Susan was jovial to hear that we were ready for the collaboration and she couldn’t wait to see what we had in store for her.
January 12, 2021“It is a privilege to be part of an organization that delivers high-quality services and innovative solutions to the best clients, develops the most talented professionals into leaders, and does its part to improve the societies in which we operate”.
-Punit Renjen
As a company, Solaris Technologies is always striving to attain the best outcomes for their clients that would result in the client trusting the company with any work that they have or might have in the future. Solaris Technologies has many clients who have remained loyal to the company through time. These companies are a true representation of Solaris Technologies relationship with their clients. The company prefers to stay connected to their clients in the long run and consider the clients work as their own. The need to deliver quality work to the clients makes the company try harder than they did yesterday to reach higher goals every day.
Solaris Technologies takes great pride in the work that they produce and the product that they deliver. The team members at Solaris Technologies never take work lightly and they are always focused on retaining clients’ long term through the work being delivered. Many of the clients have remained with the company and Susan is one of the company’s dearest clients.
THE CLIENT
“To be successful, it is imperative that you not only know the organizations you work with, but more specifically, you have to know the actual people you work with within these organizations, understand what their personal goals and motivations are. In short, to be successful, you need to humanize your clients”.
-Rana el Kaliouby
Susan came to Solaris Technologies with this brilliant idea that combines her passion for floristry with work. Since Susan was a little girl, she remembered getting her hands muddy while trying to help her mother take care of their front lawn. Her mother would carefully pluck out the perfect flowers with gentle care and with immense detail, place them perfectly into bunches to create appeasing flower arrangements. Susan’s mother would sit her down on her lap and teach her about how each flower was perfectly placed in a position to compliment the final product. From a very young age, the knowledge of flower arrangements was passed on from mother to daughter, where Susan got to learn about flower placement, color combinations, ways in which certain flowers were added to the arrangement to support the more fragile flowers and prevent them from breaking and how different filler flowers were used to bring the center flowers in the cynosure.
These honey sweet memories of childhood seeded a liking for floristry in her heart that bloomed over the years into a full bloomed passion! She learned the skill and mastered it over the years, perfecting the product that she created. Soon she recognized that her work has the potential to become her profession. She couldn’t get the thought out of her mind and she was determined to share her love and knowledge of floristry with others who might be interested in learning this art form. However, she was concerned about how to go about the entire process of bringing this work to life. She needed assistance to help her organize her work and allow her to create a platform where she could reach and attract potential customers. This is when she contacted Solaris Technologies to help her make her dream come true, to allow Susan to take the first steps towards great work and her journey to teach her fellow florists. When Susan had contacted us, she already had a website and she felt that the website needed some changes to make it more appropriate for her and she wanted the website to be a true depiction of her aesthetic and style of work. The team members at Solaris Technologies were excited to get on board with Susan and do wonders for her floristry workshops!
Susan was jovial to hear that we were ready for the collaboration and she couldn’t wait to see what we had in store for her. She knew exactly what she wanted for her website and she had a clear vision for the direction she wanted her company to move in. This was a great advantage for the client as it made the work that much more time effective. She had an entire plan for what she wanted her website to look like, how her business was growing and how she wanted to take this work further, the sort of attendees she wished to attract and the sort of pictures she wanted for her website. She took her time to carefully explain each aspect of her work and the team members provided her with undivided attention so that no detail was missed out in the process.
THE WORK
Every business needs to get out of their own mindset and into the aspirational mindsets of their customers and clients and create services and products that are beyond their customers’ imagination but will be what they ‘gotta have’ in the future.
-Mark Goulston
When Susan contacted Solaris Technologies, she wanted someone who would take her dream and envision the passion behind it; creating a product that would convey her aesthetic and be easy to navigate for potential students. When Susan shared her vision, her eyes would light up which would spark a drive in the Solaris Technologies team members to create a platform for her that would be true to her vision.
