A website so good, you can taste it.

In the world of branding and advertising, creativity and innovation are not just tools, they're essential. Behind every effective campaign are dedicated individuals crafting them strategically to resonate and inspire. These are their stories. A website is only part of a marketing toolkit. The reason that this one came out so great is that they were very secure in the messaging that they wanted.

They knew who their customer base was. I think that you have to have a strong brand. I don't want to toot my own horn, but then I realized I'm like, do I want something else put in their lips all over my horn? Probably not. So he starts breaking down. Yeah. Allan's looking around. Oh, Ellie gets into it.

Welcome to Behind the Craft. Today I'm joined by Jesse Miracle. Jess is the web director at Brand Craft, a strategic brand agency that empowers businesses with brand and business strategies to own their next chapter through web design strategies. Jess plays a pivotal role in ensuring clients online presence aligns seamlessly with their brand identity. Today, we're going to be diving into her journey to this role, exploring the intricate relationship between branding and web design, and discussing a standout project.

She led the feather and Folly Gin website. This project has garnered impressive accolades, including gold and silver awards at the local and regional levels, and a competitive spot at the National American Advertising Awards. Jess, welcome to this corner of the office. Thank you for welcoming me. I feel welcome. Good, good. It was a long walk, I know, so I appreciate you making the making the trip.

More than three steps. So yeah, I guess to get started, since this is your first time on the show, when you talk about yourself and your journey and how you get to this position as web director. Oh, man. Well, I studied graphic design at Central Washington University. And then after I graduated, Tori hired me right after graduation.  

I interned with him during the summer of my senior year. And then you just hired me right after that. And then I just pretty much. I mean, for the most part, it was just me and him for a while. And I just did whatever he assigned me to do. I didn't really know a lot about web.

When I started, I graduated graphic design degree. I knew a little bit about HTML to start with, because I had taken some classes, in high school and middle school. So I kind of need, like, the basics, but that wasn't really like that was my not my interest at all. And the stories, like, why don't we, why don't I explain everything about webs websites to you?

And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Okay. DNS, SSL, all of these, like, technical terms. I had no idea about any of that going into, the job at Brant Craft. So everything that I've learned, I've learned from Tori or through my own research. So how did that lead to like you? Now you're the director of web, so you must have at some point found some kind of enthusiasm for that.

Yeah, I think that it's pretty cool when you get to see something that not only, like, looks really cool and like pretty, but also like, you know, you can see how it functions. Like, you can, like, put in just like, numbers and letters and then, like, make something happen on the other side. I ended up really liking that part because it was like, like for websites, you've got like the visual puzzle, but you also have the functional puzzle.

And I liked both sides of that. I liked being able to like, figure out like how to get something to work. So I kind of dove into that a lot. And I had did a lot of extra research on my own just because I really enjoyed it. Very cool. So you talked about your your graphic design background.

How do you think that helped you kind of been made you a better web developer? Web designer? I think that it's really important. I guess I shouldn't say it's important. I think that it helps a lot that I'm able to focus on how to get something to work and look good at the same time. Like, I really like using I don't want to say like, left side, right side of the brain.

Right? I don't know how true that is, but I if we were going to use that analogy, I like utilizing both sides. So I don't know if it's necessarily that my graphic design background helped me with the more the code. I think that they both work like hand in hand together to help me like really push out websites that look and function really, well.

So brain Craft is a strategic brand agency. We talk about that a lot. Like our focus is brand. But web is a huge part of that. So I don't know if you could tell me. Maybe. How do you define the relationship between brand and web design, and why do you think it's crucial that a website needs to align with a company's overall brand strategy?

A website is only part of a marketing toolkit. You need more than just a website in order to really get your brand out there. Really sell your company. If you're just relying on a website, you could be so much better. It could be better set up for future success. You can have a better security in your company and who you guys are.

It'll be easier to, like, take steps forward with a better foundation. And the website is just a part of that. It's just part of the whole like you can't rely on one or the other. You can't just have good branding. You need to also have other toolkits that, complete the entire marketing process. I don't know if that answers your question.

