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Marina Snyder

Visual & Web Designer

Unite-One Rebrand, Website Redesign + Development

Marina’s commitment to active listening, coupled with responsiveness to our needs based on the options she provided, helped us learn new and innovative ways to expand our web presence, while preparing us to manage the new platform now and into the future. In the end, our expectations were exceeded at every turn, and she made the process fun and engaging! We absolutely recommend Marina for your next web / design / development / creative project and look forward to collaborating again in the near future.

~ Jack Newman

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About the Project

Unite-One is a Seattle-based musical group that fuses raggae, hip hop, funk, and afro beat. They have been around since 2011… as had their website. I collaborated with the band to create a brand new site, update their visual identity, and get them set up with email marketing.

Unite-One needed a website that would not only be easy for them to independently maintain, but would also allowed visitors to stream and download music, view a dynamic events calendar, purchase merchandise, and sign up for an email list.
 

Creating the Website

Understanding the Audience

After attending Unite-One shows, meeting fans, and speaking with band members, I created a couple of user personas to better understand the mindset of the people who will likely be visiting the Unite-One website.

Natasha

Natasha represents the typical Unite-One fan. She’ll be coming to the website to find out when their next show will be and to check out what else is there.

Jason

Jason represents show producers and promoters. He’s coming to the website to determine whether or not he’s interested in booking Unite-One for an upcoming show.

Mapping the Website Content

Considering and balancing what website visitors will be looking for with what the band would like them to find most easily, I mapped the content of the website.

Sitemap

In the bottom right of the image above, you’ll find a key, which helps illustrates how the site is mapped out. Because of the website’s simplicity, it was important to make sure that things were well organized.

Creating the Website Skeleton

Once the website navigation was in place, I created the initial sketch of the website, drafting where different content would likely end up.

Wireframes

Above you’ll see wireframes of the website’s two main pages: the home page and the “Our Story” page represented with mid-fidelity wireframes.

Defining a Visual Identity System

Unite-One had a general sense of their brand, but we decided to hone in on it. I created a couple of visual design systems for them to choose from before moving ahead to the website design phase.

Style 1

The brand option that the band ended up preferring is the one I referred to as “Modern Local” because of its more modern influence and emphasis on the band’s community-orientation and local presence.

Style 2

“Contemporary Vibes” was the other option I presented. While this wasn’t the direction we ultimately went, the band loved the textures in this style board and were interested in having these incorporated into the design.

Designing the Website

After determining the band’s new visual identity, I applied the fresh branding to the website mockups that I created for the band to review. In applying the colors, I did my best to stay true to the band’s genre without being too predictable.

Web Design

Above you’ll see how I used gold and black as the dominant colors with a few touches of green, red, and orange to connect it to its rebel music influence.

Developing the Website

In creating the website, I used popular and well-supported plugins such as the Events Calendar and WooCommerce to add a great deal of functionality to the site without adding too much complexity. I also used the Divi theme, which allows the band to update the site with an intuitive WYSIWYG interface.

Divi

My goal was to build a site that would meet the band’s needs while also being simple to maintain. Building it with the Divi theme to allow for easier updates helped accomplish that task.

The Result

With the new website and email newsletter in place, Unite One has been set up to not only make a better impression on their audience and potential producers, but they’re also now able to make money online by selling merchandise and electronic downloads of their music.

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