Discover + Create + Launch

So, why should you work with Happy Monday over another designer? If you need help and have no idea where to start, my company, Happy Monday, specializes in helping you figure out your business challenges and suggesting the most cost-effective creative solutions that will get you more traffic, more leads, more money. Luckily for you, we can take the hard parts off your plate so that you can focus on running your business.

For custom projects, we strive to make every stage and phase a personal and thoughtful experience for every client we work with. Each client has their own set of goals and deliverables, so our aim is to fully research, scope, and estimate projects in collaboration with you.

Step 1 - Discovery

Project Audit

We begin every good client relationship with an initial Project Audit Phone Call where we discuss your business needs and determine next steps for the Discovery Consulting step.

Discovery Consulting

We strive to make every website project a personal and thoughtful experience for everyone we work with. Because each client has their own set of ideas and goals, our aim is to fully research, scope, and estimate projects in collaboration with you. We have found that the Discovery Consulting process is the most important part of a project as it sets the stage for a better project in order to create a solid plan and accurate cost estimate. During this Discovery stage, we conduct research for a small project fee. We have found that a thorough discovery process removes the risk and allows clients to see how our relationship might work in a short 5-10 hour project, rather than entering into a long-term investment before you’re ready. Basically, you’re hiring us on an hourly basis to do this discovery work. This process usually takes anywhere from 5 to 10 hours, depending on the scope and scale of the project(s). We start by billing you for 5 hours and add additional time if necessary.

During this short Discovery Consulting process, we gather as much information as possible about the client: customers, goals, business objectives, marketing efforts, website functionality, timeline, and budget.

Wait, I already know what I want, why do we need to go through the Discovery Consulting Process to get a cost estimate?

1) The Discovery process is meant to positively impact the planning stages of your project to ensure we are able to recommend the most cost-effective solution to your problem and prevent overspend later in the design and development stages.

2) In our experience, most clients have a basic idea of what they want in a website. But what is wanted is often different than what is actually needed to build a good, functional foundation website to get you started for a foundational phase 1 launch.

3) In order to avoid surprises for either party, the goal is to provide an accurate cost estimate and timeline after everyone fully understands the full scope and scale of your custom branding or website design/development projects.

At the end of the Discovery Consulting process, we provide a formal proposal that fully describes the scope of work, deliverables, timeline, and cost estimate. Our goal is to bring clarity to your decision, but there’s no obligation on your part either way. You are free to decide whether you want us to execute the plan for you, have someone else do it, or determine it’s not a worthwhile investment to move forward. The Discovery Consulting process provides lot of great research information at a reasonable cost and allows the client to exit with a plan in hand that anyone can execute should the client so decide.

If you ultimately hire us to produce your project, we deduct the Discovery Consulting fee from the cost, schedule time for the project, and invoice our first deposit payment to hold a spot in the queue.

Step 2 - Create

Creative Brief

To prepare for the upcoming projects, we collaborate with you on a creative project brief and branding questionnaire. This brief will provide valuable information for everyone involved as we move through the design and development phases.

Logo Design

The process and deliverables here would be based on the results from the Discovery and Creative Brief stages. Deliverables typically include a 3-5 logo design concepts.

Logos are defined as the combination of a wordmark and logomark icon, and client-provided tagline. We offer separate Tagline Consulting projects if you need a tagline and don’t have an existing one. We also offer separate Brand Platform projects if you need to define your brand strategy.

Brand Inspiration Board

This step involves creating a brand identity visual style guide that will provide guidance on the consistent and effective use of the brand to maintain its integrity across mediums, platforms and applications. A Brand Board may include the following sections:

WEBSITE DESIGN

Information Architecture

For website visitors to understand your company, your offerings, and your capabilities, a coherent structure of all of your information must be created.

Content Development

If you aren’t writing and delivering your own final content, this would be a separate step in the process. If you are delivering final content, then we would simply estimate time to populate content on the site for you.

Website Design

Upon approval of the creative brief and information architecture, we start designing your website. During this process, the home page and interior pages will be designed, reviewed, revised, and approved by you in static comps. Your photography and content will be due prior to design approval and before we go into web development.

Website Development

Upon website design approval, your the comps go to a team of expert web developers to handle server and database configuration, front-end development (HTML/CSS), Content Management System development, mobile responsive functionality, and Google Analytics integration, etc. There will be some downtime during the development phase as the developers bring the design to life. At the end of this step, you will be delivered a beta test site link for review, feedback, and client acceptance testing.