It does a little bit, I think, on the other side and you flip it. How much easier does it make the web process when you have a brand that's more clearly defined? Oh, so much easier. It's nice to be able to like if a, if a company is very secure in who they are already, that just makes everything else a lot easier.

Like I now know, I now have rules that I can use to apply to the website to help sell that brand easier in a like a wider, with, with a wider audience. Especially like the more the further we go into the future, more and more people are going to be online and maybe eventually will always be online forever.

And there won't be any, not online. So it's good to have a good online presence that. Yeah, eventually it'll just be a presence that's good and depressing. That's nice. Thank you. Okay. So how do you balance. You talked about a little bit, but how do you balance that creative plus like with the strategic aspects of your position.

Because we talk a lot about and you have already your site has to do more than just look good. It has to perform. How do you balance those two things? And do you think those two things complement each other? Oh, they absolutely complement each other. I think that while it when you think about being creative, you think about like it's nice to have like no rules and you can just like, go crazy.

But I think that it actually is easier to be more creative when you have a good foundation that has already set up the rules for you to build in. If you're if you don't have any parameters and you don't really know what you're making, you don't know like who it's for and why you're doing it. It's a lot harder to be creative in a way that you know is going to be successful.

And like, that's the whole point is you don't want to make something that looks really pretty but doesn't like, do anything. You want to make something that not only looks really cool, but it supports the company that you're making it for. It's going to set the it's going to help their customers like be able to interact with them more.

It's not about just like looking good. It has to really function really well. And I think that having making sure that you focus more on the like setting, having those getting those rules set up and having them there will help you make be so much more creative. How do you like this is not written down in the questions.

So sorry if you weren't prepared for this. How do you like think about when you in terms of design, you kind of have to guide the AI to take them on a journey with a website differently than you may with other ads. Or is it the same, do you think like the same process? I think that a lot of the rules are the same.

And I say rules really lightly because like you can say there's rules, but people break them all the time, but there's always a purpose to breaking them, right? But there's like specific rules that you follow, like text hierarchy is really important. And the use of color can help guide people through, so there's general rules that I like to follow.

I don't want to make things too busy for people, like where they want to make sure that, there's a lot of resting points for people's eyes. So there's rules that I follow in general. But they apply to pretty much all graphic design. And obviously, like I said, it depends on what the purpose is, right? So let's talk about the specific project that I wanted to, talking to you about, which is the Feather and Folly Gen website.

Tell it tell us about who feather and poly is, the gen and what the goal was for their website. So the gen is made by a munson ranch distillery. They came to us to make a website, for their gen veteran folly. They really didn't have they had, like, a specific mood and vibe that they wanted.

They wanted something that really showcased, the artwork on the label. That was really important to the whole whole story, because they have all of their botanicals that they're using in that tattoo like design. And they wanted to showcase a lot of their botanicals. Because what they were using was also really important for the gin.

And they wanted to like really sell to more of a younger demographic. But they didn't have a lot of, a lot past that. They wanted something that looked cool. That was pretty much what that was the main thing that they wanted. Okay. So yeah. So then talk to us about the design. Walk me through the design process.

For feather and finally Gen website. So what were some of the considerations and the challenges maybe you face doing this? What do you remember about this site figuring out how you were going to do it. I'm going to be honest with you, Aaron. I can't remember a lot of issues because this process for this website was just so smooth.

I think maybe the biggest thing was I had an idea that I didn't quite know how to achieve. Which was I wanted to be able to show the botanicals, and kind of have like an interactive map that because they were, they mentioned multiple times in meetings that, their label design, was designed by a tattoo artist and they had all of the botanicals that are in the gin, like, hidden within the, design.

So they really wanted to so they, they had mentioned that like a lot of times and I think they were really like proud of that. And I was like, I think it would be cool if we were able to like show that without like express, like making it obvious. Right. So I like I had a couple of, like, thoughts, like making an SVG that kind of had a little bit of an animation.

