MY ROLE

I was commissioned to create a website for a musician, Chandni, that wanted a website to be cohesive with her brand and music. The stakeholders wanted the website to be easy to navigate, to have all the information regarding recent works and to evoke mystery and dream-like.

TIMELINE: 2 months

SKILLS: HTML, CSS, Adobe Photoshop & Clip Studio Paint

PLATFORM: Squarespace

SOLUTION

The musician wanted to appeal to a gen-z and millennial audience, I looked at similar artists in the genre and combined my findings with trending interfaces and intuitive navigation designs while keeping in mind accessibility practices.

Landscape Research

  1. Buttons on the homepage.
    Having these buttons led to visitors being directed to where the creator wanted them to go straight away. For Chandni’s brand as a new musician, this was her YouTube videos and streaming sites.

  2. Photo montages that created a brand aesthetic.
    I took this into consideration when reviewing creating the homepage picture.

  3. Dark colour scheme.
    As Chandni’s goal was to create a brand that is mysterious and dreamy, we decided to go with a similar colour scheme.

  4. Minimal and easy to navigate.
    As Chandni is a new artist, she does not have a lot of content so keeping it simple but effective was key.

I researched artists in a similar genre Kehlani, HER, Giveon and Amber Mark – whose website I took inspiration from. The client had made a list of things that they liked about the websites of these artists:

THE TARGET AUDIENCE

Meena / Female / 18 years old

Ethnicity: Indian

Music Genres: Pop & RnB

Artists: Joy Crookes, Hope Tala & Kehlani

Personality: INFP- Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling & Perceptive. Describes herself as empathetic and emotional.

 Favourite Music Quote: “Birds of feather flock together, your trouble’s the same as mine” – Trouble, Joy Crookes

How they would use the website: to stream music

Seye / Male / 27 years old

Ethnicity: Nigerian

Music Genres: RnB, Soul & Rap

Artists: Drake, Jorja Smith & Little Simz,

Personality: INFJ- Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging. Emotionally intelligent. Considerate and creative.

Favourite Music Quote: “I’d rather die enormous than live dormant” – Can I Live, Jay-Z

How they would use the website: find out about gigs

I gathered information from Chandni’s followers on Instagram and Spotify where I could find out the listeners’ age group, location and gender. From here, we were able to draw conclusions about how they would use the website.

Navigation

  1. Key Elements
    After landscape research and reviewing Chandni’s content, we decided that the pages to include on the website were releases, music streaming sites, YouTube videos and upcoming shows.

  2. Call to Action buttons
    Most importantly, I was to include links to social platforms as Chandni’s target audience was gen-z and millennials- which we included in both header and footer of the website.

  3. Scroll page
    I wanted to create a one scroll page as majority of Chadni’s audience is gen-z / millennial, who have spent majority of their time using this pattern to scroll through social media.

PAGES

ACTIVE BUTTONS

The active buttons on the website are a mix of call to action, links to social media / streaming sites and directions that lead to main user interests- such as videos or music.

By researching user needs, behaviours & motivations for being on Chandni’s site, I was able to add business growth and transformation strategy to the website.

Interface Design

As Chandni is a South Asian artist whose music taste takes inspiration from her heritage, she wanted her logo to take inspiration from Sanskrit calligraphy.

I looked at inspiration images of Sanskrit calligraphy to see how we could merge it with her name and decided upon a style that we used throughout the website.

LOGO & TYPOGRAPHY

I created fonts for the logo from my inspiration board and made a few changes based on the stakeholder feedback. This is the logo we decided to use throughout the brand.

HOMEPAGE & BACKGROUND

As the site was a continuous scroll, I ensured that the background would fit with this navigation setting.

Furthermore, I created a homepage that had images of the musician that flowed into the background to create a dreamy quality to the website.

COLOUR PALETTE

Following Chandni’s goal to create a brand that is mysterious and dreamy, I decided to go with a colour scheme that evoked this emotion

MOBILE VERSION

  • I had to ensure that the CSS code applied to the website and aesthetic accessories were placed in the correct places.

  • I constantly conducted cross platform testing to ensure that both mobile and computer screen views were in sync.

Results & Takeaways

I’m extremely grateful that I worked with a team that allowed me creative freedom to give a brand experience and tell their story through a website. Here are things I’ve learned:

  1. Don’t be afraid to clarify expectations

    There were a lot of setbacks due to self-learning but overall, the project was a success resulting in a higher fee than discussed being negotiated given the high satisfaction with my performance and handling of the client relationship.

  2. Make the time to learn tools that will benefit the project

    Learning HTML and CSS slowed down the process but was necessary in completing the task to a high standard. I took the initiative to find e-resources that could help aid me in the process.

  3. Take into consideration accessibility practices

    Looking back on this project, I can see that contrast and font size should be taken into consideration when deigning.

For more work inquiries, or if you want to chat,
email me at jasmindelac@gmail.com ☕️✨

Thank you for reading!

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