos as needed), a contact page, and a front/about page that showcased who they were and who they've worked with. Luckily for me, they had a great pre-existing brand identity to work with, and as someone who was only just beginning to get into website creation, it seemed like a great project.

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When researching similar designs for similar companies' sites, I noted that the best ones did a good job of highlighting both the company as a whole and their portfolio. I believe this is because a lot of the general audience that visits these websites looking for help with their business may not exactly know what a "brand-activation" company does, just that they've worked on similar jobs in the past. Therefore, I wanted to make sure that the user flow would explain to the user what they specifically did, then show them their past works and who they've worked with to solidify it. I continued to research how to best display this information, and wanted to make sure I utlized their existing branding kit to make sure their image stayed consistent. For the most part, their brand consisted of minimalist fonts and colors (think Futura and shades of black & white), so I spent a lot of time researching the best way to make a website look interesting without a bunch of popping colors. This resulted in me planning to create a lot of empty space alongside the text in order to emphasize what was important as well as use images from the portfolio to highlight certain sections. Finally, I completed the research phase by looking into portfolio design, which ended up being an easier part of this portion since web portfolios are nothing really new. I decided to make use of their myriad high-quality images and videos for easy highlights, then follow my previous design scheme of lots of empty spacing for emphasis.

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While developing the site, I worked with the clients closely to make sure they were happy with the track it was on, as well as keep them up-to-date on timelines and estimated budget. Since this was one of my first major projects, it ended up taking longer than I previously predicted, but this wasn't a huge issue since they didn't have a specific deadline in mind when we started the project anyway. I also wanted to make sure that this would be the first and only website they would ever really need, so I definitely took my time making it. Looking back on it now, I know I could have been a lot faster if I was to build it today. All the pre-building design was done through Figma, and all the building was done through Webflow.

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Throughout the development process, I worked with various individuals to test the site on all different kinds of browsers and devices to ensure that it would run smoothly regardless of who was accessing the site. Surprising to me at the time but likely unsurprising to people who do QA for a living, this took a lot longer than I expected. That said, after the launch of the site there were very few bug fixes or updates, so I think it paid off in the end. After the launch, I would continue to upload new projects to the site as they came out, but eventually reworked the inner workings of the site on Webflow such that the clients could log in and edit the site as they wanted. This way, they wouldn't have to wait for me to be available just to do some small updates. This would be something I would continue to do on almost all of my future websites that required consistent updates (e.g. blogs, portfolios), and many of my clients are now much more independent in terms of working on their company's site (only reaching out to me if they require larger, substantial updates). In the end, I'm very happy with how this site turned out - even if it took a while. I learned so much about branding and website development in the process. I'm very thankful to Anchor Street for allowing me to build them their site without being able to back myself up with a portfolio.