In the end, I just used, a hotspot module. It show it like fades everything that is not a botanical into the background. So you can immediately see which ones are botanical. And then if you hover over them, you can see which are the yellow dots. I see yeah. It tells you which botanical that is.

So it's still kind of a cool interactive vibe. Super. Yeah. And it took a while to figure that out. I had to do a lot of custom coding to get that. I say a lot, but it probably wasn't that much. In my mind, it was a lot, and I can't remember exactly how much it was. This is cool.

I yeah, I didn't catch this before. I was looking at this site just really quickly this morning because I was going to talk to you about it. And I didn't know about the tattoo artist background either, but it's so funny. I had the first thing I thought when I saw the saw the the homepage though, it just makes me want to get a tattoo.

So I didn't realize it was a tattoo. That makes a lot of sense since it makes me wanna get a tattoo. Yeah, it's a super cool design and it's really cool on their bottles too, because they have it like a raised spot glass. So you got that? You can feel the texture on it. It's just a really cool bottle.

Yeah, the photography helps a lot on this site too, which you clearly gave a lot of, you gave a lot of like, room to show the photography and let the kind of. Yeah, show all that artwork is really cool seeing this. It's very. Yeah. It's a very, very cool, very modern design. Yeah. But that's the only like problem that I can remember having because like I said, it was such a smooth process.

The client was really like they were a really good client. I think I showed them. I don't even think that. I think Lexy had ended up showing them the site in a different meeting, that for a different project that we had with them. Oh, great. And then they were so excited that they approved it immediately and I wasn't even like, done with it yet.

That's great. So it was just like just super smooth. Yeah. That's awesome. So you've already covered most of these other things. Like what? Was there any other key elements that you wanted to highlight that maybe you didn't talk about? I'll just ask the question in case. But you've spoken about a lot of stuff already. Yeah. It was, I guess this isn't really a problem, but it was a fun challenge finding, like, photography of their botanicals because all the bottle shots, they took them, they had their own photographer that did that.

But I sourced all of the botanical images and it was pretty difficult and a fun way to find stuff that fit the, the mood of the whole site. I didn't really make a lot of edits to any of the photos. I think I might've like, did a little bit of color alterations to, like, make it a little bit more desaturated, a little bit darker, but for the most part, they're pretty much as they were.

But finding photos that, like, were the actual botanical right, but also fit the, like the mood and vibe of the site. Because I had the vision from the very beginning to make this like, this is going to be a very heavily photography. Photograph site. Whatever the word is photography focused. Yeah. There you go. There you go.

Yeah. So I needed to be, I needed to find really good photos that were interesting to look at but also like fit everything. It was a fun challenge and I really like how it turned out. And then the that frosted glass look was just something that I wanted to try out. I wish I had seen it on some other sites and I'm like, that looks cool.

I want to do that on my next website. It's so cool. Yeah, it does. It really does. It is so cool. I was going to mention that before you brought it up. Before I did, I was going to say, this frosted glass thing is just so cool. And this photography is nice. You found good. Like, especially this one.

I don't know what it is, but the texture, I think all their photos have texture. That's something that's cool and it's consistent to even the ones that you added. They didn't supply like you talked about the texture on their label. The texture here. Yeah, it's really great. The photography really speaks. But this, this yeah. That effect really cool.

I don't know why it's so sad. I was going to say maybe I'm just like a basic bitch, but like, I think that's so freaking cool. But I still think it's cool. I mean, there's a lot of different stuff, like being used there. So like we've got the parallax effect so you can see the image going behind it.

And then it blurs as it goes behind. And then you've got like an actual texture over, over that. So it's not just the blur. There's, you can see that it's got a little bit of a color there. So it really looks like you're like looking in through some frosted glass. Yeah it does. It's really cool.

So we talked about brand to start this. Is there anything how would you say if you were going to talk about the brand for feather. And finally Gen, how do you think this site kind of reinforces their brand for, for Feather and Foley their brand is the bottle. They don't have like I'm pretty sure they don't like this.

