A Website Redesign Just in Time for The New York Times

Oct 13

Most website projects involve a few weeks of planning, designing, revising, and fine-tuning before launch. This one had to happen in a day.

It all started when I ran into a good friend at an art show on Saturday. He mentioned that an article featuring his father-in-law's railroad photography and new book was scheduled to appear in The New York Times on Monday morning.

He and his wife, who helped create the book, had built a website themselves but knew it could use some improvements before the article went live.

After taking a look, I quickly realized that just a few adjustments weren't going to cut it. The website really needed a complete overhaul. Ha!

And I had less than 24 hours to make it happen.

When an Opportunity Comes with a Deadline

Getting featured in a major publication is exciting, especially when it's something as personal as a book that represents years of someone's work.

But there's another piece to consider. When readers become interested enough to click through to a website, what happens next?

Will they immediately understand what they're looking at? Can they easily find more information? If they're interested in buying the book, is that process straightforward?

Those were some of the things I was thinking about as I looked at Frank's website.

There wasn't time to rethink every little detail or explore multiple design directions. I needed to focus on what would make the biggest difference for the people arriving after reading the article.

Ten Hours of Website Design

I spent 10 hours on Sunday restructuring and redesigning the website, improving the flow, highlighting Frank's incredible railroad photography, and getting the online store set for visitors.

A big part of my work as a web designer is deciding how information should be organized and presented. People don't necessarily visit a website in the order we expect them to, and they aren't always willing to spend time figuring out where to go.

In this case, the photographs were a huge part of the story, so giving them space and making the website easy to navigate were priorities.

I also wanted visitors to be able to move naturally from discovering Frank's work to learning about his books and purchasing one.

The website needed to look good, of course, but it also needed to make sense to someone who had never heard of Frank Barry before that morning.

Talk about a hard launch!

Everything was ready before the article went live at 5 a.m. Monday morning.

By noon, the website had already received more than 500 visitors, and book orders were coming in one after another!

It was exciting to see such an immediate response, especially after the whirlwind of getting everything ready in less than a day.

The article brought people to the website, but it was up to the website to help them take the next step.

Your Website Is Part of the Bigger Picture

This experience was a good example of something I think about with every website I design.

A website doesn't exist on its own. People arrive there through referrals, social media, search engines, news articles, and any number of other places. Often, they've already heard something about you or your work before they visit.

Your website is where they go to learn more, decide whether they're interested, and figure out what to do next.

You don't necessarily know when an opportunity might send a lot of new people your way, but having a well-designed, functional website means you're better prepared when it happens.

A Sunday Well Spent

I don't typically take on last-minute website projects with that fast of a turnaround, but sometimes you make exceptions for friends.

Knowing how much this book means to their family, I'm especially glad I could help.

And getting to spend a Sunday working with Frank's incredible railroad photography wasn't a bad way to spend 10 hours, either!

Take a look at the finished website at frankbarryphotography.com, and read The New York Times article by Frank's daughter, Rebecca Barry… let me know what you think!