High Five Properties

Design Work, Recent Work, Responsive, Website Redesign

High Five Properties

Rebranding | Website Redesign | Graphic Design

High Five Properties has been a local Portland property management and real estate business since the 1990’s. Their brand is fun, personal, energetic and very much crafted for the free spirit that Portland, Oregon is known for. As a result, their website design needed a fast and reliable UI for both its admin and users, and the website needed to reflect the bubbly attitude of its owners and personable quality of the brand. This website design mixes a clean and friendly environment with bright splashes of colors in order to capture the professional nature of the company and the exuberance of the Portland community. The design of the site is neat and places importance more on the homes being sold and rented, but still uses the creative artwork and colors of Tim Root (the artist of choice for High Five Properties) which makes the experience playful and memorable. By making some smart changes in UI, theme and CMS research, AI and client feedback a strong new brand and website have emerged that reflects who they are in essence.

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Design Process

Take a look at some of the process.

Design Ideation

The main objective of this site was to make shopping for a new home enjoyable. Lisa, High Five Properties owner, has been thinking about her site for a while and gave pretty clear expectations of her design expectations as well as what she wanted the site to accomplish for its users. I began the process of mapping out the key parts of the site by taking in the owner’s needs, looking at other similar sites and also by discussing website experiences with recent home buyers and people who were currently looking for an apartment to create an informal user journey map.

Wireframes

The site architecture for this site was pretty straight forward after researching similar sites and really looking at what the business and consumer needed. The site needed to convey trust and an established practice without seeming to be overly stuffy. To quote the business owner “I don’t want it to look or feel corporate.” Users wanted to be able to search for specific properties using filters, contact the business and download an application contact form. The site map, pictured above, laid out how to use the business’s then current information and showed future plans to expand the site to do more for both the business owner and front-end users. The wireframes give a preview of placement of sections on the site and showed how things would link up according to the site map.

Visual Design

High Five Properties came with a wealth of home images and original artwork by Tim Root, local artist, however they seemed to not flow together. The first challenge of the project was to incorporate the feel of the artwork into the brand of the business. During the branding of High Five Properties logo, type, color scheme, etc. were set up. The elements were then incorporated into the front-end of the site’s user interface.

Design Ideation

Wireframes

Visual Design

High Five Properties came with a wealth of home images and original artwork by Tim Root, local artist, however they seemed to not flow together. The first challenge of the project was to incorporate the feel of the artwork into the brand of the business. During the branding of High Five Properties logo, type, color scheme, etc.f were set up. The elements were then incorporated into the front-end of the site’s user interface.

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Rose City Yarn Crawl

Design Work, Recent Work, Responsive, Website Redesign

rcyc-showing-different-platforms--website

Rose City Yarn Crawl

Website Redesign | Graphic Design | Wire Frames | Responsive Design

The Rose City Yarn Crawl has been a local Portland experience for almost a decade. It is a vibrant celebration by and for local knitting and crocheting enthusiasts. The RCYC’s brand is quirky, enthusiastc, and very much patterned around a tight-knit community for Portland’s fiber enthusiasts. As a result, their website design needed a quick loading UI for both its admin and users to help navigate the RCYC’s sites and events. This website design mixes a clean and open-feeling environment with squiggle lines of bright blues in order to capture the playful nature of the local knitting stores and bubbly busy owners involved in the events. The design of the site is neat and places importance more on the patterns being sold at each location, the events at each location and how to participate in the Rose City Yarn Crawl. In a collaborative effort with Sirius Media LLC, Avocational Design helped design wire frames, visual design proofs, and site maps that lead to a website that reflects the unwavering enthusiasm of the Rose City’s crafty knitting experience that is Rose City Yarn Crawl.

Check Out Rose City Yarn Crawl

Design Process

Take a look at some of the process.

Design Ideation

While brainstorming the informational architecture of the site, it was important to consider the flow of the user’s experience. Luckily, we had been able to meet with multiple members of the Rose City Yarn Crawl board and local knitters that had used the site in the past- we focused on the user’s journey from actual people that used the site. The image above is a glance at one of the iterations of the simple site-map layouts.

