“Everyone appreciates great design, even if they don’t know that it’s the great design they are appreciating. They just know what they see has great visual appeal and conveys a message,” says Steve Pavlos, VP of Information Technology, on pushing his employer, Ivanhoe Mortgage, for a corporate rebranding. Pavlos says, “I see how much they would benefi t from a new identity package. I think they just need to see an example of what ‘could be’ to push them over the edge.”

Taking on Ivanhoe’s website, designer Janie Kelley based her direction on Pavlos’ vision for Ivanhoe. “We want to be seen as real people with real solutions in our industry,” Pavlos explains. This concept makes such a strong statement that the designer employed it as a tagline throughout her redesign.

To reach the company’s target goals and audiences, Kelley—with the help of Pavlos’ insights—sought to accurately portray Ivanhoe as having all the opportunity and resources as one of the “big guys,” but with a family-like atmosphere. To help users access information easily and quickly, the designer added submenus that remain on each page along with the main menu—lending a feeling of fast, friendly service wherever you turn.

As a bonus, Kelley also updated Ivanhoe’s logo. M Baskerville—a font similar to the existing logo font—was reworked into the new logo design because it’s more contemporary and approachable. Since Times is compatible with M Baskerville and is a resident font on most browsers, Kelley chose it for text and buttons. With a letter structure similar to Times even though it’s a sans serif, Verdana is also used in places for readability.

The designer retained the conservative blue of the site, complementing it with strong, rich red and olive. Regarding photo selections for the site, she also recommends that “it will be more important and more emotionally appealing to actually see [photos of ] the end result, which would be real people with real solutions to their problems.”

1. Original site According to Steve Pavlos of Ivanhoe Mortgage, the existing site is basic and generic, lacking appeal for its target audience. He explains, “The original site design was created by a non-design, non-web-skilled person,” and it needs to become more approachable and professional.
2. New logo Designer Janie Kelley selected the contemporary, approachable M Baskerville to update Ivanhoe’s existing logo.
3. Fonts Times was the designer’s primary font choice for site copy with Verdana used in places.
4. Colors The designer kept the conservative blue for this regional financial institution, but complemented it with rich red and olive.

5. Photography
The existing website uses photos of objects such as calculators that don’t provide users with a strong, emotional connection. Kelley employed photos of “real people” getting “real solutions” in her redesign. Keywords to use when searching for images: real estate, homeowners, remodeling, construction.

6. Rollover map
On the Account Executive Locator page, Kelley added rollovers to the map that would swap out the representative and info to the right, depending on what state the user rolls the mouse over. This eliminates taking the user back and forth to new pages.

7. New tagline
A new tagline is a constant throughout most of the site, reinforcing Ivanhoe’s reputation as being friendly, accessible, and with great customer service.

8. Menu and submenu
Kelley says, “Probably the biggest navigational change was that I added submenus that will remain on each page along with the main menu.”