Web design services

Marketing website design approach

We see marketing websites as an essential tool that allows brands to tell their story and showcase what makes them unique. Marketing websites should carry a tone of voice that syncs with the chosen brand attributes to help send the right message to the target audience. While designing websites, we apply key brand identity elements to create a cohesive experience that reflects both the state of the brand today and their strategic goals and aspirations for the future.

Our capabilities in web design services

Our web design process generates a consistent website or app that reflects the brand strategy, visual identity, and verbal identity of the brand. It also helps to establish a prominent position on the market.

Website design clients

Established brands and growing startups backed by top VC firms around the world.

FAQ on web design services

• How does your web design firm process look like?

  Our main web design process is divided into the following steps:

  1. Discovery

  Collecting Requirements: user personas, key use cases, competitive analysis, pain points, business goals, and industry best practices.

  2. Audit

  Equity analysis, areas of opportunity, takeaway synthesis, WCAG 2.0 accessibility check.

  3. Website structure<

  Information architecture, website map, a writing copy based on verbal identity. The latter can be produced from the existing brand personality or through a bigger brand strategy exercise.

  4. Design concept and layout design

  Visual positioning, mood-boards, 2-3 concepts of the key web pages, high-fidelity wireframes, interactive prototype.

  5. Visual design

  Web page visual design application.

  6. Web structure & development

  Implementing all pages and content in CMS. Developing web pages and components.

  7. Visual content

  Iconography, illustrations, photography style.

  8. Integrations

  Third-party integrations: Google Tag, a/b testing tools, CRM, etc.

• How much does it cost to hire your website design company?

  Our pricing depends on the scope of work, team structure, and a rate card. Commonly, the hourly rates start from $100/per hour for a web designer and go up depending on the level of expertise. Generally, a 10-15 page marketing website of a tech startup starts from $50,000 and onwards.

  Our SMB and Enterprise clients typically hire us on Time & Materials models when our experts extend their in-house teams with our design and development capabilities. This approach allows us to be flexible with any changes and start fast.

  All our proposals and offers are based on our hourly rates, even though we work with a fixed budget most of the time.

• Who are your website design agency target customers?

  We work with fast-growing tech companies and businesses that have a strong foundation in technology. We are an award-winning web design agency located in three major cities: New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. From day one, we were remote team members.

  Therefore our website agency is open to helping companies from any location.

• How long does it take for your web designers to design a website?

  If it is a marketing website, we allocate more than 350 hours on design and 250 hours on front-end development. An approximate estimated time starts from 3.5 months and goes up, depending on your requirements.

  Our professional web design agency has the main goal - to achieve what works for you the best and put you on the right track to success using the best web design services. So keep in mind that when we state any estimations, we include other development and management tasks.

  Like copywriting, creating iconography, illustrations, or photography. The design complexity of your future website also heavily impacts the overall time frame. It can be a simple static one-page website or interactive storytelling with beautiful animations.

• Does your web design company provide website maintenance services?

  The release of a website is just the beginning. We highly recommend hiring us for maintenance work so that we can have the opportunity to support constant iterative improvements. We have a retainer for maintenance work.

  Thus, any number of hours it takes for a developer to close new bug tasks, design fixes, and provide a seamless handoff between our teams will be covered. We support our clients' projects as long as it seems necessary.

• Does your web design firm provide only design or web development as well?

  Our team consists of experienced web designers, front-end developers, QA engineers, and content strategists. Therefore, we produce both the design and the development work for our clients.

  It is always better to accomplish two tasks at once while saving time on design and communication between different teams. The ultimate goal of a website is to serve business purposes. And the only way to make it happen is to deliver everything from information architecture, to design, followed by website development and maintenance.

  To show our extensive development experience and prove the web development skills, we invite you to visit our Github account, and see some of our front-end libraries - cssgrid, simplegrid, and fluidhtml.

• How is your web design agency different from the competitors?

  Our team is intentionally small and slim. For more than ten years, we have worked with tech companies with unique technology leverage.

  In addition to designing and developing websites, we act as a UI/UX design company, branding agency, app designers, web app development agency, and design systems studio. It allows us to provide much more valuable and complete results.

• In what areas does a web designer work?

  Web design is a broad concept that includes different areas of work. These include the following:

  Graphic design

  Web designers work with color, fonts, photography, illustration, and composition to help tell a gripping, compelling story and evoke certain feelings in the target audience.

