Smith + Smith
Modernize Look and Feel
Responsive Design
Website Development
Smith+Smith Landscape Architects’ website had become dated and no longer reflected the quality of their work. Their website was rebuilt to shine a spotlight on the quality of their projects and reflect their design aesthetic.
Design Tasks
Background
SMITH+SMITH Landscape Architects is a San Francisco based firm specializing in designing, developing, and overseeing the construction of landscape spaces for commercial, public, and residential projects. Since 1981, the firm has served much of California as well as Hawaii.
SMITH+SMITH approached me to help them redevelop their website for both Desktop and Mobile. Their previous website had been made into a responsive website in 2013, but featured a dated design aesthetic. The SMITH+SMITH team wanted to keep their website feeling fresh and new.
Home Page
Project Pages
About Pages
Contact Pages
Client Needs
During our preliminary discussions, SMITH+SMITH requested a visual refresh and site structure overhaul that would compliment the high quality of their work. Their site was previously built within the WordPress CMS and they wanted to maintain that functionality.
To make their site feel new, SMITH+SMITH identified some key qualities that they wanted to convey:
Life
SMITH+SMITTH’s work is about a human experience with the landscape, be it artificial or natural. Their website should convey and possess those qualities as well.
Joy
The website must provide the user with a sense of joy while they navigate the site. It is important that a user enjoys their time with SMITH+SMITH and has a positive experience both on the website.
Interaction
The website’s interactions and transitions should move and delight. The user should always feel in control; the website should not act as a hindrance to the user’s experience.
Simplicity
As a showcase for the SMITH+SMITH portfolio, the website should remain simple and intuitive. The user should understand their experience and the material being presented to them.
Competitive Analysis
In our discussions, SMITH+SMITH identified three landscape firms whose websites possessed the overall quality and visual design that they wanted for their own website. While none of these websites were perfect on their own, they each featured qualities that SMITH+SMITH wanted for their own site. Full-bleed images for their portfolio, easy legibility, a sense of life in the projects, and interactions that were simple and intuitive for the user.
Andrea Cochran
Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture is an award winning landscape architecture firm based in San Francisco.
CMG
Founded in 2000, CMG focuses on creating artful and sustainable designs that connect people with their environment.
PWP Landscape Architecture
For nearly 30 years PWP has produced work that responds to as well as influences its own environment.
Process
Before reaching out to me, SMITH+SMITH had previously created several mockups for a direction that they were looking to take their website.
The next step was to take their current site along with their initial concept and mold that into a new and modern site design. The goal was to develop a site design that would show off the SMITH+SMITH portfolio in a modern website design.
Once the design was finalized, we began development on the site to create a modern, responsive website design. The site was initially developed through a local server, then rolled to the WordPress CMS on SMITH+SMITH’s site.
Final Design
The final design was developed over a period of several weeks. The site was developed to be responsive from the start, however the site was developed in a tiered release schedule with the desktop version being released first and the mobile / tablet version following. Each stage was proofed with the help of SMITH+SMITH’s team. The final site was deployed in early 2016.
Home Page
Main Menu
Project Page
Office Page
