Today we* launched a brand new website for the fantastic commercial & food photographer Huw Jones.

Huw is a friend of mine so this website was a bit of a labour of love between us and probably strayed a little from the more exact project delivery path than normal – and no, this is not just a way of saying “it took ages to finish it”

In the beginning…

I’ve been working with Huw for over a year and we’ve been looking at how Internet Strategy can help his online presence; Huw was already running an excellent blog to showcase his images etc so it was really a matter of opening up new avenues to let Huw’s excellent work shine through.

Twitter

A first move was getting him on Twitter, something which was a bit alien at first (as it is to all folks) but he was soon up and running, in fact, Huw now says:

I can’t believe how well an integrated social media strategy has benefited my studio. The key words are “Integrated and Strategy” – with lots of help from Joel I’ve managed to achieve a clear approach to social media which is effective and fun without taking up much time. The financial rewards have exceeded other far more costly forms of advertising and by simply tweaking my workflow model the effort required is minimal.

As a big iPhone user I’ve also encouraged Huw to use other image friendly services such as the Instagram (which Apple have just named the iPhone App of the Year) . With many businesses and professionals, the battle is working out how to best get their message out there; with photographers this is an easy question to answer but you’ve still got to do the hard work to get the content into the right channels in the first place.

The Website

There was an existing website (you’ll need to login with the username “client” and a password of “testing123“).  As you can see the old website was very pretty, not a monster at all, but the time had come to start with a blank canvas.

Now one of the reasons for the redesign was there is a lot of things which go on under the surface of websites and this under the surface stuff can have a big affect on users & Google (it’s a bit geeky for this blog, I may put something on http://www.joelhughes.com/).

By starting from a blank canvas we could put the paints & pots to one side for a while and have a good mull over his target audience and what they want; after all, a website is more about their needs than yours.

This then led to an agreed structure for the website; a structure designed so that it was easy to navigate for the target audience but, at the same time, as appealing to Google as possible. If you’re going to have to put new foundations down then you may as well put in good ones!

After the structure (or blueprint if you prefer) is agreed then it is paint and pots time; get the design going (I didn’t design this one, I have a team of trusted freelancers who have worked with me for many years). This is an iterative process to make sure the client is on-board and happy as the project progresses.

Imagery

A killer aspect for Huw obviously is that we wish to get his fantastic imagery blaring out on his homepage. Hopefully you can see that we’ve achieved that and, further more, we’ve tried to highlight the categories within which Huw operates. This also highlights what Huw does NOT do (e.g. weddings).

Something I’m always keen on (but client’s rarely are!) is that, if it’s appropriate to their business, they need to be featured on the website. After all, people buy from people. Huw, like a lot of photographers, is his own man and, therefore, if you’re going to work him, you’re going to have to buy into him at some point – we may as well start that process off on the website.

The Studio

Another key element to raise was that Huw has a large and well equipped studio – and even has a kitchen – this really sets the stall out for who Huw works with. Quality restaurants, food producers, agencies etc – he’s not just any old Tom, Dick & Harry with a Canon.

The Future

During the development of the website many new ideas came up and we’ll be looking at brining some of those out in 2012. After all, a website is not just for Christmas

Want to visit his new website?

Joel

*I say we because, as usual with Jojet projects, there are a few folks involved – all contributing their unique skills.