  UX design and interface design

  UX basics help design scenarios on the site, taking into account the nuances of the user's psychology - this approach often helps to fall into the basic expectations of customers;

  Web design focused on conversions

  A website is a system whose task is to sell. So you need to understand what actions you can use to influence the conversion of the site;

  Web development

  While some designers limit their work to website design, many also take on some of the code, especially front-end development.

  Internet Marketing

  The creative agency works hand in hand with digital marketing (SEO pros, SMM pros, Copywriters, and Content marketers). Front work sets the content, and understanding the context is always a plus one for courage and accuracy. It is always important to understand the way of search engine optimization, the development process, and the entire web design process.

  Working with clients and project management

  After the branding agency launches the site, work is just beginning; the development of the site is a separate big job to increase conversion with the help of new blocks, improvements, creating expressive graphics, and launching new pages. And there are also many psychological subtleties in working with a client, which can be taken into account if you approach the organization of work competently.

  Of course, you don't have to be an expert in all of these areas to keep customers flowing. Web designers from the best web design agencies often prefer to specialize in one of the areas: someone coolly makes unique graphics and promotional presentations, someone hacks in analytics and can twist conversions, someone masterfully typesets and minimizes resources to launch the site, and someone specialized in a particular industry.

• What skills and tools do web designers have?

  Even the best college degree in web design will not automatically turn you into a sought-after web designer from a professional web agency. Therefore, you should get serious about developing skills in both design and tools in practice with real clients, promote your portfolio, look for potential employers and present your services to them as freelance web designers do. You have to understand marketing strategy, development services, search engine rankings, content marketing features, and software development tools.

  There are a lot of tools for website design projects, skill requirements are also growing, and universities do not keep up with top designers and studios, so we grouped the freshest ones by area and highlighted the key ones so that you can navigate the actual heights that should be worked out to become the best web design company.

  Design Theory and Visual Design

  Web designers are well versed in the principles of visual design and are proficient in the following things:

  Composition

  You need to understand how to lay out websites that organize information using a column grid, vertical rhythm, and module, and be able to adapt designs to different screen sizes – create a responsive design.

  Typography

  Practice choosing font pairs that fit the brand’s voice and match, are easy to read, eye-catching, and energizing for targeted actions. Stick to one or two main fonts with a wide range of weights and strive for consistency in your design system.

  Color theory

  Color helps create a mood and set the mood for a website visitor.

  User Experience (UX)

  Good websites made by website design agencies are beautiful and functional, and a web designer helps make them that way.

  User experience (UX) design is the science and art of creating products (or websites) that give users the best experience.

  Many of the elements of visual design for a web design project that we discussed above affect how web design projects are perceived by visitors, but UX design also includes how products evoke certain feelings in visitors.

  UX designers think less about the technology behind the site and more about user experience and the fit of the created experience to user needs. Sometimes this requires extensive user research and an understanding of the principles of perceptual psychology and interaction design. If you're looking for more UX practice, check out our latest roundup of 7 courses on UX and interface design.

  It is important for web designers from any professional web design company to learn the basics of UX design and the fundamentals of user interface (UX/UI) design:

  Persons and Works (JTBD)

  Creating generalized images of the target audience and their needs helps to ensure that each design solution will appeal to customers (will be useful and cause emotional delight). That is important for any best website design company.

  User research (UX/CX-research)

  It helps to study heat maps and conduct user surveys - everything you need to quickly understand the reasons for the behavior and motivation of site visitors. Digital design agency always makes different surveys for a better understanding of social media marketing and digital presence.

  User experience testing

  Testing a site with real users can help identify where visitors get stuck or confused, as well as pinpoint points where the value of a design can increase.

  Information architecture and navigation (IA)

  It is not difficult if approached comprehensively. Information architecture is a story about the location of information on the site: what pages should be on the site, what items should be on the menu, and in what order which blocks must be on the page so that users find the answer. It can be done well only by applying SEO analysis and an interview with a specialist from the subject area (the customer or an involved expert who knows well what the site is about). Without analyzing search queries (the actual interests of users) and comparing them with practical expertise, the site will turn out to be a toy and not close to reality.

  Wireframing

  Just like builders don't build a house without a plan, you shouldn't build a website without blueprints and a plan, either.

