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We continue with our “throwbacks” this month, as we are celebrating our 9th birthday, and today we are reviewing our website design and the transformation it underwent over the last (almost) decade! Naturally, we hope you learn one or two things from our journey.
Here we go!
If you are launching a small business.
You are so lucky that you are doing it now in 2017! There are so many amazing tools to help you – from various website design options to marketing automation. When Cucumber was founded in 2008, there were not as many options available as now, as you can imagine, so our first website was a simple html done in Dreamweaver, from a template. You are better off finding a free WordPress template these days, but that was the best option back then, and it did the trick.
Ta-da!
WordPress first appeared in 2003, and by October 2009 the Open Source CMS MarketShare Report concluded that WordPress enjoyed the greatest brand strength of any open-source content management system. As of February 2017, WordPress is used by 58.7% of all the websites whose content management system is known. This is 27.5% of the top 10 million websites.
When to upgrade your website.
We get this question often – when will I need to upgrade my website – how long should a website design “last”, so to speak? First of all, it depends on your industry, and the purpose your website serves your customers (and of course, your marketing budget). Generally speaking (unless you are a marketing agency 😉 your website should last about 3-5 years. That’s if your website is for informational purposes and your business doesn’t change code brand positioning or services you are offering. If your branding is being refreshed, naturally, that’s a good time to revamp your website as well. If you are in a fashion industry, e-commerce or any trendy, fast-paced type of industry, then, you would be needing small changes to your website on a more-often, regular basis.
Here’s our website 2.0, which we were very proud of. This was our first attempt at branding ourselves (officially) – bringing consistency to the look and feel of all of our marketing and branding materials. As you can see – very consistent, and very pink. 🙂
Our first WordPress website circa 2010.
Our 2013 update
This is when we decided that our website should have a natural look and refreshing look – hence the craft paper background. Switching to Helvetica sure was a calculated move to make the site look much cooler. The trend was to have big bold headings and lots of “white space”, which was craft paper in our case, of course.
Our 2014 update
Making it easy for clients to understand which services we offer was still our priority. We wanted to make sure that there’s an easy way to contact us, too. Social media buttons are, naturally, front and centre still – pointing out that we are social indeed. Big header images were hot in 2014, and we had them on each page.
Our 2015 update
Getting closer to the current chill look – there’s no more shouting. We are more confident in the simplicity of our own brand, without the need to convince our clients or “try too hard”.
Phew!
As you can see, and as silly as they look now, each design was a great representation of our own exploration of the brand as well as the trends in design. Why not check out our current website to see how much we’ve changed over the last 9 years.
If you are thinking about updating your website design, you’ll be pleased to hear we are doing free website audits every Wednesday during October! If you’re interested, make sure to register, but be warned, the audits will take place live! Or if you want to chat about website design in a less public arena, give us a call or pop by our Vancouver marketing agency office – we always have chocolate!