Is it like they don't have like a huge line or like feather and Foley isn't exactly this specific company. So. This the site was, is meant to be like if you like stepped into the label, like you would see what you're around is what is supposed to represent that you can which is a little funny because the label is a bright yellow.

And then you have, you use my analogy, you step into this very dark and moody, site. It's it's supposed to represent the feeling and the atmosphere. Yeah. People who would be drinking this. And I think that it really it's supposed to it's meant to help sell that experience as an extension to the bottle. Yeah. So if people like see it or they hear it and then they Google it, and then they come to the site, they're meant to be able to like, really like almost like taste it in their mind.

Like, just like looking at the the visuals and everything. Yeah, I definitely do that. Like my mouth water is a little when I look at the botanicals, section. That's interesting you say that too. I, I even thought, I don't think it's on purpose, but I even think the fact that it has a frosted glass just reminder of the glass kind of brings back the bottle, too.

It's like a hint it element to that. Yeah. Really, really cool. Oh, yeah. All right. We're gonna talk about your awards now. So you get to toot your own horn a little bit. No one likes to do that. But I also think that's weird. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I realize I'm like, do I want something else?

Putting their lips all over my horn? Probably not. So it's probably better to toot your own, Okay, so the feather, Feather and Folly Gen Project won gold and silver at the local and regional awards and competed at the National American Advertising Awards. So, one, let's just talk about like, how did it feel for you that this site won?

So it got, you know, received so much recognition. And then why do you think this project stood out so much to judges? You're right. I don't like talking about this. I've I'm going to be completely honest with myself. It felt really good. Like, I don't make stuff expecting to get awards, right? Like, that's not the reason that I make stuff at all.

And I don't think that it's any, I don't think it comes to anyone's surprise when I say I don't really care about the awards, because I don't really I don't, Submitting to awards is kind of like a more recent thing. Yeah. Right. It feels good to have something that you make, like, be recognized, and I, I'm I'm always shocked every time.

Like, it always catches me off guard. I just, I think I put my expectations, like, as low as the ground so that I'm never disappointed. I mean, I wouldn't have been disappointed if this didn't win anything at all or if we hadn't even submitted it for awards. It's to me, and this is what I always say about anything that I make, or any award submission stuff.

Is that the award was being able to make it. And I know it's cliche, but really I got to try so many new things with this site that I really wanted to do because, I really wanted to try out, making the, the text really big and not like, not super easily read, like how botanicals is all on three lines.

And I wanted to try out that frosted glass. Look. There was just so many things that I wanted to try with this site. So by the time like this is my favorite site that I've ever built and like, I feel like that is an award. Yeah. Because I don't say that about a lot of the sites that I make.

Not that they're bad, but I feel really proud of this one. For a lot of different reasons and the fact that the client was super happy with it. Like all of that feels a lot nicer to me than like having a trophy. But it is nice that other people could look at it and be like, like kind of like give an acknowledgment like, yeah, that is cool.

And I think like, okay, too, it's cooler than just the circle that I've drawn for myself. Yeah. But yeah, I'm always shocked, to be honest. No. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think anybody else was shocked. I think. Yeah, I think when we submitted it, this me anyway was like the one I thought had the best potential to go the farthest.

And it did. So now I'm to toot my horn about being able to predict things. But anyway, it's cool. Yeah, I agree with you. The award isn't why we do it, but it is cool to have that too. And just to know that your work was appreciated on both a functional level, the client was happy, but also outsiders and people who visit the site and judges who didn't even know anything about the project can tell and recognize how great it was at work too, is cool.

Yeah, milquetoast answer aside, it does feel good to have acknowledgment on your on your work. What was that milk toast like? The really, really basic answer. Oh, okay. Okay. Oh, never heard that. Okay. I was like, what's milk toast? I don't know, I've just heard people use maybe it's milk, comma toast. Maybe. I thought that they were, like a thing, like together.