The team took their time to listen to Susan and understand how she wanted to go about the project and what it was that she envisioned her work to look like. Once the entire idea was shared with the team, the team explained to Susan exactly what they understood and what they felt she was trying to explain to make sure that there is no misunderstanding in communication. Then the team members of Solaris Technologies devised a plan about how to go about the project and kept the client in the loop throughout to make sure that the work that was being done was according to the clients liking. Once the work was completed, the client was shown the entire project to navigate and to finalize it. This gave Susan the opportunity to make any last amends to the work that was designed for her.
Once Susan agreed with the final edit, the work was published for Susan. There were a lot of different aspects that were taken into consideration from the theme of the website to the fonts that best described Susan’s work. Some of them are as follows:
Name:
Before deciding on any of the design themes, the name of the company was taken into consideration. The name “Rose Cottage Floristry” gives the reader the vibe of a very floral website with a heavenly balance of colors. We decided to keep the theme of the company accordingly; we looked for fonts that would best define the client’s essence. The designs created for the page were also created while keeping in mind the name of the company and the work that was being done by Susan. What mattered most to Solaris Technologies is the jovial expression that the work brought on the clients face when
Color:
The color theme was initially designed in a manner that would not look too plain and at the same time, it would assist the work of the client and allow it to shine through. The main color swatches used were #000000, #f7f8f8 and #ecc9c7 which are shades of black, white and pink, respectively. These colors for the theme were a perfect match for the sort of display that Susan wanted for her website. They went with her aesthetic and brought her personal content in the limelight by providing very subtle background colors for her website. These color pink used in the theme of the website represents approachability and adds floral hues to the website which compliments the theme of Susan’s work. It is not as bold as the color red and that allows a more soft touch to the web design. The color black is used to highlight the main write up of the website which allows the user to easily read the text and find the information that they are looking for. Other colors in the pink white and black spectrum are also incorporated in the design to bring the entire website into a well-integrated website where every color used plays its part to bring the design together.
Typography:
Another important thing to consider when making a website in the font that is used for the content. Susan was asked what she wanted her clients to feel when they saw her website and she responded by saying that she wished that her potential clients would view her website and be filled with a sense of festivity and warmth all wrapped up in a ribbon; she wanted her clients to feel that the work was not very corporate and formal, rather it should give a more homely vibe, like the fresh breeze of a sunny spring morning.
The team took their time and made sure that they fully understood the image that Susan had in her mind. Once everyone was on the same page, the fonts and styles of writing that best suited the website and the design were finalized. In the process, many fonts were considered and many were rejected, however, the team members working with Rose Cottage Floristry did not take any shortcuts and ensured that only the more perfect fit was finalized for the client and that none of the potential writing styles were overlooked.
After many considerations, three different fonts were finalized for Susan’s work. These different fonts were used for different purposes in the website. The first font used was ‘Manthafino Script Regular’. This font was used in most of the headings to define headings or categories of the website. This font is easy to read and the writing is very clear to avoid any misunderstandings or difficulty at the readers end. This allows ease to the readers. Another font used on the website is ‘Bellerose Light’. This font is used to write the body of the content. The reason for choosing this font is that the font presents soft edges that resonate with the overall theme of the website and allows the design to fit together perfectly like lock and key. This font goes hand in hand with Manthafino Script regular which creates a flow in the text and does not make it look like pieces of information randomly placed together. The third font used in the website is ‘Dosis Regular’. All the subheadings are created using this font as it serves as a transition between the other two fonts and acts like the glue that keeps everything together in the content of the page.
These three fonts are mainly used in the text of the website. A fourth font was integrated into the design to bring more forth the design and add a more calligraphic effect to the website which makes the website viewer grasp the craft and creativity and align them with the theme of Rose Cottage Floristry work. Choosing the write font is very important for any website or application as the font in itself tells an entire story. The font sets the tone for the reader and even without saying it, the reader’s mind set is set in a specific direction. To get a better understanding look at the following image:
This image is a perfect example of how simply changing the font of the text can create a different emotion in the reader. Which is why the team members at Solaris Technologies pay heed to each font that is being used in the clients work and also makes sure that the font is not just aesthetically pleasing but it also assists in conveying the image that the client wants to portray through their work.
