IM Creator websites

Meet Shaun and Tracy Weibe from Alberta, Canada. Husband and wife with a shared love for photography who decided to make their hobby into a family business and have been working together for 5 years now.

We asked them if they could tell us a little more about their new and beautifully designed site loveandbeloved.ca.

Having had a cookie cutter template website for many years, it was time to think outside the box and design something that was unique. When we started the process of designing our site, we wanted something that would represent who we are as a couple, as individuals, as well as the passion we have for what we do as photographers. We wanted our website and our brand to be fun, romantic, and candid so everything chosen for our site was based around those words. We were in the process of designing a website with a different website builder when a friend introduced us to IM Creator. From the moment we first tried it we knew it was a perfect fit for us. IM Creator is amazing!! From start to finish our website only took about a month to create and perfect. We had a design in mind going in, and IM Creator made it incredibly easy to make that design dream a reality. Shaun and Tracy used many of IM’s features when creating their site. When thinking of their site’s menu, Shaun and Tracy used IM’s option to build their own menu. This option allowed them to link their blog (built on Blogger) to the Blog menu tab.

We would definitely recommend doing an inspiration board before your design your website. Make a photo collage of everything that you love and that inspires you (fonts, colors, textures, design elements, materials, etc). You will be amazed at how everything just seems to fall into place after that.

Antoniya Kuneva studied graphic design and created her site mygreengifts.org on IM Creator as part of her studies. Her site is built as a one page site, using different backgrounds to separate the sections of the site. 

We wanted to hear a little more about her sustainability project and how it came to life.

 

The website is part of my Final Major Project at University, where I had the chance to promote something I really care about – sustainability. I graduated this summer but will continue to update the website and improve it by adding new information and DIY gift tutorials.

My project included a series of posters in a pack which aim to encourage a change in our attitude towards presents. The posters were just a call for action so that the viewer can go onto the MyGreenGifts web site and find out more. 

The palette was inspired by nature and so the dominant colours are green and earthy cream. Each section has an illustration which fits in with the type of gift it talks about. Both the logo and the drawings are in the DIY spirit which I try to encourage when it comes to gift giving. It can be very frustrating to wait for different web pages to load, especially when you are not sure what you are looking for.

The “scroll to element” feature at IM works perfectly because the viewer can scroll back and fourth to compare different gift ideas or just go straight onto their desired section without having to re-load the page. 

Paul Barugh is a 29 year old graphic designer living in London UK. We recently chatted with him about his website, paulbarugh.com, built with IM.

We chose to put a spotlight on his website as it is, other than showcasing his graphic work in a terrific and vivid way, designed in a very unique way.

Can you tell us a little bit about you and your site? 

I left university in 2010 with a fine arts degree and quickly came to realize that I was not able to compete with the qualifications that I gained from my courses.

From 2010 to 2012, I was working odd jobs in call-centers and started thinking of ways in which I could pursue my love of art and design. I’d always been aware of graphic design, but never really understood what it involved and how I could find work in that field. 

Late in 2012, I began learning Illustrator using Lynda tutorials while competing on freelancer websites to design logos. It’s something I’d recommend to every prospective designer as this taught me a lot about design principles and meeting a client’s expectations, while helping grasp the limitations of the software at the same time.

From there I moved onto more demanding briefs and began learning other software packages such as InDesign and Flash, while expanding my range of expertise by designing websites, POS packaging, print etc. Always moving forward and setting up the next challenge. I kept myself focused by looking at designers from around the world – comparing my work with theirs and making sure that I always had something to aim for.

What inspired your website design and what was the process of building a site like?

In 2013, I began to feel more confident about my abilities as a designer and started thinking seriously about finding work as one full-time for a studio or in-house design team – This is when I found myself needing a website.

I started off this process by finding out how difficult it would be to design and build my own site – it turned out to be very difficult indeed. Instead, I looked at a few different sites that offer templates instead and ended up choosing IM Creator.

I choose to start with a template even though I wanted my own design, this allowed me to familiarize myself with the functions of the service. Over the next 3 months, I slowly built my website with no specific idea in mind, other than it being simple to navigate and easy to use, with as much information on as few pages as possible.

It took a long time before I was happy with the aesthetic of the site. I knew I wanted it to have a stone effect and wanted a pastel color scheme, but the layout and execution took some experimentation. The site never really came together until I designed my own logo (this comes highly recommended). Not only was it fun, but really looks unique and professional when given the appropriate amount of attention.

My website is a portfolio – this means that it had no rules in regards to function, layout or aesthetic. It reflects who I am as a designer and this meant I had to think very carefully about everything that was used to build the site.