It might be, I don't know, whatever. We'll consult Google later. Yeah, that's a good idea. All right, so what advice do you have for anyone out there who would like to cite as beautiful and as award winning and effective as drink, feather and folly.com? What would you give to someone who says, like, want to come to you? They're looking for make a website.

They want something incredible like this. What do you say? I think, man, there's I don't want to give, like, a whole book of rules, but I think that you have to have a strong brand. The reason that this one was such a smooth process, and I think the reason that it came out so great is that they had a very strong brand, and they were very secure in the messaging that they wanted and the look and vibe that they wanted.

They knew who their customer base was. They had all of the questions answered already when they came to us. So I really had I had all those rules that I needed to be very creative with it. I had the foundation that I needed to be able to really sell exactly who they were via the web. So I that's what I would recommend.

And that's where I would start for every company is like, make sure that your brand is very you're very secure in your brand in your messaging. And from there like pick somebody who you think that you can really trust. I think more than the work that you see that they can produce, you should probably find somebody that who you can like, connect to who you see is very, invested in you, in you and your company and your success.

I think that that if they're invested, they're going to play a lot of, like a lot more effort into it. They're going to really want to make sure that it succeeds if they're putting their own success on the line with your success. I think that the product ends up being better. And I think that relationship becomes really important because now you're both like, fighting for the success of, you know, your brand.

Yeah, absolutely. I think those are really the two, like, biggest things. We can get into the nitty gritty, but that doesn't really matter as much as we do. I agree, yeah. I think that's probably true, I would say with a lot of different things, but certainly with web for sure. All right. Cool. So now I'm going to continue the theme of advice, but I tried to have a little bit of fun.

You might know where I'm going with this. I found out I know something else about you besides that. You're a great web designer, and that's that. You're a huge fan of a certain film franchise. It's aliens. No. I'm kidding. I even close. Well, maybe a little close. Okay. Yeah, maybe a little close. So I got some clips.

I sent you some questions ahead of time. I kind of wanna see if you can tell. I'm just going to show you a clip, and then you tell me how this relates to web design. This is some clips from the movie Jurassic Park. I was going to let you tell me what you think, and let's turn it into advice for people based on what you hear here.

Okay. Scientists have done things which nobody has ever done before. Yeah, yeah, but your scientist were so preoccupied with whether or not they could. They didn't stop to think of. They should. For starters, man, I love Jeff Goldblum. Me, too. Well, yeah, let's not get into it. I really want to go home and watch this. Yeah. Okay.

Just from that. Okay, but take the call. Okay? Okay. Something that should just. Because they could. They never stop to think whether they should. What's one something you think should just never be done? Oh, well, that's a hard question to answer, to be honest, because there's never, like, a spot where there's never a certain thing that has no place anywhere but just because you can do something cool with a website, like for example, horizontal scroll.

Doesn't mean that you should write. Because you can do so many cool things with code and there's so many like cool, like there's so many like websites and, web builders and CMS, that you can just go crazy with nowadays. You don't have to like, be very, well versed in CSS and JavaScript and all of that, like you used to have to be.

But that means that you have a lot of power at your fingertips. And you should be using that responsibly. Not not not using it. Like not wielding it like someone who found their dad's gun, I think as hell. He says it later in the movie. But anyway, yeah, I, you can do a lot of cool stuff.

But again, you need to make sure that it works for what you're making it for. Okay. What? Explain to me why horizontal scroll you think is bad. I want to I just want to explain to why it's annoying. Yeah, I know, but I'm not saying I'm not. I think that made me sound like I'm a proponent of it or something.

I'm just curious. From a strategic or from a like, why would you say if someone said, hey, what do you do, horizontal scrolling? What would your question be? Most people are expecting to go down and not to the right. Yes, and this can cause a lot of frustration for people. Me being one of them. Right. When you have a user base especially dependent on the like the generation or the age of your user base, people would get very like familiar with doing certain things.