  Wireframe helps to determine the key elements and composition on the pages of the site close-up (without drawing the smallest details).

• What are the stages of website design development?

  Many web design companies develop their own algorithm for working with a customer, but they all have about the same algorithm. It is important to have a clear work plan because when you follow a ready-made plan, it is easier for you to understand all the main stages of creating a website design. When web design agencies coordinate each stage with the customer - they can always argue their design decisions. Thus, they save themselves from numerous edits and look in the eyes of the customer as a real professional in this field.

  Stage 1 - Brief

  A brief is a specific list of questions that a manager or web designer asks a customer in order to understand what he does in general and what kind of design he wants to get as a result. At the brief stage, no one owes anything to anyone. That is, it is just an acquaintance of the designer and the customer with each other. At this stage, you can choose not to work on the client's project, or the client can choose not to work with the designer.

  Typically, the brief includes questions of the type:

  • Customer contacts
  • Information about the company
  • What site is planned to be developed?
  • What is the target audience?
  • What structure should the site have?
  • Design preferences (color, style, etc.)
  • What are the goals of the future site?
  • What are the competitors?

  It is best to fill out the brief via a phone call (for example, via Skype) or in person. This way, you can get to know each other better and build trust.

  For some people, live communication causes discomfort, so some designers send a brief file to the customer by e-mail and ask them to fill it out.

  In addition to the brief, there is also such a thing as a full-service digital agency as a Terms of Reference. It is compiled on the basis of a brief - the whole structure of the future site and all design requirements are prescribed there.

  Someone separates these two stages, but you can combine them and immediately say all the necessary points at the brief stage.

  When the professional web designer has a completed brief, where everything is spelled out in detail: what site and design the customer wants, all that remains is to coordinate the significant stages with the customer so that later there will be no misunderstandings between the designer and the customer.

  Stage 2 - Niche and Competitor Analysis

  After agreeing on the brief and moving on to the second stage, the designer and the customer enter into commercial relations. That is, here, the designer is already responsible for all subsequent work, so at the brief stage, it is important to clearly define whether you are working on the project or not.

  If you have decided to start work, then you need to discuss the terms and payment process and start analyzing the niche and competitors. This stage is one of the most important because if it is done correctly, it will facilitate the subsequent work for the designer.

  The task of web design firms at this stage is to dive into the customer’s business and understand how everything works there. Next, you need to analyze 5-10 closest competitors and highlight their strengths and weaknesses. It is important to look at the structure of their sites, what blocks they use and how they present information.

  You can ask the customer for a list of competitors - most often, the customer can indicate them in brief. Secondly, you can go to any search engine and enter the client's niche into the search. Competitor responsive websites that can be analyzed will appear in the search results.

  Such an analysis is needed for the work of a graphic design agency in order not to reinvent the wheel because someone has probably already developed similar projects. The job of a designer is to make their client's product better, not the other way around. Therefore, you need to rely on someone else's experience and improve it.

  As a result of the second stage, the web design agency should roughly understand the specifics of the business and have notes with an analysis of the closest competitors.

  Stage 3 - Design

  At this stage, web design companies begin to design future blocks of the site based on the brief and competitive analysis. There is no need to draw anything here. The task is to describe the main blocks of the site and what content will be in them.

  It is important to understand that when developing the final design, the website design agency may deviate from the original design in some places.

  This stage is necessary to understand what should be on the site in general. You can design both in a graphical editor and on a regular sheet.

  As a result of the third stage, the entire structure of the future site should be designed.

  Stage 4 - Collection of references

  After the designer has finished working with the structure, you need to find inspiration for ideas for further work. References, that is, the work of other top web design agencies, digital marketing services, and web development companies, can help with this.

  The collection of references can be divided into 2 stages:

  • References on the topic of the client
  • References on any other topic

  In the first case, references to the client's topic will help in drawing up the future design style. This should be done if the client left this item at the discretion of the designer in brief.

  If, in brief, the client has described the future style to the smallest detail (fonts, colors, shapes, and so on), then the designer takes all the initial data from the brief. If not, then with the help of references on the topic of the client, the designer can decide on the style.

  In addition, you can take references on any other topic and look for the most successful design solutions made by web design agencies ranked worldwide that can be adapted to the client's project.

