The steps below outline a general action plan that I used for designing and creating the following website https://sites.google.com/view/charlesschocolates/home for class.
1.Finding a client, or coming up with a client
The hardest step in developing a new website, especially for an imaginary client, is deciding the type of company and the brand image that you want to portray with the website. I used the items I already had around the house as inspiration. Fortunately, I had bought a significant amount of chocolate to get me through quarantine.
2. Relevant pages
Create pages that said company would necessarily require. A website for a chocolate company necessitates numerous product pictures, a page dedicated to the product (shown below), possibly a chocolate making process page, and a purpose page. Since I already had numerous chocolates, this made finding usable pictures and maintaining photo style throughout the site easier. For the chocolate making process, I turned to videos already made by other companies, in order to add interactivity onto the site.
3. Additional pages
Once you have the pages unique to your client, you can add more typical pages, such as “Contact Us,” “Company News,” and “About Us.” Of course, I had to conceive of the information I wrote in each of these sections, but I had to keep the content relevant to the imagined client. Make sure you do the same, even for a fake website. A small chocolate company will not have “Company News” updates about stocks or donating millions of dollars.
4. Minor Details
After all the major aspects and content of the site are created (the pages, written content, and pictures), I went back through and adjusted the minor details such as adding a logo by the menu and footer (shown below), links to other pages, and maintaining a color scheme that would contrast well against the chocolates and pastries. These details will help your site look more professional.
Overall, I think the website I designed for class turned out well and hopefully the steps I took can help you in creating your own website.
I also added an additional page that gives a short description of the website “creators” to add credibility to the website. https://sites.google.com/view/charlesschocolates/website-creator
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