And so when, if they're looking for something like a product for example, and they suddenly like land on a site and now things are just like crazy, like topsy turvy, they're suddenly going every which way, or they don't have a lot of control over where they want to go. They're going to get frustrated and then they're going to leave.

Yeah. So while it's cool, I'm not saying it's not cool, but it is there. I don't think that like in the 2000s, you could do stuff like that. If you're not making sales, then you shouldn't do it. Yeah. If it's going to have if it's going to frustrate your customer base and they're going to leave and like, not even like pay attention or look at any of the content on your site, then it's not worth doing.

Yeah. The very least that's taking their attention away from the content and from the journey you want to take them on. And it's disorienting them, making them think about the design versus. Exactly right. Yeah. Because I get disoriented when I'm like, I'm doing this, but it's doing this like I want it to move. Yeah. Yeah. People get too caught up in like the movement and not the content.

All right. Ready for another clip. Yeah. Let's just watch the whole movie. I should have just last but we should do, we should. Next time we'll just do a commentary. That's it. And then at the end, we'll just say something about what the commentary will be like. You say something. I'd like you. Right. All right, here we go.

You ready? Yes. That is one big pile of shit. Well, I feel like that just has so many. It does? Yeah, it might be similar to what we just talked about, but the way I phrase the question, if it helps, unless you have a thought, I'll let you know. Okay. Please ask why I had the phrase. The question was, so what are some things on a website that makes you realize this thing just needs a total redesign or rebuild?

Someone comes in and asks you to look at their website. Oh, I see what you did here. You gave me the questions but didn't like, tell you what it was going to be. Yeah. Have some breakfast. For me, everyone's going to have a different answer here because everyone's got their own preferences. For me I think that it really starts with the functionality.

If I get to a site and like there's like a million navigational items and they each have their own dropdown with a ton of other stuff, I'm like, all right, I'm so overwhelmed that I don't want to click anything. And I think that that I don't want to say it. I feel like it's mean. I know, like there's a lot of sites that have that need a lot of that navigation.

But there needs there's like a certain way you need to do it in order to make it easy for people to navigate. If you make it hard to navigate a site I almost said shit. So I'm already ready. That's one big pile of shit. Yeah. If it's hard to navigate then it's like why is it there. Right.

People aren't going to use it. Cool. So that could be a big pile of shit.

Yeah. Cool. All right. Clip number three.

Oh okay. Time.

Now to. The boy. Good boy.

I'm going to need a little context. I wanted to see if you could guess the question. Okay, so this is when. Okay, so you have a site you can only do so much on whether it's a budget constraint or a time constraint. Or maybe it's the client. This happens sometimes we won't call anybody out, but, you just know it's just not working.

What are some ways that you think you can always get a site back on track, or bring it back to life? A project back to life? Ooh, that one's a hard one. Because there could be a lot. I mean, it's really dependent on what happens. I think the.

Making sure that everyone's on the same page in the project is really important. If like it's so hard especially if you're not like the client can't come in or you can't go to the client, it's all online. It's really important to make sure that you guys are all on the same page, because the client I can guarantee you that both sides are assuming things that are just wrong.

It happens to us all the time. The client is assuming that the designer doesn't like understand them because the last design that they received is like wasn't even close and they didn't get to see any of the changes that they had requested specifically. And the designers, the designer could have like made those and then decided, like, you know, this actually doesn't work very well.

So they change it to what they would recommend, but they if they didn't communicate that, then, you know, there's it's so easy to become disconnected, in a project that it's really important to make sure that if you feel like things are like, slipping or like people are getting, like, irritated or there's there's something that's not quite adding up to just like, take a step back, don't like start putting on the sirens and panicking and making like rash decisions.

Just take a step back, take a breath. Meet with the client. Talk to them. Yeah. It's just really important to make sure that that communication is just always there. And don't assume that the client knows things. And even for the client, don't assume that, the designers know everything either, because we're both professionals for our own things.

