Still bold. Still rich in photography.
Now truly sustainable.
How Jessica’s reLaunch gave her a sustainable website she can run on her own
Solopreneur Website
Project at a glance
Jessica Lohman is a marketing and messaging strategist for nature-based solutions, responsible travel brands, and eco entrepreneurs. She already had a WordPress site, but a previous attempt to make it more sustainable had left her almost unable to use it. Editing was cumbersome, things were misconfigured, and a Divi 5 migration was looming.
She hired me to get the branding, UX design and the tech foundations right, so she could take it from there and relaunch the site on her own terms.
The build is still in progress …
What we focused on
- Strategic brand positioning work to create a coherent, memorable identity
- A visual identity refresh that kept her nature-rich photography front and center
- A WordPress setup built for independence: consistent design without needing a designer
- Sustainable, accessible, and fast by default
Before: Where we started
Jessica’s site wasn’t starting from zero. A previous “sustainable web designer” had already brought the carbon footprint down from 0.32g to 0.07g.
But the process left her almost unable to use her own site. The editor was cumbersome, things were misconfigured, and with Divi 5 requiring a full migration anyway, something had to change.
She’d built websites before. She didn’t need hand-holding. She needed a design eye and a strategic partner to get the foundation right, so she could do the rest herself.
The Myth: Sustainable means giving things up
Jessica believed sustainable web design meant giving things up. Her audience connects through nature photography. She’d seen my minimal, illustration-based site and assumed that was the only way.
“I love your minimal style. But my audience needs to see landscapes, nature, animals. Can we still do that?”
Absolutely! The question isn’t “photography or sustainability” but whether your style serves your audience and your goals.
The Process: Getting the foundations right
Strategy: Pulling a scattered brand into focus
Before touching a single visual, we used the Expert Identity Compass to understand where Jessica’s brand sat and where it needed to go.
The diagnosis: her brand elements were scattered across four different quadrants. Shapes and accents pulling one direction, colors another, typography somewhere else entirely. Each element was fine on its own, but together they created visual noise. No coherent signal for her audience to latch onto.
The fix was simpler than it sounds.
Jessica’s colors and shapes were already progressive and approachable. They fit her brand. What didn’t fit was the typography. So we talked about where she saw herself, her personality, and her services: Guide or Trailblazer?
I showed her font options for both. She picked Alegreya Sans, a humanist sans-serif that feels human and personal. It pulled her brand straight into Guide territory: progressive and approachable across the board.
One font swap. One clear signal instead of four competing ones.
Branding: Bold, nature-rich, and still sustainable
Jessica came in with existing branding: colorful and with a few custom accents she used across touchpoints. It had energy, but it lacked the consistency to feel premium.
We didn’t strip it back. We refined it.
- One typeface instead of multiple. This made the site lighter to load and reduced visual noise. Less clutter, more clarity.
- Slight color adjustments for accessibility. The palette stayed true to the original brand feel, with tweaks and strategic color roles to ensure enough contrast.
- On-brand visual accents. Colorful underlines, organic shapes for image frames. Small details that give the brand personality without adding page weight.
- Clear guidelines for brand elements. Which accent color goes on which background. How to make cards look good on every background. What font sizes to use where. All documented and ready to be built into the site.
The result is a brand that looks intentional, not DIY. Rich and nature-forward, not minimal for minimalism’s sake.
Web Design: Built for independence
I designed and implemented the homepage and a few key sections. Jessica took it from there.
That was the plan from the start. She has the skills and the desire to manage her own site. What she needed was a system that made good design the default.
Here’s how that works in practice:
- Design guidelines are built into WordPress. Color palettes, font sizes, spacing. Which accent color and shadow works on which background. The system knows what’s on-brand, so Jessica doesn’t have to second-guess.
- Reusable section patterns. Creating a new page means arranging pre-built sections and replacing text and images. A few clicks, not a few hours.
- No dependency on a designer or developer. Jessica can build out her site, add blog posts, and create new pages without outside help.
The previous setup had made sustainability feel like a constraint. This one makes good design feel like a given.
Results and impact
Why this website works
Jessica’s reLaunch started as a practical need: her website builder was being phased out and she needed a site that would keep working.
But once she saw what a sustainable brand could look like when it’s done with intention, she wanted that too. Not just a working site, but one that felt as put-together as the work behind it.
- A brand that’s memorable. No more scattered elements pulling in different directions. One coherent identity that speaks directly to her audience.
- Photography without compromise. Rich, nature-forward imagery, optimized for performance and sustainability. No trade-offs.
- Real independence. Jessica is relaunching her site on her own, building new pages from patterns that ensure consistency without a designer in the loop.
- Sustainability that doesn’t subtract. The previous approach to sustainability had cost her the ability to use her site. This one works with her, not against her.
Want a website that works as well as it looks?
If your website needs an upgrade with either strategic branding, an easy-to-manage build, or both, you’re in the right place.
The reLaunch is my done-for-you website package for experienced solopreneurs who are ready for a website that does them justice.
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