We’re live! I can’t believe the day is here!!! I have been considering a rebrand for my website for about two years now but not only was I unsure of who I wanted to hire and what type of brand I wanted to reflect, but I knew it was going to take time and a lot of work. I talked to a lot of designers over email and over the phone and even before deciding on who to hire, I made notes over a period of about six months of anything and everything I loved and wanted to include on my site. I even drew sketches. I eventually began to notice a style and knew it was time. After talking and chatting with GoLiveHQ, I knew I had to hire them. I’ve been a fan of Promise Tangeman’s work for a long time now and I knew I could count on her team to create a custom site for me in a reasonable amount of time. The amazing Meg Long was my designer and she went above and beyond to create a site that I am still excited about, even after looking at it for weeks now. Meg caught onto my vision immediately and I am so thrilled to be revealing my new blog here and my new website here!! YAY!! Be sure to head over to my Facebook page to ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

I got really overwhelmed when I first decided to rebrand because I was afraid my vision wouldn’t be understood and that I wouldn’t be able to verbalize what I wanted, so I have a few tips for those of you thinking about rebranding!

1. Make sure to set a budget and know exactly what is included and how many revisions you get. I ended up going a bit above my budget because I added on a couple of pages and added a blog design. I’m SO happy I did but it’s easy for the cost to rack up if you’re not sure what’s included.
2. Create a Pinterest board with textures, colors, fonts, photos, designs, and logos you love. I had a huge board that I ended up narrowing down for GoLive but it really helped me figure out what I liked, which ended up being geometric shapes, soft, faded textures, simple logos with graphic elements, and fun fonts. You can see my full board here and my narrowed board here.
3. Search Pinterest for websites to find designers. I didn’t even know where to begin with who to hire because I knew there were so many great options, so once I knew I wanted to include shapes, I searched things like “geometric logo” and “geometric website” to locate potential designers.
4. Be sure to ask how long the design process takes if they don’t tell you. A lot of designers spend half a year designing a site and although that’s awesome for some people, I think I would have gotten tired and lost my interest. I love that GoLive gives you all the homework to complete and then creates the actual site in a week or two!
5. Ask the designer for a list of sites they’ve designed and make a list of what you like or don’t like about each one. That really helped me figure out who I wanted because GoLive had the most sites that I loved out of the designers I considered.
6. Once you choose your designer and the process begins, just know that usually what you’re first drawn to is what you will end up liking the most even though your mind tells you it’s not. Meg designed me a ton of awesome logos and even though I went back and forth on so many, the first one I got excited about was the one I ended up choosing.
7. Don’t respond to your designer too quickly. Take a few hours away from your computer after looking at the designs and then come back again. It helps to have fresh eyes.
8. Don’t listen too much to what other people like. I asked my close friends and family and although I did want their opinions and I did ask for them, ultimately I liked something different than they did and I’m glad I chose what I wanted.
9. Make sure when choosing photos that they are all consistent and you pick the BEST of the BEST. I literally went through every single image I’ve ever taken on a shoot or wedding from the past five years and chose which ones I felt were my best.
10. And lastly, remember your target market. You don’t want your site to be too confusing. You want it to be easy to access pages and figure out where the contact and investment pages are because that’s what people most likely are going to.

Hope this is helpful and that you enjoy the new site!