Website Migration and Launch

Once your site is approved and complete, the developers will ensure that the transition from the testing directory to the final site is as seamless as possible.

Ongoing Maintenance

Ongoing maintenance to fix bugs, update the CMS, backup the website, etc. may be negotiated separately after the site is launched with the web development team. The estimate for maintenance would be based on your specific needs to perform general back-end responsibilities.

Step 3 - Other Launch Tactics

Design Tactics

The most effective design tactics for launch would be determined separately and could include any of the following:

Discover + Create + Launch

For custom projects, we strive to make every stage and phase a personal and thoughtful experience for every client we work with. Each client has their own set of goals and deliverables, so our aim is to fully research, scope, and estimate projects in collaboration with you.

Step 1 - Discovery

Project Audit

We begin every good client relationship with an initial Project Audit Phone Call where we discuss your business needs and determine next steps for the Discovery Consulting step.

Discovery Consulting

During this short Discovery Consulting process, we gather as much information as possible about the client: customers, goals, business objectives, marketing efforts, website functionality, timeline, and budget.

Wait, I already know what I want, why do we need to go through the Discovery Consulting Process to get a cost estimate?

1) The Discovery process is meant to positively impact the planning stages of your project to ensure we are able to recommend the most cost-effective solution to your problem and prevent overspend later in the design and development stages.

2) In our experience, most clients have a basic idea of what they want in a website. But what is wanted is often different than what is actually needed to build a good, functional foundation website to get you started for a foundational phase 1 launch.

3) In order to avoid surprises for either party, the goal is to provide an accurate cost estimate and timeline after everyone fully understands the full scope and scale of your custom branding or website design/development projects.

If you ultimately hire us to produce your project, we deduct the Discovery Consulting fee from the cost, schedule time for the project, and invoice our first deposit payment to hold a spot in the queue.

Step 2 - Create

Creative Brief

To prepare for the upcoming projects, we collaborate with you on a creative project brief and branding questionnaire. This brief will provide valuable information for everyone involved as we move through the design and development phases.

Logo Design

The process and deliverables here would be based on the results from the Discovery and Creative Brief stages. Deliverables typically include a 3-5 logo design concepts.

Logos are defined as the combination of a wordmark and logomark icon, and client-provided tagline. We offer separate Tagline Consulting projects if you need a tagline and don’t have an existing one. We also offer separate Brand Platform projects if you need to define your brand strategy.

Brand Inspiration Board

This step involves creating a brand identity visual style guide that will provide guidance on the consistent and effective use of the brand to maintain its integrity across mediums, platforms and applications. A Brand Board may include the following sections:

Submark and Logo Variation

Color Palette

Fonts

Pattern/Texture

Watermark

Photography Inspiration

WEBSITE DESIGN

Information Architecture

For website visitors to understand your company, your offerings, and your capabilities, a coherent structure of all of your information must be created.

Content Inventory – By understanding all of your existing and needed website assets, we can begin to organize it to be purposely placed throughout your website.

Sitemap – Once the assets are organized, we define every page and it’s location within the website.

Wireframes – that help visually explain how we propose to layout content, messaging, calls-to-action, and image assets on all pages we are designing.

Content Development

If you aren’t writing and delivering your own final content, this would be a separate step in the process. If you are delivering final content, then we would simply estimate time to populate content on the site for you.

Website Design

Website Development

Website Migration and Launch

Once your site is approved and complete, the developers will ensure that the transition from the testing directory to the final site is as seamless as possible.

Ongoing Maintenance

Ongoing maintenance to fix bugs, update the CMS, backup the website, etc. may be negotiated separately after the site is launched with the web development team. The estimate for maintenance would be based on your specific needs to perform general back-end responsibilities.

Step 3 - Other Launch Tactics

Design Tactics

The most effective design tactics for launch would be determined separately and could include any of the following:

Business Card

Letterhead/Notecard

Powerpoint Template

Social media backgrounds/avatars

HTML email

Media Kit

Online Ads

Brochures

Sales Sheets/Rate Sheets/Flyers/Print Ads

Stationery System

Postcard/Direct Mail

Signage/Billboard/Poster

Tradeshow Graphic/Material

Media Kit

Label/Hang Tag