When it comes to website design, there really is no perfect formula for achieving the perfect design for a client/project. You might be asked to create something that challenges you or even something you don’t really know how to do. Thankfully, there is an incredible community of website designers and developers around the world that collaborate on projects to help lift one another up.
We recently had the opportunity to help design Colin Reci’s website. Colin is a full-stack web developer with decades of experience. If you can think of any coding language, the odds are that he is a master of it. He can code WordPress plugins from scratch, build custom apps, construct laravel stand-alone web applications from nothing, and so much more!
Colin has been super busy recently, so we decided to collaborate on designing his new website. Designing his site was super fun! We were aiming for something that was minimalistic, yet unique enough to stand-out and showcase his expertise.
How We Helped Design Colin Reci’s Website
Our entire design revolved around one simple shape: the hexagon. Alisha from EightySeven Web designed Colin’s logo which included a fun, green hexagon.
We decided to use Alisha’s concept to first create a central graphic we could use throughout reci.io that utilized the green hexagon. Essentially, we modified, transformed, and added depth to create this graphic:
Allowing the green hexagon to drive the design of the website, we crafted each page of the site with sharp angles that played off of one another. We used the graphic above as a background image between hexagonal-shaped sections of content to produce what we think is a simple, yet exciting design outcome:
After we finalized the design, Colin and I worked on a few page speed optimizations that ensured that Reci.io will always load incredibly fast for users. Among other things, we minified and combined the CSS and Javascript files on the site using WP Rocket. We also deferred the loading of Javascript and enabled lazy loading on images. To go even further for speed and fast delivery for users, Colin integrated his site with Stackpath! As a result, we were able to design and develop a site that loads almost instantaneously while still having a unique design! That’s what collaboration is all about!
Website Design as a Space for Collaboration
While many web designers and developers work as freelancers, the field moves so quickly that there is no such thing as a web designer that knows everything. We learned so much with this project from Colin and Alisha that we would not have otherwise. Website design and development can act as an incredible space for collaboration and learning…if we lean into it. Like so many things in life, working together often results in much better outcomes!