Client Website Launch: Photography by Bonnie

I met Bonnie McCann of Photography by Bonnie a long time ago through the Digital Painting Forum. She lives in paradise in Kaneohe, HI which is literally a hop, skip and a jump from Honolulu. Given her location, Bonnie does a lot of tropical themed art and her photography ranges through nautical, aquatic, tropical and cultural themes. Stunning work – in fact, so stunning that she recently won the Grand Prize in the Artful Home’s 2008 Portfolio Competition!

In conjunction with her accomplishments, Bonnie decided it was time to toss out the old Flash template website she had been using in favor of a more classy and elegant interface that she could update quickly and easily and also included a blog and shopping cart system to sell her products online. In her list of requests for the new look was the light cyan that makes an appearance as the main content background color, a slight tropical feel (but remaining elegant) and to keep things as open as possible.

The Color Choices

The first step in the process was to pick a color scheme that would flow well with the light cyan. In the end, I chose a lime green as an accent color and a dark, rich brown reminiscent of coconuts, coffee, cocoa and a dark, rich wood to anchor the header and footer of the site amidst all the cyan and aquas. To continue with the tropical color scheme, I chose one of Bonnie’s portrait paintings taken on the beach to draw some color inspiration for the background. The result brings in hints of the color of sunshine hitting the waves and also of waves washing over the beach.

A Little More Tropical

To add just a little more tropical flair, but still staying elegant, Bonnie needed a new logo, which comes in one form for her site and two alternate, but very similar forms for her product packaging and printed materials. I added a small flower motif for the final touch. Here is the main logo:

Pulling It All Together

With the new colors, logo and website layout in hand I created two matching templates for the two pieces of software that make up Bonnie’s site – the main content management system and the shopping cart. While the two parts of the site are separate, they flow like one single piece and the end result accomplishes all of the goals Bonnie had set for her new site.

She has been a joy to work with and I look forward to continuing to work with her and watching her art grow and evolve as time passes.