Hey Guys!
It's Emma here ready to take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of our website creation journey. Fasten your seatbelts for a ride filled with laughter, a few hiccups, and plenty of learning moments!
But really - the struggle is real already.... Right at the beginning of our journey
Our adventure kicked off with Canva, where I crafted us a design that looked picture-perfect on our computer screens. River loved it, I loved it, it had all of our brand colours and we even designed the blog section and I loved it - on my computer... But our joy was short-lived when we realised it didn't quite work on mobile devices. Cue the collective sigh.
Tip number one - ALWAYS have other people check what you are working on. Even if its not ready yet. Luckily I've learned this through the years of starting businesses - the moment is never 'ready' and your work is never 'done' so involving other people in the creative process is really helpful both practically and mentally.
So after sending what I thought was the finished website to Rivers Dad I swiftly found out all my hard work that had taken me two days was for nothing because it was illegible on a mobile phone which is where most people will be reading this...
I was designing the website in stages, we worked on the logo first (more on that in its own post) and then I used the colours from the logo in different elements of the website. The colours and fonts (the style of the typography) were really important to us because we understand how colour theory works and River is really invested in design. With his Dad being a designer and me being a photographer his whole life he's grown up with a keen understanding of how colour and font style impact the vibe of media so its a subject the River was a massive part of.
Next, we turned to Wix, our digital knight in shining armour. Or so we thought. We soon discovered that the pages had a knack for playing hide and seek, vanishing into some obscure file system. My solution? Rebuilding the website multiple times, under the impression that I was losing our work with each disappearing act. I was losing my patience after the fourth redesign of the same pages on day 3.
Talk about a crash course in understanding the quirks of a new platform!
Font wise we found the ideal choice on Canva from designing the logo but going over to Wix we found that the font wasn't available. We Googled the fonts that we wanted to keep on our design (Intro Rust and Pacifico) and paid to download them. Uploading them to Wix was super easy and helped me feel like I was getting closer to the original website design.
The website needed to be easy to navigate and easy to upload blogs to, we had to think about some interesting things like how to populate the Podcast page before we start making Podcasts - we talked about omitting it entirely but whenever we think about things like this we think about the most transparent and easy to understand route possible so we made a choice to write honestly on the page that will host the podcasts.
In one of our 'coffee meetings' we brain stormed things we wanted to show on the website and one of the things we wanted to make evident to people who dont already know us is how much fun we have, how many things we do together and how much we adventure. Being a photographer it was an obvious choice to have as many photos of us as possible without having the website looking cluttered.
Imagine this: me, nestled in our snug motorhome on a Cornish beach, sand between my toes, laptop perched on my lap, wrestling with the elusive beast that is our website. Meanwhile, River is engrossed in his homeschooling, and we're both buzzing with anticipation for our upcoming Spanish mountain adventure (more on that in a future post!).
In the midst of the chaos, we found moments of hilarity. Picture 'Lee', our in-house tech whizz (spoiler alert: it's me), on the phone with support, trying to decipher the enigma of blog functions to bring you these very musings. It's a comedic tableau of us firing questions into the phone and laptop hoping for enlightening answers and not getting very far.
But let's take a moment to reflect. Behind every sleek website or blog, there's a tumultuous, sometimes expletive-laden creative process. It's a rollercoaster ride, complete with highs, lows, and thrilling (ish) loops.
After realising that I was the dixkhead taking us around in circles with my lack of knowledge (I honestly don't understand how I didn't see the mistake I was making - I think it was a mixture of ADHD hyper focus, lack of sleep and inexperience with the platform) we found our way to a website that looked somewhat like the original Canva based website and that was ultimately much more readable on mobile AND the 12 year old signed it off and I breathed a massive sigh of relief.
The creative process is fun - I live for it tbh and I've been an artist my whole life but when you keep butting heads with technology its a DRAIN!
For those of you contemplating your own website creation using a Wix template, here's my basic guide to get you started:
1. Template Selection: Browse Wix's extensive collection and pick a template that aligns with your style and vision.
2. Customisation: Personalise the colours, fonts, and layout. Add your own images and content to make it truly yours.
3. Page Organisation: Get to grips with Wix's page structure. If you can't find something, don't panic! It's probably just playing hide and seek.
4. Functionality Addition: Explore Wix's plethora of apps and features to enhance your website. From blogs to galleries and contact forms, there's a tool for every need.
5. Preview and Publish: Take a moment, review your masterpiece, and then... hit publish! Your website is ready to make its grand debut.
Remember, our website-building journey has been a rollercoaster of triumphs and trials. But that's the beauty of creation—it's an adventure, filled with unexpected twists and the joy of overcoming hurdles.
Thank you for joining us on this wild ride. We hope our candid tales bring a smile to your face and serve as a reminder that the creative process is rarely as smooth as the final product suggests. Stay tuned for more adventures, misadventures, and laughter as we continue this soulful journey together. Keep it real!
Until our next rendezvous, keep smiling, keep exploring, and embrace the beautiful chaos!
With love, laughter and a dash of whimsy,
Emma and River"
Expletive-laden creative process 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Enza used Wix for both mine and Mario’s websites. I think she has had similar struggles!