The owners of Bead Girls Jewelry, Shari Lorbiecki and Lisah Vander Heiden, know the reach of the internet and believe having a website to showcase their handcrafted pieces will increase recognition and sales. Earlier collaborations between the duo and DG art director Sam Berkes resulted in a new logo for the company. Building on the decided look and feel, Berkes mocked-up a web design that the owners love.

Wireframe
This is a preliminary graphic of the understructure of the site. Something like this is done in the earliest stages of the webdesign process to give the designers an idea of what will need to go into the final product.

Sketches
Harkening back to design school, Berkes created multiple sketches to outline his design ideas for the website. “I remember in school, the professors would tell us to create 100 thumbnail sketches for an upcoming project. I would always balk at the number, thinking that there was no way it would help my design. Little did I know how helpful it could end up being. Even if you don’t like the drawing process, sketches are necessary and effective.”

Vander Heiden says, “It was interesting at [the latest] bead show. People were telling us not to bother with a website because so many [jewelry sites] exist already. So [our site] has to be good—to stand out. We also don’t want to be buried on the 80th page.”

“We would like the following pages [on our website],” says Lorbiecki, “Home, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, pendants, family treasures, team spirit, about us and ordering information. We’ll also need a page for our signature collections. We have some necklaces, bracelets and earrings that are available in several different crystal colors that can be mixed and matched.” In the final design, Berkes was able to combine a number of pages from this initial request to help keep the site organized simply and keep costs down.

“We don’t need Flash,” says Lorbiecki. Berkes explains, “The owners will want to have the most functional design for the site and a structure that will increase the chances that they will appear in the first few pages of a search—Flash-based sites are less likely to pull up in a search, unless you add extensive metadata to the site code. And depending on the designer or firm, Flash can increase costs to build and maintain a site.” Berkes spent roughly 12 hours designing the look and pages for the site. At the time of publication, Bead Girls had not yet hired someone to code and build the site.

“We love the background. We’re wondering how you pick which shades of blue and purple to use? On one computer it’s dark burgundy, on another it’s bright purple. How much variance is there on colors? Do you just pick a happy medium?” asks Lorbiecki.

Berkes explains, “Colors will vary from monitor to monitor, depending on how your specifications are set up. Brightness/contrast settings will affect how color is displayed as well. Unless you use a color-calibration tool on your monitor, you will not be assured that your screen is completely accurate in displaying color.”

He continues, “Colors onscreen will be different than colors on a printed page as well, as monitors use an RGB—red, green and blue—color spectrum and printed pieces use a CMYK—cyan, magenta, yellow and black—or Pantone system. RGB is a light-based, additive process, involving adding red, green and blue colors to a black background to create colors. CMYK is a pigment-based, subtractive process, involving removing color from a white background to create different colors.”

“The goal with our website is to generate more revenue,” says Vander Heiden. “Once we’re on the web, we’ll be able to reach a broader range of clientele than we currently have with our home jewelry shows. Expanding to the web will help us reach buyers from a range of price points. We have lots to offer, andbeing on the web will help us get our name out there.” She says, “We’re looking for a quality design that shows the style of our jewelry and lets the beauty of each piece shine through. The site needs to be userfriendly so our customers don’t become frustrated and move on. We want to make their shopping experience easy and enjoyable. People are busy and have limited time, so we need to make the most of their shopping experience.”

Vander Heiden continues, “We want our site to stand out from the other million jewelry sites out there. Visitors to the site need to remember Bead Girls Jewelry and shop again and again. Frequent visitors are always welcome!”

Final site design
1. New home page design: This page is the main hub of the Bead Girls commerce site.

2. Top navigation stays in the same place throughout the site. This provides an anchor point for users.

3. The Necklaces product page displays selections of necklaces after choosing either the necklaces image on the home page, or by choosing the link in the navigation bar.

4. The Necklaces details page will display a large image of the product being sold, as well as show coordinating pieces that match the selected piece.

5. All product pages will emulate each other. This design will provide an easeof- production during the coding process.

And finally, those familiar with the last installment of One Business, One Plan may notice the scrollwork in Bead Girls’ logo is different. (Read the articles in the Feb/Mar 2007, V12N1 and Apr/May, V12N2 issues to learn about Bead Girls Jewelry’s logo development.) One of our savvy readers shared with us a word of warning about using stock scrollwork for a logo. Upon further research, and a few phone calls with company representatives, we learned that Shutterstock—the provider of the scrollwork in the original logo design—only allows usage as a logo element, not part of the logo itself.

To avoid any legal complications, we found a similar scroll in Adobe’s Bickham Script Pro. The representative from Adobe assured us that we could in fact—and he was encouraging us to—use their scrollwork in a logo.