Edit suite

What I was after

I wanted anyone landing on my site to understand straight away that I edit video. So I built it like an editing program: tabs were the pages, a timeline ran through the sections, a media panel held the projects and the home page was a viewer with its own transport controls. Dark theme, a single purple primary button, condensed headlines and a monospaced typeface for the labels.

Why I changed it

Over time I saw three problems.

• It looked like a control and wasn’t. Rulers, tracks, a “REC” label: decoration that imitated buttons and did nothing. If you don’t use editing software, it’s just jargon.
• Prices and contact were far away. You had to scroll a long way to reach what matters most to someone asking for a quote.
• Video took over the home page. Web design, the other half of what I do, came across as an extra.

What I kept

From the Edit suite I keep public prices and turnaround times, and one rule: if something looks like a button, it works (though I didn’t always stick to it there). The current site starts from there.

How it is now

I’ve left it archived as it was: it’s not indexed by search engines and the bar at the top links to the current site. So do its contact buttons, because that version’s prices are out of date.