Cheryl is an EMDR Therapist with a specialty in treating fellow healthcare providers and first responders. Her work is important and powerful and she needed a website to establish her presence and allow her to reach as many people as possible that could benefit from her help.

Why she chose to hire a professional

Originally, Cheryl planned on DIY-ing her website and started with a template. However, after spending a bit of time on it she found that as a busy professional, DIY was not the best option for her, and that’s when she contacted me.

Her Brand

Cheryl wanted her brand to align with her professional and personal values and be welcoming to both current of future clients.

Brand Values:

• Trust

• Credibility

• Empowerment

• Confident

Brand Personality:

• Calm

• Trustworthy

• Safe

• Expert

Color Palette

Using these key descriptors, along with other inspiration and the professional photos Cheryl provided, I developed a color palette. The palette, shown here, pulls from the soothing colors present throughout her photos. Evoking a sense of serenity that comes from nature as well as aligning with Cheryl’s personal aesthetic.

Logo

While not originally planned, we decided to develop a logo for her as well. Again, it was very important to Cheryl that her logo capture her personality and individuality, but also her professionalism.

To do this I used a handwriting style script font in the lavender color she loved for her name and made it much larger than the other elements so it stood out. Her name is her brand after all!

Below that, I chose a more traditional and professional style serif font to list her credentials using the dark charcoal color.

Finally, I added a lotus icon that incorporates and eye within it. During our discussions, Cheryl expressed an affinity for the lotus flower and her tagline is ‘Eye on Healing’. She also is a yoga teacher and incorporates that into her therapy work.

Adding this icon was a nice way to subtly incorporate those unique factors in a way that resonated with her.

This was a fun add-on to the project that I really enjoyed creating for her!

The Website

Once we had her branding nailed down, it was time to move on to designing and building the website.

Cheryl had some key requirements for her website:

• Needed to speak to both fellow healers in the healthcare space as well as the general public.

• Wanted to highlight EMDR Intensives in her services.

• Must connect to her third-party client/patient portal for scheduling.

• Provide a space for educational resources for professionals and laypeople.

The Structure:

With this in mind, I designed the site with seven main pages.

1. Home page: Flows with a welcome video, into high-level overviews of EMDR and her services as they pertain to each audience. Calls to action (CTAs) designed to lead visitors to the right page or action for them. A carousel of testimonials closes out the page.

2. What is EMDR? page: To provide background and education about EMDR and EMDR Intensives.

3. EMDR for Healers: A service page speaking directly to the healthcare professional population. Including a short video from Cheryl speaking to them personally. Buttons allow visitors to book a consultation or contact her with questions.

4. EMDR for Everyone: A second service page with copy aligned to the general public.

5. Resources page: A place for Cheryl to offer links to educational & informational resources

6. About page: A in depth introduction to Cheryl and her experience. Also included a section speaking directly to her humanitarian work.

7. Contact page: A standard contact page to allow visitors to email her directly.

I also set up the footer of her site to highlight her credentials, allow a space for people to sign up for her newsletter, and also a search bar.

Finally, I created SEO Titles and descriptions for the site and each of it’s pages utilizing keywords Cheryl provided.

The Design:

Knowing the general structure of the page and the copy to be included, I then moved on to design. The main factors influencing the design were:

• Must flow smoothly from one element to the next.

• Customer journey must be clear and easy to follow

• Visually appealing, but minimal so as not to overwhelm visitors. Balance image and copy with use of color.

Elements used to achieve the design:

• Alternated the color of key sections, but limited those colors to white a blue primarily

• When attention or highlighting was needed, a different color background would be used that stood out.

• Used dividers between sections. A simple wave style on the home page to evoke the calming waters represented in the banner image. A subtle downward point on other pages to direct visitors eyes to the next section.

• Intentional bolding or underlining of text to highlight key points and allow for skimming.

• Accordion blocks:

Cheryl had a wealth of information and resources to share. To allow for the volume of content balanced with a clean and uncluttered design, I utilized accordion blocks in several places. These blocks operate like drop-downs so content can be shown at a rolled-up organized level and drilled down to reveal details.

I used these for FAQs, the What is EMDR page, and for the details of her services as shown below:

• Custom CSS - Announcement bar.

  Everything in Cheryl’s site was designed using ‘out-of-the-box’ options. However, there was one small section where I added one line of custom code.

  Cheryl wanted a prominent and permanent spot to the top of her site that provided existing patients a place to click through to log in to her patient portal.

  To achieve this, we utilized the standard announcement bar and linked it to her portal, but then customized it with code to remove the standard ‘X’ that normally appears and allows users to close out the bar. This way the bar will remain.

  This is the result:

The Final Result

At the close of our time on this project, Cheryl had a fully functional website that met her needs and brought her vision to reality.

“You have such amazing insight married with a creative flair for bringing my vision to fruition! I would do it all again if I had another business to launch!” - Cheryl

As a designer, nothing make me happier than a client’s excitement to share their website with the world and Cheryl’s eagerness to launch her site and share with her colleagues and clients was no exception.

It was an honor to help Cheryl share her expertise and passion to help so many people impacted by trauma events.

To see the main pages of her website please visit the gallery below:

Liked what you see? What to Know More?

If you’re thinking about building a website from scratch or re-designing an existing site, I’d love to be of service. Please visit my services page to see how we could work together and book a free consultation call!