Turn Our Boring, Corporate Looking Site Into a Creative Piece of Work
dowtrev needed a new web page design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 63 designs submitted by 15 freelance designers.
Some of the designers who made it happen
How dowtrev started their web page design journey
Who are you known as?
TeachPianoToday.com
Tell us a bit about who you are and the people you reach
We are looking to redesign our current site TeachPianoToday.com. Through our site, which is driven primarily by our blog, we share teaching tips, strategies and resources for piano teachers. We primarily serve a female audience between the ages of 25 and 65.
What industry do you think your business is most related to?
Existing website
teachpianotoday.com
What do you have in mind for the style and theme of the web page?
The redesign is long overdue. If you visit our current site you'll notice it has a very boring, corporate feel. It does not in any way reflect the creative and innovative content and piano teaching resources we produce.
We are looking for a complete redesign and want a designer who will excite us with a new and refreshing look. The current structure does not need to dictate the new layout.
This redesign will include a homepage redesign and an inner main blog page template redesign.
We have 4 main goals for this website redesign:
1. to create a site/blog where people connect with us personally... we are well known in the piano teaching community and it is important that the main page allows people to connect with this (one important aspect of this will be to feature our image prominently on the homepage... image file is attached)
2. to create a site/blog that reflects the fact that we are creative, fun people who are changing the face of piano lessons (if you visit the store on our site and check out some of our products you'll get an idea of the type of creativity we bring to the table). Our site should reflect our fresh, vibrant, fun approach to piano education.
3. to feature our blog posts more prominently on the main page. We are well known in our industry for our consistent and helpful blog posts... but on our current site the post snippets are not accompanied by an image and are a fairly small font size.
4. to maintain most of the content that is currently on our homepage. We have achieved great search rankings so much of the content on the homepage should remain (I will however be re-writing some of it... below I will include all content from the main homepage that should be included in the new design.
Page descriptions
Page #1 - The HomePage
1. number one priority for content placement should be an image of myself and my wife with the following call to action:
We make your life as a piano teacher easier Here's How! (this should be a button link)
2. second in priority is snippets of our 5 most recent blog posts with featured images. If you could work in the following content into this area that would be great:
If you are a new teacher wanting to know how to teach piano, or an experienced teacher wanting to expand your skills and your business, you’ll definitely want to check out the TPT blog to discover what's all the “piano teaching rage” these days!
3. somewhere early on in the design (for seo purposes) we'll need the following content.
If you are looking for piano teaching resources and ideas that are a little different... a little more exciting, then we think you’ll enjoy hanging out here. We have an awesome collection of piano teaching tips, and some really innovative piano teaching resources. Whether you are just learning how to teach piano, or you have been at it for years, there is something here for everyone. So have a look around… check out our piano teachers’ blog, and our unique piano teaching resources.
4. somewhere on the main page we'll want to a clear and creative graphic link to our store page. It does not have to be featured above the fold and should include the following content:
We create products that are modernizing the piano teaching world. Look no further for materials and resources you need to engage and retain students. Our unique online products are like nothing you will find on the shelves of your music store.
5. We would like an attractive footer that contains the quicklinks that are found at the bottom of our current page. There could also be other standard footer content like site pages, terms and conditions etc.
The Homepage will also need the following things:
1. A very cool and bold main menu that links to the following pages – Blog/ About/ Store/ Reviews. And a secondary header maybe at the top right of the screen for boring stuff like 'Home' and 'Contact'
2. Somewhere we would like to have links to special projects which would be: the “How To Teach Piano” series, the Teach Piano Today IdeaSwap, and the Teach Piano Today Podcast, WunderKeys Piano For Preschoolers, and one more we're still working on.
3. we would also like to prominently feature cool graphic links to facebook/twitter/pinterest/ and a subscribe button to our newsletter
4. towards the bottom of the page we'd like a bar that contains the text... Join over 9000 teachers who are changing the face of piano education. Subscribe Here
5. if it works with the design, we'd like header text with the slogan “we're obssessed with creating innovative piano teaching resources”
6. Of course our logo should also be featured in the header (see attached file)
7. Do not want a slider displaying recent posts... site needs to be fast!
Page #2 - Inner Page Template (ie. individual blog post)
It is important that this page includes a consistent header with the main page if possible. It should also be a 2 column layout with content on the left and sidebar on the right.
The sidebar and future widgets placed in the sidebar need to be visually appealing and consistent in their design. The sidebar should contain a graphic welcoming image of my wife and myself with a link to subscribe to our email list. The text in this subscribe box should be editable and should say... "We're the mad scientists of the piano world, testing innovative new strategies and sharing what works with you." Enter your email to subscribe.
The sidebar should also contain 5 recent posts with featured images, images of our products that will be linked to their sales page (see current site for products... we've included jpgs below)
It should also contain links to special projects which would be: the “How To Teach Piano” series, the Teach Piano Today IdeaSwap, and the Teach Piano Today Podcast, WunderKeys Piano For Preschoolers, and one more we're still working on.
It will also need a design for the comments area and a footer with subscribe bar like on the homepage.
What to avoid
a corporate feel
Other notes
Our new design should be one that will load quickly so while large images are OK we do not want it overloaded with cumbersome graphics.
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