case study
Melanie’s Custom Squarespace Website
Melanie Stoudt is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified EMDR Therapist. Through her private practice, Melanie helps adults impacted by trauma and those who feel “stuck” or limited by trauma in their life by providing EMDR Intensives.
Her guidance and training allows those who have experienced trauma to dedicate days, rather than months, to focus on their healing and growth. As a certified EMDR Therapist, Melanie is committed to empowering clients to experience freedom from past wounds and live presently to their full potential
Melanie believes that by offering EMDR intensives client’s are able to process specific traumatic moments and improve their emotional wellbeing more quickly versus having to revisit traumatic material week to week. The intensives provide targeted relief so that they can experience lasting change and freedom in their life.
Project Goals
Melanie had been running her therapy practice for over a decade and had been using the website she initially designed. The website reflected her practice when it began but did not reflect what it had transformed into.
She was ready for a website that:
Allowed her to raise her prices and a website that reflected her level of expertise and quality services
Attracted clients whose values aligned with hers as well as understanding the therapy process
Was easy for clients to read and navigate while remaining approachable and friendly
The Before
Before we started working together, Melanie had created a website but it was not a priority and did not reflect her practice.
Design Decisions
While curating the look and feel of the website through photography, colors, fonts, and textures our goal was to immerse the viewer into a naturistic point of view.
More specifically a macro/zoomed-in perspective to showcase how one might miss the broader details of life if you are too honed into a narrow point of view.
While this is purely abstract and not meant to be obvious, it can provide insight into seeing the smaller details of life versus the larger details of life and how one may miss out on moments if you are too narrow in your perspective and not balancing between points of view. Melanie’s goal in therapy intensives is to provide her clients the space and opportunity to zoom out for the larger perspective.
Color Palette & Texture
I chose a warm and earthy color palette to reflect Melanie’s approachable and friendly energy.
The combination of rusty red, blue green, and light orange is in reference to elements you would find in nature.
For the texture, I chose soft rice paper, which contrasts with the bold colors while reinforcing the natural theme of the design. Rice paper, often handmade from organic fibers, symbolizes a direct connection to the earth. Its delicate qualities evokes a sense of mindfulness and grounding, which resonates with the calming, nature-inspired elements we wanted to infuse into the site. Just as EMDR therapy helps clients reconnect with their inner selves, the organic texture of rice paper introduces a subtle harmony, softening the vibrant colors and creating a tranquil, welcoming atmosphere.
Curated Photography Library
While gathering the assets for Melanie’s website it was important to not only choose engaging and quality imagery, but find photos that were consistent with the new color palette. It’s important for the photography and other design assets to be able to either be isolated elements or cohesive groupings of photos etc. while remaining consistent to the rest of the website and brand.
Custom Fonts
The fonts utilized throughout the website play an important role in displaying tone without showing visuals. Typography has just as much of a personality, or lack of, as imagery, colors, and layout.
For Melanie’s website we used Gumani for the display to show a professional yet approachable look. Gumani utilizes rounded serifs that veer into a script look, while remaining modern and not being overly stuffy like a typical script font can feel. Montserrat is used as the body copy and button text to ensure legibility as the font becomes smaller. It is a simple, rounded, and friendly font that does not overly complicate or impose a personality.
Writing the Website
During our brand interview, Melanie and I talked about her current clients and what their typical journey has been up to this point in therapy, how she wanted to educate and arm her readers with information to learn about what EMDR is, and how she believes in the intensives approach so that her clients can be empowered and feel free from their trauma. With these building blocks I was able to take her existing copy and rearrange how it flowed, and fill in any gaps that may have been missing while retaining the vision Melanie had.
Through writing parts of the website I was able to craft a client journey of what to expect before, during, and after the intensive without creating the feeling of having to read through too much information. It was important to not overwhelm the reader and arm them with the most important aspects of what an intensive is. To address this, many of the sections are designed in a way that are only a few sentences long, or designed in a way where it clearly breaks the information up so that it is easy to skim as well as read through the entire page.
The Website
I brought together the colors, fonts, photography, textures, and copy to create a website that allowed readers to learn about Melanie’s service she offers in a seamless journey.
Show desktop thumbnail + mobile view + 1-2 full page layouts
In creating a clear path from learning about the service, to Melanie and her expertise, and submitting an inquiry, I ensured that the website aligned with her ideal clients that were a good fit for her therapy practice.
The completed website contains:
Custom Squarespace design with CSS
SEO foundations
Responsive design for different devices
Core Pages: homepage, EMDR intensives, about EMDR, consultation
"I couldn’t be happier with the experience of working with Alicia on my website. From the start, her openness to my ideas and her calm, steady demeanor made the entire process so much easier and enjoyable.”
“I came into the project wanting to raise my prices and have my website reflect the level of expertise and quality of service I provide, and Alicia completely understood that vision. The end result is a bold, professional site with beautiful imagery and a smooth, digestible flow of information that truly represents me and my practice.
Throughout the project, Alicia was receptive to my feedback, and open to changes, while also guiding me with her expertise on what would work best. Her ability to take my input and succinctly organize everything into a user-friendly, accessible design was amazing. The videos and updates she provided were invaluable, and I always felt involved and informed at every step. I also really appreciated her willingness to meet and brainstorm ideas, which made the collaborative process seamless.
The site has been a great success—I had a steady stream of inquiries before, and I continue to receive them now. I’m thrilled with how everything turned out, and I can confidently say the new website reflects the high quality of service I offer."
-Melanie Stoudt
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