  Stage 5 - Prototype

  With ready-made references, web developers can start developing a prototype of the future site. A prototype is an intermediate option between the final design and the designed structure. It already looks like a finished site, but without a detailed study.

  During the creation of a prototype, the best web design companies already work directly with the composition and layout and select fonts.

  You can make a fairly detailed prototype, which will only need to add colors and pictures, and the final design will be ready. But such a detailed prototype is not at all necessary; you can do it a little simpler - instead of pictures, draw ordinary rectangles or circles, and instead of icons, make symbols in the form of ordinary squares. A prototype is needed so that you can visually see what the final design will look like.

  Stage 6 - Final design

  Only at the 6th stage do we come directly to the design itself in its usual sense. As you can see, the work of a designer is 80% of analysis and design and only 20% of the design itself.

  At this stage, top web design companies add colors to the prototype, align everything strictly on the grid and, adjust the indents, add pictures and icons where they should be.

  During the final design process, you can slightly deviate from the prototype in favor of some more aesthetically pleasing design solutions. But not much, because the previous stage has already been agreed upon with the customer, and he expects approximately the result that was agreed with him.

  After the designer has made the final design, you can make a small animation of the interface in order to better “sell” the finished design to the customer. This item is optional, but it will create a wow effect very well.

  After approval, it remains to prepare a design for transfer to development.

  Stage 7 - Preparing the design for development

  At this stage, the designer needs to simplify the work for the developer as much as possible so that he does not have to deal with a bunch of questions. Thus, you can save time for both the designer and the developer.

  What should be done?

  First, the designer must prepare a small style guide (UI-kit) for the design. Here you need to specify which colors should be used in the design, which fonts and their styles, and various UI elements and their states. That is so that the developer does not have to guess how the button will behave on hover and so on.

  In general, a style guide (UI-kit) should be formed at the prototype stage so that it would be easier to work on later.

  Secondly, you need to prepare all the pictures and photographs that were used on the site.

  Thirdly, you need to prepare to download all the icons that were used in the design. Icons must be in SVG format.

  Fourth, you need to describe animations or other object behaviors. This will give the developer a clear understanding of how the elements in the design should behave.

  The prepared design must be sent to the customer for approval.

• How a customer works with a web design agency?

  Often, customers do not get the design they wanted because they do not properly build work with a creative web design agency. As a result, the site does not perform its task well.

  That's why we've put together some tips on how best to work with a designer to achieve a cool result and save time and money.

  1. Determine the purpose of the site before you start

  Design is a working tool. Same as a microscope or adjustable wrench. A tool is only useful when it performs a task. And if there is no specific task, the tool itself will not help.

  Therefore, immediately determine what exactly you want from the site (which means what its design should work for). Answer the questions:

  • What is the purpose of the site? Sell goods, create an environment for communication with visitors, and attract job seekers?
  • What is your audience? Who is your end consumer?
  • Where will the traffic come from?
  • How will the site interact with visitors?
  • What targeted actions do you expect from these people?
  • What will be the performance indicators?

  All these points should be clarified and discussed in detail during the prototyping phase. Only then can you move on to design.

  2. Communicate directly with the designer

  When you work with a studio or agency, all discussions usually go through the project manager. This is convenient but detrimental to business.

  If the designer receives information only from the manager, he cannot properly understand the essence of the problem. He will know only a little of the technical task, and the customer himself will remain an "abstract client" for him.

  If you want the designer to feel your project, communicate with him personally.

  The more often you communicate, the better. It is better to call on Skype or phone than write off in the messenger. Meeting in person is the best solution.

  3. Make the designer part of the company

  It is not enough just to set goals for the designer and explain what and why you need them. This is not enough.

  Try to immerse the designer in your business. Show him a few samples of your products so that he evaluates them. Let us use the services of the company. Invite them to the office and show how everything really works for you. Offer to chat with different employees - salespeople, call center operators, administrators.

  The point is for the designer to “feel” your business. So it will be much easier for him to understand the tasks. Only on your own experience you can learn a lot of important little things and add up the whole picture. And this will help to find the best and often non-obvious solutions.

  Another way to help a designer understand a task is to create an interactive site prototype. The designer will try on the role of the future user and see how everything should actually work and why it is so.

