From Concept to Creation: The Intricacies of Customized Site Design
On each WOTW project, an assortment of team members assembles, splices their brains together, and creates the perfect bespoke site for that particular brand. Not only does this give clients’ sites a wide range of talent and experience, it also gives the team constant opportunities to continue learning from one another. Most recently, it gave Hawaii-based web developer extraordinaire Susan Lee the opportunity to learn, for the first time, about the changing of seasons and the effects of said season changes upon trees.
A client desired some tree imagery for their site. Susan giddily obliged, creating MINDBLOWING SPECIAL EFFECTS that would allow the site’s tree to change colors based on what season it was. Project manager Anna Potter-Malone generously nudged the level of necessary tree foliage differentiation for each season, a note that Susan appreciated because, in Hawaii, “time does not visually pass.” After Googling some leafy colorways, Susan designed a “sexy” winter tree (leafless), and Anna continued the tree lessons, explaining that spring is when everything starts blooming and summer is when everything is in “FULL ASS BLOOM.” Susan presented a quadriptych of trees, proudly declaring that “I figured yellow like the summer sun hitting the leaves.” Anna now recognized the full direness of the situation and presented an image that showed, upon one tree, the spectrum of the seasons reflected in frondescence (or lack thereof).
And now she got it! Susan understood (and hopefully still does) seasons. It’s a happy ending for everyone. Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall (or, as Anna notes for the “fancy folx,” Autumn) finally became solidified in Susan’s personal zeitgeist. Anna and Susan got to share laughs and knowledge. The client got a gorgeous, seasonally accurate tree for their website. And I got to watch it all go down and smile, because working with WOTW team members is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get.*
*But they’re all going to be freaking delicious, and they’re even better when you put a whole bunch of them (WOTW team members) in your mouth (website project) at once.