But that doesn't mean that the things that are simple and like we don't even need to think about it for us is the same way for them. So true. Yeah. So I that's that would be what I would suggest is like, you know, take a breath and meet up. Okay. Very good.

It's all an illusion. When we have control, you never have control. That's the illusion. That is the illusion. Yes. So this question, if you don't remember, is ultimately the site isn't yours as the designer. So can you talk about how important it is to get invested in design and care about its success, while also balancing and knowing that that final call is ultimately on the client?

Yeah. We at the end of the day, we like, we launch it and we're done. Like, we're generally hands off. Which means it's not ours when we don't continue making sure that it's good unless the client, you know, comes to us and we have, like, a maintenance package with them or that we're doing more work for them.

The we need to make sure that I mean sometimes it might not be the way that you wanted it to go. Like maybe you had a really cool idea at the beginning and the client's like that's just not who we are right. You have to be able to relinquish that. Because the site's not for you. You're making something for somebody else.

I think that that's hard to do, especially for a lot of newer designers. You go from like school like you don't really have a lot of like client. At least I didn't. Right. Yeah. You don't have a lot of, like, those client situations where you get that feedback, you get to make whatever, you get a prompt, and you get to make whatever you want.

But that's not what it is like in the client world at all. You don't get a prompt, you get the client saying I don't know what I want until I see it, which is it makes it a lot harder and it's hard to like let go of like what you think is really cool. Because and you know, if you're making a site for an industrial, power plant or whatever, for example, and you like, you know, like that's not even close to what you like or interested in, it's hard to like make something that you think is cool and that they think is cool because you're probably not going to

be very aligned on that. That's why I like to be able to start with those rules, because once you have those rules, you know the space for you where you can create and that's where you can, like make stuff that you think is cool, like, you know, is works for the client. Yeah. So you mean like a solidified brand?

By rules, you mean like having that brand figured out? I think that solves a lot of the a lot of the two issues. I just we just talked about actually having that brand. It's more clear what the direction is. Everyone knows that they've already agreed to the brand on it. And so now you're creating within those. And then also.

Yeah on the side too. Exactly. Yeah. Communication etc.. And at the end of the day you just have to like let go. Yeah. Like this. So.

It's good. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, if it's working for the client, you have to admit, like. Yeah, I guess it is. Good. Yeah, exactly. At the end of the day, you have to. It's not something that maybe I would put on my portfolio as, like, my top work. But you know what? The client loves it. Their consumers love it.

It's making the money. It works. Are you good? Yeah. Eat your ice cream. Shed your tears. Let's move on. Yup. Fairly alarmed. Here. Now. Now. Right now. We'll go. Go. Let's go. Hey! The engine! Woo!

Must go faster! God, I finally saw a dinosaur! Yeah! Why don't you want a dinosaur? Five clips that you do actually have some dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour. I could do this all day. So the question I have with this one is about. Timelines must go faster. So what kind of timeline, realistically, should someone be expecting to get a great site that works and converts?

How long does the process typically take? It takes as long as it takes. That's something that, you know, I don't really have an answer to. I can give you, like, a basic, like a basic answer of like what we usually say is like 10 to 12 weeks. But that doesn't mean that that's really how long it takes, because it's I hate, like, being a broken record on this, but, like, it really just depends.

If the client doesn't have a good, strong brand, it'll take longer because you're essentially developing a brand while you're doing the website, and that can cause a lot of issues. And a lot more back and forth. Because the client is going to be a little bit more, insecure. I don't want to use the word insecure because that's a little negative, but they're not as comfortable with the design direction being solely in a designer's hands.

It's like they don't they don't know what they're supposed to look like. Right? Versus if, you know, company knows exactly what they look like, they give you all the brand stuff and they're like, yeah, they're going to make it on brand, right? We already have all of the details there. So that would be a lot shorter of a timeline.