  4. Don't micromanage

  Small constant tweaks are hell for a designer. They slow down the work and divert attention from the main to the particular. Here's what's especially annoying:

  • notes on how to edit indents;
  • advice on what colors to use in what places;
  • offers to combine a few chips from sites that the client accidentally visited this morning.

  Don't draw with a designer's hand. Explain to him WHAT to do - and HOW it is better to implement it, he himself will determine. After all, he is more competent in design.

  Of course, you can't just let things go by themselves. We recommend doing this:

  • discuss what the stages of work will be;
  • determine the approximate duration of each stage;
  • agree on what the result will be at the end of each stage;
  • at the end of each stage, check and discuss the work.

  Practice shows that this is the best option. It works well and is comfortable for both parties.

  5. Trust the designer's opinion

  If your designer is a professional, listen to his opinion. If not a professional - why did you contact him?

  • If you have an idea, ask for advice on how best to implement it.
  • If some decision of the designer is not clear, specify why everything is done this way and not otherwise.

  Trust does not mean just scoring and unquestioningly accepting all the decisions of the designer. If you've looked at the layouts and have any questions, please feel free to ask. If something bothers you, say so. Feedback is important for both you and the designer.

  While following all these rules, remember that in order for these rules to work, the designer must be a good professional and have the desire to give a quality result, and not just make a beautiful picture. Therefore, the main rule is to carefully choose a designer.

• Which specialists are needed for high-quality work on the site?

  Often, clients get lost and do not understand which of the web design agency specialists does what and whether this specialist is really needed for the implementation of a particular project. Below is the composition of an effective project team for working on a site - whether it is the development of a landing page, a corporate website, or an online store.

  These are the people whose participation is necessary and sufficient in order to create a modern, visually attractive, user-friendly, and ready-to-promote site.

  Project coordinator

  Each project has a manager who is the main link and coordinates the entire process, communicates with the client, sets tasks for individual project team specialists, controls the quality and timing of different stages, and also makes the necessary changes in the course of work and presents the results to the client.

  In addition, he is responsible for the implementation of the entire project as a whole.

  The project manager must have knowledge at the same time in all areas of website development - from design and layout to programming and subsequent promotion. In addition, he must have good communication and leadership skills.

  Marketer

  The marketer participates in the discussion of the goals and objectives of the project, in the preparation of a brief for the client and its subsequent analysis, and also evaluates competitors' websites. Based on this information, the marketer identifies the key advantages of the client, which help to make the site sell.

  Based on this, the marketer generates recommendations for the interface designer, SEO specialist, and copywriters regarding what semantic blocks should be present on the site and also compiles a list of references for the designer that may be useful to him in order to better understand in what style this project should be completed.

  Interface designer

  This specialist creates a logical structure of pages and sections of the site, which he draws in the format of schematic prototypes according to the principles of usability. The prototype prepared by him reflects where, in what order, and in what volume this or that information will be presented on the site, as well as where the buttons calling for action will be placed. The designer is responsible for the ease of navigation, simplicity, and intuitive interface of the future site.

  The prototype created by the designer is supplemented with texts, slogans, and wordings proposed by the marketer, after which it is transferred to the designer in order for him to create a suitable “visual frame.”

  Designer

  The designer is responsible for the visual component of the project. Depending on the complexity of the project and the skills of a particular specialist, various design elements can be carried out either by one person or by several different designers.

  For example, individual designers can create logos and corporate identity, pure web design, illustrations, and motion design.

  Front-end developer

  This specialist is responsible for ensuring that the site is displayed correctly in all browsers and on all devices; that is, it creates an adaptive valid cross-browser layout according to approved design layouts.

  Back-end developer

  Responsible for programming the content management system on specific content creation and management system (CMS). He also integrates with external databases, payment, and delivery services.

  Of course, a simple promo site can be created without the participation of a programmer, that is, without the use of CMS, but in this case, it will not have a management system that allows you to quickly make any changes whatsoever.

  In large projects, programming takes up most of the total site development time and is one of the most difficult and important stages.

  Content manager

  The participation of a content manager is required when a site with complex content is created - for example, a site for an online store. Most often, such a site needs to be filled with extensive product catalogs, which include hundreds of different articles.

  The content manager divides products into groups, categories, and collections, sorts the provided product descriptions by parameters and creates a uniformly filled product catalog with descriptions and images that allow visitors to quickly find information about the product they are interested in.