As a theme designer with GoDaddy, it was my job to always consider how and by whom the end-product would be used. Therefore, my journey in designing a new template would begin with a full day of industry research to delve into as many sites as I can find that fit the mold of what the average GoDaddy consumer will need to achieve success. Once I had seen a good sampling of what is out there, I would move on to the architecture phase in which I would determine my sitemap of pages that would be necessary, and create a wireframe for, at the very least, the homepage, and sometimes other pages as needed. The wireframe allows me to determine which elements are most important, and the order of importance in which they should be displayed.
Once the wireframes were approved by our Creative Director I was able to begin conceptualizing the mockup including colors, fonts, and images combined in Photoshop to create an accurate rendering of how my end product will look.
Once this design has been approved, I began the WordPress theme build. With GoDaddy, our themes were built responsively and connected throughout our team and company using GIT for sharing. Once the build was complete and QA testing was done, to ensure no errors would reach the end client, the final step of the process was to create an excel worksheet matching the new theme so customers could use it to add their own content. Our goal was always to create a product that could be easily used by multiple businesses across the same industry, with styling changed to customize each site as needed.
Tools Used
Adobe Photoshop, Balsamiq, HTML, CSS, PHP, & GIT
Company Information
Custom WordPress theme designed while employed by GoDaddy.com