Wireframes

Some key project requirements were that site front-end users (people using the site for information and purchasing products) and site content-contributors (Rose City Yarn Crawl committee/board members) could use the site on multiple platforms and be able to quickly look up site content. The wireframes were created to demonstrate how the site map would flow for both kinds of users. The system was designed to flow from one venue and event to the next, so that each venue would be equally represented and events and patterns for purchase at each venue would be easy to find.

Visual Design

The Rose City Yarn Crawl provided us with their logo, a large library of professional knit and crochet pattern images, and inspirational website examples for us to gain design cues from. We worked with the committee to come up with the rest of the design elements. We considered how each color, transition, type, etc would contribute or detract from the UI of the site, the design preferences of the committee, and the site’s ease of use.

We went through multiple rounds of visual design development before arriving at the final design choice. The ultimate goal was to make sure that the site was responsive, easy to move through, and consistent in its design. We came up with a site that features event calendars to easily add and share events, interactive maps, slideshows showcasing knitting and crocheting images, incorporated ecommerce, and an interactive patterns page.

Visual Design

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CHIFOO 2017 Graphics & Brochure

Design Work, Portfolio, Recent Work

CHIFOO 2017

Print Design | Graphic Design | Website Graphics | Illustrator Images | Brochure

Avocational Design created the graphics for CHIFOO’s 2017 Speaker Series, “Thriving in Chaos”.

The designs for the layout, accompanying images, color scheme, the brochure and concept were modeled after the speaker series was compiled by CHIFOO’s Program Chair. We also completed the accompanying web content, images and social media copy for CHIFOO’s 2017 Speaker Series.

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Graphic Design

Take a look at some of the speaker series images.

Website and Print Graphics

SVG images were created for the 2017 speaker series based upon images sent in from each speaker and created with Adobe Illustrator. All coloring for the images was pulled from the CHIFOO brand identity elements. All images needed to work for both the series brochure and the website.

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Thom Larkin Photography

Design Work, Testimonial

Thom Larkin Photography

Brand | Logo

“Kathryn did a great job designing a logo for my photography business. I was very pleased with the multiple designs and options that Kathryn offered and she was very receptive to creative feedback. I’m confident in recommending her to others.”

Thom Larkin (Portland Photographer)

Designed Thom Larkin Logo, 2013

Artifact: Creative Recycle Advertisements & Branding

Portfolio

Artifact: Creative Recycle

Avocational Design’s owner, Kathryn Kupunihi, worked diligently with Artifact: Creative Recycle’s owner, Leah Meijer, to help plan events, advertising, signage, social media campaigns, build retail displays, and build off of the lovely logo that Joella Livesey created. The whole experience involved getting to work with amazing people, getting to build fanciful displays, take tons of crafty images, and having a blast with fashion. It was this whirlwind of creative ideas, events, and people that helped inspire and usher Avocational Design into being. It was a blessing.

Artifact Testimonial

Design Deliverables

Take a look.

Print Advertisement

Display setups and photography for the weekly fashion adverts were completed in-store. Photography, InDesign layouts, and photo manipulation were completed by Avocational Design.

Original Photo and Image Manipulation of Weirdo Cult/ Grand Opening Print/Web Image by Sydney Fox of Sydney Fox Photography.

Working on your branding? Need photos, social media or branding help? Send us a DM.

Social Media Branding

Setup and photography for the weekly adverts and social media campaigns were completed in-store. Photography, InDesign template, and photo manipulation were completed by Avocational Design.

Social Media Branding

Setup and photography for the weekly adverts and social media campaigns were completed in-store. Photography, InDesign template, and photo manipulation were completed by Avocational Design.

Advertising Displays

Completed a display for Artifact: Creative Recycle’s US Bank neighborhood business spotlight. Amazing what a little spray mount, some plotted prints, and a trip to the Rebuild Center will create.

Working on displays can be tough, especially on a budget. Let Avocational Design help meet your needs.

Image Manipulation

The original photo was missing half of the rug and a bag. It also had many other unwanted objects in frame; boots, plants and background wall were eventually erased from the image. Additionally, the color was intensified, certain parts of the source photo were lightened and boots and graphics were added to finish off this image manipulation.

Original Photo: Fabio Prieto & Leah Meijer

Model: Halla Williamson

Forgot to move that plant out of the shot? Not a problem- Avocational Design can help clean up photography issues.

Image Manipulation

Original Photo: Fabio Prieto & Leah Meijer

Model: Halla Williamson

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