Sarah Teresa Cook
Creative coach
Sarah is a creative coach and mentor helping neurodivergent writers and artists reconnect with their creativity through trauma informed and strengths based support.
Challenge
Sarah came to me at her five year business anniversary, ready to hand her website over to a Squarespace specialist. A poet, essayist and creativity coach with a rich creative vision, she had reached a point where her business had grown and evolved, and she wanted her website to reflect this. She wanted a site that reflected the depth and personality of her work, and the thoughtful experience she creates for the people she works with.
She needed a website that:
Immediately introduced Sarah as the face of her business to give a warm welcome to visitors as soon as they landed on her website homepage.
Communicated her brand voice. Sarah wanted something poetic, warm and a little unconventional.
Gave visitors an immediate, felt sense of who she is and who she works with – considered and playful, reflecting the nature of the coaching she offers.
Approach
Sarah had a wealth of her own fantastic photography to draw on, much of it shot with soft, experimental lighting that already carried a nostalgic quality. Landscapes, nature, the ocean and quirky fairground scenes all featured. Bringing this photography into the new design meant the site's warmth and personality came directly from Sarah. We led with the photography and then wove in new elements to help tell the story of her work more confidently, more relationally and more creatively across the homepage and About page, while the Creative Coaching page was built from scratch.
Design tweaks and additions included:
90s nostalgia, a personal love of Sarah’s, brought to life through moving gradients and a new green added to the colour palette. The green and existing pink work beautifully together as complementary colours.
Layering scrapbook ‘bits’ (pressed flowers, bug tape, cut out shapes) and playful detail within a considered structure. These touches were designed to feel personal and a little unpolished in the best way, reflecting the creative, human nature of Sarah's coaching.
Editorial layout and designed sections, speaking to Sarah’s published works.
Animated elements to add to the sense of playfulness and creativity, sparking curiosity and interest for visitors.
"When I look at my new website, I feel the authenticity and precision of it in my body. I feel so captured and seen, and there's something so accurate and expansive about what's been created.
Ali's ability to make stunning, elegant websites, and in my case, capture something that feels weird, poetic and a little nostalgic, shows just how broad her expertise really is. She has an impressive ability to meet different clients with different needs, desires and types of businesses. I'd recommend her in a heartbeat."
– Sarah Teresa Cook, creative coach and mentor
Solution
This project was about giving Sarah a website that matched the depth of her work and felt true to her voice, communicating her personality and her particular way of seeing the world.
For the writers and artists landing on Sarah's website for the first time, it's about sparking a feeling of recognition and piquing their curiosity, giving them a sense that this might be for them, and a little excitement and hope alongside it, making them more likely to take the next step and book in for an initial consultation.
Within a week of announcing her refreshed site, Sarah shared that a potential new client had told her during a consultation that when she saw Sarah's website, she felt so excited and knew she would love working with her.
Sarah shared this with me: “ALI!!! Isn't that amazing??? I take that as such immediate assurance that the new website is working. I just had to let you know.”
And there's an even better part to this story: the new client went on to book Sarah. She had also spoken to two other providers, so Sarah was especially pleased to have been the one she picked.
This is exactly what I want a website to do: make the right people feel excited or hopeful about the idea of working with you. And this is always my intention when I am working with a client on their website. Find out more about my Squarespace website design service and Half Day Squarespace Intensives.