Michael Graf’x Photography Website Project

Justin Gahring, Rachel Dotson, Shelby Robinson, Keely Jabloner

Professor Kastner

December 1st, 2015

Staci Sulhoff is an extremely talented photographer out of the North Georgia region. Her

passion for photography started when she was only eight years old and has only grown stronger

since then. Staci specializes in a variety of photography shoots including weddings, senior

photos, and sports. Even though her abilities for being able to capture the most memorable

moments are outstanding, her website required some improvements to match her talents. As a

team, we thought it would be best to use this opportunity to enhance Staci’s website.

We reached out to Staci to get her ideas and find out information on what she has

established for her photography website currently. After discussing with her we found out she

has two websites: Michael Grafx Photography and Staci Sulhoff Photography. Michael Grafx

Photography is incomplete while Staci Sulhoff Photography is newer and is still being worked

on. It is best to constructively critique both sites to understand the impacts and changes we made

to enhance her photography business.

Staci’s original site, Michael Grafx, was created with a dark background with three

squares for images to distinguish the different photo shoot categories. When the page is fully

loaded two of the three images are black missing pictures for the categories. The way it is

formatted makes users think that you would click on the square where the image is supposed to

be to browse through all of the pictures. However, users must actually click the words below the

images. Some of the words are cut off from being on the main screen for a laptop without having

to scroll. It is also important to note that Michael Grafx’s site is an unresponsive design making

pieces not easily viewable especially on mobile devices.

The site’s format is setup to have a menu on the left side of the page that is always there.

Menu options include home, portfolio, view your event, sitting tips, contact, and password. The

view your event button navigates you to a variety of shoots. The categorization of the images are

not put together in a manner that guides users to exactly what they hope to see. For instance, as

users scroll pictures of sports, senior photos, and weddings are altogether. Shoots have been

uploaded vertically so users continuously scroll to view more.

There is a call to action to “watch our videos” on the lower left of the homepage, but you

have to scroll down to view it unless users are on mobile devices. It directs users to another

website with a video Staci has prepared for customers to get a chance to see a quick compilation

of a lot of her work. Staci also has a unique way of allowing her previous clients to view their

entire photo shoots by clicking on the password option on the menu bar. Altogether, the content

of Staci’s photos are wonderful, but the website required some necessary adjustments.

The second website we spent time on was Staci Sulhoff Photography. A quick viewing of

this website and she had already made huge improvements for user friendliness, adding an

appealing design, and easily accessible information. However, this website is also incomplete

because we believe she is still working on fully developing it. This version of her photography

website is also great because it is highly responsive. If users decide to browse Stacie Sulhoff

Photography on their mobile devices it fits very well.

Staci Sulhoff Photography was created with a white background that completely focuses

user’s eyes on her photography. On the homepage there are three main photos that break her

business into three categories: photography, fine art, and graphic design. Photography directs

users to her photography from her shoots but has much less content of images than her old

website. The fine art category takes users to images of fine art that she has taken. Lastly, her

graphic design option showcases her previous graphic design artwork she has created. Every

page the site directs users leads to a simple design with specific paths customers are going to

take. This makes it very easy to navigate through as well as keeps users from continuously

scrolling. The visual design looks extremely neat, crisp, and clean.

        The menu bar is at the top of the website with four options: home, about, blog, and

contact. When users are on their mobile devices it allows the menu to be hidden and revealed

when ready to access. The about section allows for a drop-down menu giving customers the

opportunity to learn more about Staci and the chance to review her resume. If users select to

learn more about Staci, they will read great content with information all about her as well as find

out what she looks like. If users select to review her resume, they will get to view a beautifully

created resume with all of her background. With Staci’s photos, we wanted the users to see her

brilliant work with the current senior portraits, sporting events, and weddings. Even though she

used a wide array of photo variations, the user has access to see authentic colorful pictures to be

able to bring out the photos with the white background.

We decided to create a new website for Staci to showcase her work. Squarespace is a

designing website that has many tools to assist new website creators. It allows users the

capability of picking between templates, changing colors, adding calls to action, and really

everything a website would need.

The categories we kept for users to click between are: home, pricing, about, session tips,

blog, and contact. This website is responsive and shrinks the images that are placed on each page

for mobile devices. It also hides the categories to select for smaller devices. Each size of a device

will increase or decrease what is visible. On each page of the website we added a large image

from one of her photography shoots with wording on top of the image identifying what category

was selected. Altogether the site is extremely visually appealing with lots of white space but

strong beautiful pictures Staci has taken centered on the site. When users scroll below the main

image on all pages, there will be either three small circles with pictures or a small carousel

showcasing Staci’s work depending on the page selected. This new website was also designed

with the Z formation in mind.

The home page has a long banner at the very top that says “Click here to book your

session today!” The letters are in white and the block is black to hopefully draw user’s eyes.

Squarespace does have its limitations and we wanted to have a call to action on the large main

image on the homepage. However, we placed a button right below in a bright orange color for

the call to action. This call to action says “Book Now!” Both calls to action spots direct users to

the contact page to finalize a meeting with Staci.

When selecting a type of photography to browse, the pictures are sorted so that if users

are wanting to view sports they are only looking at sporty images and so on and so forth. The

images are in the carousel style to allow customers to go left and right instead of continuously

scrolling for more images.

We added the category of pricing to give users an idea of how much a session would cost.

Of course there is always customization and add-ons that can increase a photography session

cost, but the purpose is to give an idea of what the investment will be.

Another change we made was on the contact page. When users are interested in

contacting Staci, they will also learn the area she is located in so that might help in identifying if

someone wants to commit to a photography session.

Our group focused on making sure there is no website loading errors, there is images

plugged into necessary spots, and it is a visually appealing website. Between Staci’s two

websites she did not have calls to action or content in an organized manner. Having Staci’s

photos sorted together in a better way with plenty to browse through created a much more user-

friendly experience. Our site offered two calls to action on the homepage that will hopefully

drive users to set up photo sessions. Additionally, she did previously have a blog section on the

Staci Sulhoff Photography but with only one post. It would be great for her to keep it updated so

that future customers could learn more about her and her sessions. On our site we have a page

dedicated to her blog. Staci has a passion to also teach others and her plans for the blog is to

showcase highlights or the best images from the session and upload videos on “how-to’s” for

upcoming photographers. Each blog post would have links to a proofing gallery where clients

can see all the photos and order prints.

The social media plugins were an important aspect we wanted to integrate into each of

the pages. There is a Facebook link at the top of the homepage and on the bottom of every other

page. Connecting the site with her current social media will create a great linkage between her

online presences. Facebook will also generate more clients because there will be constant

updates of “sneak peeks” from her shoots. Since both sites are connected, users will end up in the

same places hopefully booking a new session or returning to book another session.

Staci Sulhoff does some amazing work and we wanted her photography skills to be very

well demonstrated through her website. If Staci continues to update the Staci Sulhoff

Photography website, we hope the improvements we made would be added to her site that is

already live.