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William Geddes is one of our member photographers based in the Big Apple. He specializes in interiors, lifestyle, portraiture, and video storytelling. After finishing up a stunning web edit with WM photo editor, Stacy, William wanted a web template that could stand up to the level of his edit and show off his work in the best possible way. That’s where I, and Squarespace, came in.
William wanted to switch his web template to Squarespace to have a cleaner and more organized site that he could easily update with new content. We’re always happy to see photographers using Squarespace because of its clean design, and also because it is responsive on all devices, including phones and tablets. Before we even got started building the site, William knew which template within Squarespace he wanted to use: the Wells template. The Wells template catered to all the things William was looking for in his new site, with some customizations thrown in as well.
With a good template in place and a clear direction of where to go, I began building William’s website with some key changes from his previous one.
With William’s old site, the site URL loaded directly to his Lifestyle gallery. Our first major change was implementing a landing page that would preview some of the different facets of his work before diving the user into a specific segment of the site. Here’s a look at the new landing page we created for his site:
We also reorganized the individual pages on William’s site. On the previous site, he had three major navigation links: Work, Blog, and Info. With the new site navigation, we wanted to take the content of each page and it. For example, the Info page was a bit crowded as it combined his About and Contact pages into one. Here’s a screenshot from his old site:
As you can see, the information was not easily accessible and desperately needed some breathing room. So, the solution was to split the old Info page into two pages, About and Contact. This gave the pages more room to be organized and made the content much more accessible to the user. Here’s a look at the new pages.
One addition to William’s Contact page is the contact form. Contact forms are a great way for visitors to interact with you without limiting them to just a phone number or an email address.
The color schemes on the site remained black and white to allow all the colors in William’s work to pop. We wanted the work to stand out without being overpowered by other elements of the site. The focus on any photographer’s website should be the work, and a good web template just helps to show that off!
We also made changes to William’s blog, which lived on his site. On his old site, the blog page was crowded and had a lot going on. Squarespace makes it very easy for organizing blogs, so all we did was transfer William’s old blog information from WordPress, and Squarespace organized all the information that went along with each post. Here is a before and after of William’s blog, now titled, “News.”
William’s site is now live and he’s loving the simplicity and ease of adding new content via Squarespace. His galleries are distinct and clean, and everything has a place of its own! After the edit, William told me how pleased he was with everything:
I have updated my site several times over the years when new technologies become available. This has by far been the most seamless transition. Squarespace is the most user-friendly platform I have ever used. Thanks to Colby and the WM team!
If you’re interested in a new web template for yourself, get in touch!