“A wonderful way to get a beautiful website created quickly.” —Ana Serrano
“Such a simple and easy-to-use interface. You feel immediately that anyone can use it and come away with a beautifully designed site. This might just change everything for small web developers and designers!” —Kris Kiger
Overview: Historically, the website for Squarespace, a company that offers web hosting and do-it-yourself tools for site creation, had always been focused on showcasing features. The company wanted to take a new web approach to make the brand feel personable and more human, and there was no better way to do this than to put a spotlight on its customers. The redesign of the Squarespace site has three different components: a landing experience, a product tour that caters to different types of clients and a template selector that was re-conceived to be more effective.
• The redesign took a team of twelve people a total of three months to complete.
• CSS 3-D Transforms was used to improve the performance of animations.
• The site has won over 20 CSS and design awards since it launched.
Comments by David Lee:
Was the project part of a larger promotional campaign? “The new site is our company and product website as well as a platform for our first-ever advertising campaign. We wanted the site to be part of a seamless, holistic brand experience. Our ad spots were running online as well as in New York City taxis and subway stations. We were completely amazed by the fact that most of our buzz was created organically—the design community took notice, and we were a trending topic on Twitter the day we launched.”
What was the thinking behind the navigation structure? “The Squarespace design team conceptualized and prototyped a few different navigations before deciding on the current site design. The final version allows us to display several links as a group instead of scattering them across the page. It also works equally well on both desktop and mobile devices.”
How did this project compare with others you’ve worked on in the past? “Most of the work was done in-house, with help from our production partner JaegerSloan. We have a very DIY culture here in that most of us are doers. We take pride in creating things ourselves, and using our own products. The fact that we were our own clients was a key difference. The site is a labor of love—we’re constantly reviewing and chipping away at it. Some of it you might notice, some you might not. Our design team is known for being meticulous and extremely detail-oriented, so there are ongoing improvements on a daily basis as well as new features such as landing pages for different personas.”
