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Cornerstone Rebrand

The Cornerstone metamorphosis was completed with the launch of our new website. Fully responsive with the use of content siloing, banding and parallax to engage with visitors whilst making it easy to scan and find information, it reflects some of the more recent design and development techniques, which we plan to write more about in a future post.

Last we left off, we had completed designs of the logo and business cards. Since that time, corporate stationery and brand style guide was completed along with a redesign of the site and an upgrade to our content. Although we can now consider the rebrand completed, it is really only the first step.

Our content will continue to develop and be tweaked, along with website features and layout. Taking a page out of the Lean Startup, we will continue to analyse visitor data and behaviour and test different aspects to see if we can improve usability and ultimately, generate more business. However, to give you an idea as to the thinking behind the site, I’ll outline the steps we took.

1. Personas – we developed detailed personas for our target audiences. We gave each of them a name, a title and a description of their personality. This included what their family life was like, their characteristics, their goals and their tendencies. These personas may not be exactly right but they certainly helped us think hard about who we were designing and developing this site for and what kind of questions and problems they would have when they arrived at our site so that we could figure out the best way to help them.
2. Wireframes – once personas were developed, detailed wireframes were created to outline our site structure, navigation, functional elements, rough layout and site flow. At this stage, it is very much function over form. What is the site suppose to do and how will it do it? At the end of this step, we had a blue print as to how the site would meet our requirements.
3. Graphical design – with detailed wireframes completed, our designers went to work on creating the look and feel we were after. We wanted a professional, modern and approachable look to our site with our new brand subtly integrated throughout the site. Let us know if we’ve achieved that.
4. Development – this is where it all comes together. HTML and CSS templates developed, templates integrated with WordPress (our chosen CMS), and new content inserted, it was finally ready for a test run. We gave it a good test by reviewing how it responded to all sorts of devices in all sorts of layouts. We also checked it across all the major browsers to ensure consistency. Once this was done, it was time to launch.
5. Launch – The site was not perfect but we took another page out of the Lean Startup approach amd launched it anyway. No site is ever perfect and our idea of perfect is different from those of our audience. What matters more is their opinion and we cannot get that until we put it out there – so we did.

This new website is for you, our valuable clients, newsletter and blog readers. We would love to hear from you with your thoughts and feedback – both good and bad.  Click here to send us your feedback.

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Michael Lam

Co-founder of Cornerstone and web junkie, Michael knows just how to diagnose your online problems and remedy the issue. An online enthusiast who believes in technology as an enabler of growth, Michael worries about all the details so you don't have to.