Whether it’s affordable web design or high priced web design, the initial artwork presentation sent to a client for approval is usually the comp. Or the Photoshop Composition as it is otherwise known. The comp is a starting place where the web designer can get approval of his or her artistic concept. And in legal regards, once the comp has been agreed to in writing, both the client and the designer have a concrete example of what has been offered and what should be delivered. For graphic artists, their project IS the comp. In terms of building a website, the artwork and the comp are about 10% to 20% of the total project work initially. As the number of pages in a site go up, then the artwork becomes a smaller and smaller part of the hours invested into a project. But the impact of the comp and the artwork is obviously huge and it forever sets the tone and many factors for the site.

Here are a couple comps I was given by WordPress Designer Lauren Billings. She is one of the best WordPress Designers in the world today and certainly the best I’ve ever worked with. There are literally tens of thousands of HTML designers in the world and there are only hundreds of true WordPress Artists. The WordPress artist can fit a beautiful design onto an existing website framework. That makes it better than HTML because it takes advantage of the dozens of features that make WordPress a superior platform for most business and personal websites.

In 2004 I was approached by a board member from the New York Sailing Club to redesign their existing site. The existing web design was more of what I would call “functional”. It had been put together by members of the group who were volunteers and not professional designers. Now this was the group that organized the 1976 American Bi-Centennial Tall Ships event in New York Harbor. And for a group like this, they eventually grew out of their home grown 6 page website and they needed professional support.

So I began to unravel the intricate web of arrangements within the non-profit organization and it took about a year to get the new 23 page site launched. First lesson – you need patients to work with an established Non-Profit Group. And in general, projects like a new website can literally take a year from start to finish.

Originally, one one club member owned the domain name, another who was an attorney maintained the disclaimer, another was the designated webmaster, still others were in charge of the Newsletters, another board member scheduled all the events, and so on and so forth. So I learned the most difficult part of working with an NPO is finding out who owns what and how to contact them.

The next part I discovered was that I was not working for a single boss, or even a management team, but this club would allow every member to make comments and suggestions about every single detail of the new website. There was a clear cut management withing the group, but these were boat owners and they tried to implement a pure democratic ideal where everyone could share in decision making as much as that was practical. They were also a group of highly educated and successful people such as lawyers, doctors, nurses, and so forth. So management decisions like “what color background do you want” took a long time. And after they were implemented, they were often changed.

My original 23 page site was built with HTML, CSS, and Project Seven Javascript Menus using Dreamweaver and Photoshop. It was artistic, it contained a lot of nice images, and the hierarchical order of the menu system made sense and it worked. So the site functioned well for the next 3 1/2 years and I started building out sites using WordPress exclusively. So this would seem like an easy “Affordable Web Redesign” upgrade case. Wow !!

I started with a Studio Press Child Theme called Serenity, which was one from the Genesis Framework. And when I was finished I had an 84 page site with almost 150 photos and the club members were thrilled. Some of the comments I got were “stunning”, and “could not believe how nice it looked”.

One of the keys to success with this affordable web redesign was getting a beautiful design that I could get 50 club members to agree on. My friend Lauren Billings worked on the art and color palettes. She’s one of the best WordPress graphic designers I’ve ever seen in the business. I needed something unique and sharp and that’s why it’s best to put a project together like this using world class experts in their areas. And ones that are patient !!

Cheers – Mal Milligan