And you know life stuff can get in the way like there's so many thing, so many variables right. But what would you say. Say I'm just like you. Just like I would get them like a minimum. Do you have any. Do you have at least this much time to invest in this? Like if someone's coming to you and they go, hey, we needed to build a site in two weeks or something, that's just like, well, that's not gonna happen.

Sure, maybe if it's like one page and just like, it's just there's no scrolling, it's just you land on it and there it is. There it is. It's a postcard that you can view on the internet. Yeah. Okay. But yeah. Yeah, it'll take a few months. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I would put 12 weeks at the long end.

Okay. But it will definitely take more than two. Yes, I would agree. Okay. All right. We got one more here. Only one. Only one. We'll watch the whole movie after this, okay? Okay, but. I own an island off the coast of custody. I've leased it from the government. And I've spent the last five years setting up a kind of biological preserve.

Really spectacular. Spared no expense. Spared no expense. Spared. No. No. Oh, no expense. I don't remember that part of the movie, but I found it on YouTube. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. That's. No, I found it on YouTube just in case it starts breaking down. Yeah. Alan's looking around. Oh, Ellie gets into it. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's a deleted scene.

You have, like, the limited edition. Yeah, I can imagine this Bill Berg, like, hand delivered it to me. Pretty. That's pretty cool. Now I want to get some credit, just in case. This is by scene mixer. I found scene mixer on YouTube. Did this. He found every time that John says spared no expense. And he made, like, a little beat to it.

And I almost said that after the ice cream scene. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's the very next line. Yeah. Yeah, I liked it. I would, I want like a full, a full remixed song. We can watch that after this. Tim. All right. Okay. Put it on the to do list. But back to the quote spared no expense. So now we're gonna talk about the dreaded question.

Let's talk about a budget. What should someone like? Realistically, what kind of investment are they looking at for a great site, something like Feather and Folly? Or actually, I should name drop too many more, but just like some of the great sites that you've done that have performed really well, that are beautiful. Realistically, what should someone be looking to invest?

Realistically or ideally? Ideal. An ideal project for us would be about a 30 K website. We will have lots of room to be able to be very upfront with the client, like work with them a lot about on everything. Make sure that they have like we'll have plenty of, time to be able to do a lot of market research and, spend some time on SEO, making sure that the site is optimized without doing like a full audit.

Just a lot of like the smaller, more detailed stuff that ends up kind of getting swept under the rug if we don't have the time. Like those are the kinds of things that really start setting you apart, from the other, from your competition. Because your site will be fully optimized, you'll be able and you don't have to like, be super hands on with it anymore because you know, we set it up for success.

I don't want to say it more realistic because there's there's different levels of realism. Depends on the expectations, the goals, etc.. Yeah, yeah. But I think that on the lower end, like, probably 2018 to 20. Okay. It not that we cut corners or sweep things under the rugs, but we do have to start adjusting our own process to be able to fit everything in.

We always want to make sure that we give clients the best result for what they're paying us for. And we want to be. Like I said, our measure of success is a client's measure of success. We don't make stuff just to, like, make money. We want to help people. We want to make sure that we put something out there that is going to benefit.

Right? People who are spending a lot of money with us and, crafting that relationship. Yeah. And rushing out a $5,000 website isn't going to benefit anyone in the long run. Like, yeah, right. So you're giving still, you're always going to give us the bells and whistles, which just this one has 18 k worth of bells and whistles, and this has 30 K worth of bells and whistles.

And the question is how many bells and whistles do you need. And we'll figure that out. Right. And yeah, sometimes like depending on where, a business is at, like maybe you don't really need the 30 K's, right. Maybe you, you do just need the 20. And that's what we would offer. Like. Yeah, we would have different tiers of pricing.

And we would make sure that we're offering the, the, the appropriate tier for the client's needs. Cool. Well, I have no more Jurassic Park clips. We can watch the whole remix song later if you want. Do you have anything else you want to add before we go? I don't know. I already talked so much today. You did?

You did really well. Well, thank you for coming on. I guess we'll just. Let's watch these videos. Yes. All right. Cool. Thanks, Jess.