Back in South Africa after some time in New Zealand. Thankfully the jet lag this way around isn’t as bad, so after a short break I’m back at work, diving into some very interesting new projects, revisiting work with wonderful clients from a few years back, and loving this balmy South African winter!
Yolande Mukagasana is a Rwandan writer, campaigner and survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Her first book, Not My Time to Die is now available in English. I got to work with the translator of this book on a site in time for the author’s UK book launch. You can check it out on www.yolandemukagasana.com 📷 images by Chris Schwagga
Let’s talk about ‘Hero’ Images 💫 I’ve just done a little update on my own website and one of the things on my to-do list is to update my hero image. I’m still mulling over which image to go for. I thought it might be helpful to chat about what this is and what kind of image you should look for for your own website. 📝 A ‘Hero’ image is the first visual element a visitor to your site sees, a bold and prominent image that is front and centre. Here are some thoughts about how to choose a helpful image that works for your business: 📌 👉🏼Is it bold? Go for a single colour, or a few contrasting colours to grab your viewer’s attention. 👉🏼Is it simple? Make sure it isn’t too fussy and detailed - your messaging may get lost. 👉🏼Is it text friendly? Can you overlay text on it knowing it will still stand out? 👉🏼Is it a good design fit? Does it work with your design aesthetic, branding, colour palette? 👉🏼Is it high resolution? You don’t want to choose something low quality that ends up pixelated and communicates a lack of professionalism. 👉🏼It is compressed? Yes you want it high quality, but not so huge in file size that it slows your site down! 👉🏼What does it communicate? Does it help visitors identify with and relate to your site? 🏠 Your hero image could be abstract, a beautiful profile image of you, it could be product related, an illustration or a design colour gradient. It’s up to you what you put there, but try to make sure it answers the questions above. Anything you’d add here? I’d love to hear!
Simply beautiful evening for an easy run. It’s always good to get outside after a challenging end to last week. 🌿
“Done is better than perfect.” • Sounds good in theory, right? The principle here is that getting something finished is better than spending ages tinkering with it until its juuuuust right. That’s because the truth is that nothing is really ever perfect. This, I have to confess, is really a struggle for me. Hitting send, signing off on something, calling something ‘done’ is hard, hard, hard! I have to keep reminding myself that progress is better than perfection, a step forward is better than two half-finished steps, and there are always going to be typos, no matter how many times you checked. And yes, someone will point those typos out. • “Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.” — Bre Pettis • How do you manage the balance doing something well and getting something done? Is this a struggle for you too?
Do you ever start working on something and think, ‘ah, this won’t be too bad, I’ll get it done in no time!’ And then realise you’re in the deep end and you forgot your water wings? 💧 That’s a little bit how I feel right now as I’ve moved from the planning and copywriting phase of my online course to the video and design phase. Do I know what I’m doing? Not necessarily! Is it a little overwhelming? For sure! Am I learning a ridiculous amount? Yes! Am I having the best time? Absolutely! 😅🎉 Squarespace from Scratch is a course for people who want a professional online presence for their business, passion project, or NGO and just don’t have the budget to hire a web designer for the job. It’s a DIY course that will give you the tools to build your very own website, just the way you want it, and without the overwhelm. ☝🏻☝🏻 More behind the scenes stuff in my stories!
➕Squarespace from Scratch➕ I’m putting an online course together for those of you who need for a professional online presence and want to do it yourself, either because, like me, you’re a die hard D-I-Y-er, or because at this stage in your business you just don’t have the budget to pay a professional (as much as you’d like to!) • I’ve been working with Squarespace for over four years now, and have designed and built over 60 websites (and counting). I am absolutely convinced that Squarespace is the platform for you. Beautiful templates, award winning customer care, and an intuitive user interface with all the extras built right in are just some of the reasons I love building websites with Squarespace. • One of the reasons people come is me is that they started their website build on their own, but got overwhelmed in the process. If you’re asking questions like… ✔️Where do I get a domain name?
✔️How do I write my ‘About page?’ ✔️How big should the images on my website be? ✔️How do I set up a blog? … then this might be the course for you. • These are the types of questions I want to help you answer in a structured, easy to follow, easily accessible way without the technical jargon, and without the overwhelm. • I’ve led many clients through this process and this is the work I do on a daily basis. In this course I’m not holding back. I’m going to share my best resources, worksheets, tutorials with you so that you can finally build the website that really works for your business. • Sign up on my website www.bearista.co.za or click on the link above in my bio so that I can let you know when the course goes live!