New year, new brand, new website!

7 years ago when I started NBP, my marketing efforts were piecemeal at best. First it started with establishing myself on social media, then I decided to get myself a logo and then, finally, a website. At the beginning I didn’t really have much to say, just images to display. My website reflected that. Even while I grew as a photographer, and as my business blossomed, my website stayed the same. I didn’t even have a brand. I had a logo from Etsy that was used by numerous other businesses. It wasn’t unique. But I was! Last year, I decided it was finally time for my online presence to reflect that! But 2022 also ended up being my most successful year yet, so the process was a slow roll as I tried to juggle rebranding, creating a new website, AND my day-to-day workload.

The first thing I did was evaluate my current website platform. I was using Squarespace for years, but I found it more and more frustrating the more I tried to customize it. So I did some research and landed on Showit. Squarespace is very user-friendly and a great choice for beginners that want a professional website in a short period of time, but Showit is more useful if you want to have more freedom and control over design customizations.

Once I landed on what platform to use, I started shopping for a new website template. I knew from the very beginning that I did NOT want to design a website from scratch. There are just too many choices and decisions to be made and I knew I’d fall victim to analysis paralysis. This is where Tonic Shop came in. I absolutely loved their classic, sophisticated, sleek designs. This, thankfully, was a super easy decision for me to make! But I also knew I didn’t have the time, bandwidth, or desire to migrate my old website, so I reached out to the folks at Tonic Shop to help. They gave me a short list of vendors they work with who can migrate and personalize your website. Enter — Ally B Designs!

I don’t know where to start with Ally B. She was simply amazing to work with. We had an initial zoom chat to discuss my needs and her process, and I just felt an instant connection to her. She is warm and friendly and definitely knows her stuff! After one quick chat with Ally, I realized that now was the time to not only redesign my website, but to also redesign my brand. So that’s what we did! To begin, Ally sent me a SUPER in-depth questionnaire. At first it was intimidating, but as I got into it I found it to be really through-provoking… which turned out to be super helpful in nailing down a brand identity! 😉 Ally and I had another zoom chat to review my completed questionnaire, and then she got to work developing my new brand. I’ll be honest — she pretty much nailed it on the first try!

Then we got to work on the website. While she started to incorporate my new brand, I had to start reworking my content and messaging. I also gave her new images to showcase on the site. And again — I was just SUPER IMPRESSED with how the final product looked and how effortless it seemed on her end. I was NOT an easy client either. My crazy busy schedule, combined with procrastination brought on by that damn analysis paralysis, dragged this project on for far too long…but Ally didn’t push. She let me tackle it in my time, which I really appreciated.

This new brand and website is so much more ME than the old one. It shows off my personality and it shows off my work in ways the old website didn’t. AND… it has given me a great reason to start blogging again. 🙂

So what do you think???