I've always liked to take the road less traveled. This is not about simply being a contrarian. If there's a better or more rewarding way of doing things, I want to find and experience it.
Because if you only limit yourself to what you think is expected, you don't get anywhere interesting anytime soon. And when my time ultimately comes, I want to look back at a life lived my way.
Now, this doesn't mean blindly chasing the latest fad.
It means challenging the status quo and methodically looking at a better approach that works for me - cutting out the waste in the process.
The waste meaning negative side-effects of any process, be it costing too much time, hassle or money.
Whether that's about the way I live, how I create the branding for my new company or create marketing materials for a customer - it's all the same to me.
This approach means I live in a constant state of change in different areas of my life and business.
Over the years, I found the best way to optimize this way of life is by letting go of the things you can't control and having systems or frameworks in place for the things you can.
This keeps me nimble on my feet and ready to react to just about anything.
So when it came to getting a new site for my new company KNVRTED, I needed something that would fit that spirit.
But, since KNVRTED is a limited company, it also needs its own personality. A big no-no for me was the stereotypical creative services biz template.
Just as in most other categories, copywriters and strategists (of all people) tend to copy each other to the letter.
It's a sea of sameness with usually a white background, safe colors and predictable logos thrown in.
Quite often it's based on the same Squarespace or WordPress template.
Another requisite for this project was that I wanted to create the site myself.
In this case, with one of the newer no-code platforms out there. I always find it gratifying to learn a new tool or skill. It pushes your boundaries which is something I love.
Now, I've been a site admin of Joomla, WordPress and custom sites and done front-end/web design work in the past.
While you can do just about anything with those tools, they require too much maintenance for a solopreneur.
And they aren't exactly the gold standard in UX or usability either.
The beauty of platforms like Wix, Squarespace and Webflow?
They roll different tools into a single platform that's always the most secure and up-to-date version.
I went for Wix because of these 3, it has the best support for a multilingual site (I work in 2 languages), comes with tighter integrations and is the most usable of the trio.
The latter is special because Squarespace and Webflow are pretty high up the usability rankings for me.
I've put it together in the last month while partly on the road.
All this in-between customer projects and life in general and without ever using Wix before starting this project.
And as for the design style itself?
Well, I've always loved using type as a dominant element, even back when I was creating covers for high school assignments as a teenager.
Around that time, I found inspiration in the International or Swiss Style. A style known for using sans-serif fonts, which I also happen to love.
This preference for sans serif was why I chose Julieta Ulanovsky's smooth Montserrat font when I started working for myself again in 2016.
And I'm still fanboy enough to keep using it for my latest endeavor.
The main thing I love about Montserrat is how it's highly readable at all sizes due to its minimalist, balanced design. This also makes it so easy to scale. Meaning it's usable for both web and print.
Last but not least, you can use this solid font to convey a powerful message.
For this project I just knew I wanted a type-centric design with bold colors to make it stand out. That's why I turned to the International Style for inspiration once again.
The combination of the sans-serif font, using type as a dominant design element, the focus on minimalism & function and aiming to work with a design system fits my goals and way of working.
And purist needn't worry, I've just borrowed what I found useful and I'm not staying true to everything. This is just my way of paying a small tribute to this epic style I looked up to for decades.
Whether you love or hate this site design - I'm sure you'll be able to recall this site easily. And at the end of the day, that's the whole point.