Case Study: AK Lonski Photography
A few months ago, I had the pleasure of working with Amber Lonski, owner of AK Lonski Photography. Amber is an Arizona based wedding photographer who captures organic moments in adventurous settings.
Amber’s business is so much more than wedding photography.
She telLs love stories
Through her photography, Amber captures memories and major milestones for couples as they grow together. She builds stellar relationships with her clients and they choose her to document their love stories. Amber shoots engagements, weddings, maternity and family portraits.
Branding for AK Lonski Photography
I took inspiration from Amber’s Pinterest boards, along with her own photography to design her brand aesthetic. Since Amber’s photos need to be the star of her site, I chose elements that would compliment her work and not overpower it.
She described her brides as warm, earthy, and a little boho, so I chose warm peach and a blush as her main colors. Her accent colors are an earthy olive, sandy beige, and a grayish blue. I typically stay away from pure black when designing, so I used a very dark brown to complete AK Lonski’s color palette.
Choosing the palette for this project went beyond intentional brand strategy. All of the colors were sampled directly from Amber’s destination wedding shots. Not only can you feel the natural beauty of Arizona in them, the colors also embody the clients persona that she works with.
Amber absolutely adores shooting fun couples that are in love.
For typography, I chose two fonts that were very different from each other, but paired together beautifully.
The serif font, Playfair Display, has a strong and slightly elevated feel to it. Rustling Sound’s script font is feminine, playful, and romantic. The two fonts, like her couples, seem to just go perfectly together. Like an everlasting love, the font styles were carefully chosen to be timeless instead of following a fleeting trend.
Website Design
Amber’s original site was created on Squarespace. Since we were re-designing her entire website from scratch, I built the new site on Showit. I love Showit because it gives you the freedom to create a truly custom site. Showit also allows you to design a beautiful mobile site. This is nice because most platforms take your desktop site and compress it to fit on a smaller screen. If you’re interested in learning more about Showit, read this post.
Home Page Design
You only have a couple seconds to grab the attention of someone online.
On AK Lonski Photography’s home page, I wanted to place the focus on exactly what Amber does and who she is. Some of the text was shortened and buttons were added to direct the reader to other pages.
Reviews are crucial for web based businesses. Amber had a plugin that imported her Yelp reviews, but it didn’t flow with the look and feel of her site. I gathered a few client testimonials and created a custom banner for her home page.
We decided that Amber needed only a few main pages, so her navigation menu was simplified. Her blog and portfolio were essentially the same thing, so the two were combined into “Galleries”.
Plugins occasionally cause site issues, so I recommend using some of your best instagram photos and linking to your social accounts instead. Since Amber is very active on Instagram, I included this area on the bottom of every page of her site to help grow her following.
About Page Design
The about page is where potential clients learn a little more about the woman behind the lens.
Amber wrote a short bio and we added a photo of her with her family for a personal touch.
Just like the other pages throughout her site, you are guided to take some sort of action. Here you can book your session or view more of her work.
Services & Pricing Page
The pricing and services page is probably the most important page, aside from the portfolio, on AK Lonski’s website. I felt there was a lot of room to expand and improve this page to increase conversions.
The imagery on her original site design only showed the wedding photos of one couple. Although she mentioned the other services she offers, there were no photos to grab your attention.
On the redesigned page, each service was highlighted with supporting photography. I chose photos of different couples to not only show off Amber’s work, but to build trust with potential clients.
Amber’s new service page immediately lets you know that she is amazing at what she does and has lots of experience.
Contact Page
The contact page was kept simple and Amber receives an email when a client submits the contact form. This solution meets her current needs, but the framework is in place if Amber decides to add direct appointment scheduling in the future.
Amber’s website turned out gorgeous and she was thrilled with the finished design. I’m so excited for her and I can’t wait to hear how the new look affects her growing business.