Pages:
When Susan’s work was being finalized we wanted to ensure that every page was built with a purpose. We did not wish to crowd any of the pages. So the team carefully designed each and every page of the website to ensure that the work was well organized and the pages were only created to provide information that was most appropriate with the design and the client’s vision. The team made sure that each page that was designed for the client had a balance between pictures and text, allowing the client to publish her work on her site and showing her potential customers accurate representation of the work that needs to be done.
Each page that was designed for Susan was created after identifying a specific purpose and need of the client’s business. When creating the pages, Susan wanted us to create a page for blogs as well where she could write and connect with her potential clients and display the sort of environment that Susan is promoting. Susan really appreciated this page on her website as it allows her to showcase her true identity to the potential customers and creates a sense of family amongst her florist community. She also shares other information on her blog, e.g. Susan started this trend of having a signature cake for her workshops and she decided that a rose cake would be the perfect idea as it would simultaneously serve as a symbol of the work that these people learn in the workshop. These blogs allow our client to make potential buyers understand what sort of workshops she is conducting and how these workshops play out. Every major category of work that Susan is doing is separated into a different page to allow a clear picture of all the different possibilities that are available for her clients to choose from.
Features:
When creating Susan’s website, a feature that was incorporated was Woo Commerce. This open source ecommerce plug-in allowed Rose Cottage Floristry to offer seat bookings for workshops on the website. This way the potential attendees could easily book a seat in the workshop that they were interested in. Solaris Technologies made sure that the website was easy to navigate and attractive for the potential customers. Another feature that was added was icon links of all the other accounts of Rose Cottage Floristry. This allowed the people who visited the website to also explore all the other accounts of the company and view their work and the environment created by Rose Cottage Floristry.
Gallery:
We also added a gallery for our client so that she could share the arrangements that she had created over the past few workshops. This was really helpful for our client as Susan really enjoyed the freedom to display all her work and share her passion with all these new people who are exploring the art of floristry. This also adds a lot of color to the website and brings more life to the website with the added colors and vibrancy.
In a work domain like Susan’s Rose Cottage Floristry, visual content plays a huge role as people are very interested to know the work that has been done and the sort of work that is being taught at these workshops. Research also backs this statement as it proves that human beings retain visual images and video content a lot longer than they retain text. Susan already understood this concept and she had collected many pictures of her work over time which helped us and our client to thoroughly go through the available content and pick out the most desirable pictures for her website. We added pictures that showed an array of techniques and styles to the potential attendee so that they could better understand the very vast range of available techniques that they will be able to learn and implement.
A lot of our client’s attendees are florists or décor managers so they were appeased to realize that the workshop taught more than the basics. Susan even divided her workshops to target different attendee groups e.g. she offers a workshop that focuses solely on wedding arrangements so that event decorators or people looking to decorate a wedding on their own can benefit from this workshop. These pictures also assist in making people realize how many different sorts of arrangements are possible and educates them about floristry. This brings our client pure joy that she is helping to make people aware of the domain of work that she is personally invested in.
CONCLUSION:
Susan has always been a dear client to Solaris Technologies. The team at Solaris Technologies has always considered her as a part of the extended Solaris Technologies family. When we created her website for her and showed her the work that was being completed, Susan was in awe of the final product! It was a moment filled with joy and satisfaction as our client scrolled through the web pages and admired the way all her efforts and work were displayed across the website. Susan loved the work that was created for her. When asked her views and feedback on the completed work, she responded by saying:
“I initially hired Solaris Technologies to make changes to my website. Their technical knowledge, expertise and ideas are second to none. Having worked with Solaris Technologies over the past 4 years, they have been invaluable by developing a brand new website for my business. I receive many positive comments about it from workshop attendees who have booked via my website. It is a pleasure and a joy to work with Solaris Technologies, they respond to messages super quickly and as well as doing what I request, they also have excellent and constructive ideas which I always incorporate. I recommend them very highly. Their work and communication is highly skilled and first class and they are friendly too and if I don’t understand something, they take time to explain it to me. My business is where it is today because of the website Solaris Technologies created”
We thoroughly enjoyed working with our client Susan on her Rose Cottage Floristry project over the years and we have always believed that she is now part of the Solaris Technologies family!
