The Organization
The Men’s Resource Center & Women’s Counseling Center provide respectful, effective counseling services to individuals, couples and families striving for safe and healthy relationships.
The Design
I wanted to try a different approach with this design. In my experience, organizations such as this, along with other types of counseling centers tend to have websites that are very business-y, which is fine, but in some cases, the look is downright drab! I wanted to give a fresh face and appealing look to MRC’s website, as well as create a design that was representative of Portland, complete with an eco-friendly, home-grown look.
MRC needed a design and build that fit their budget, so with that in mind, I got started and provided them with two design options of reasonable costs.
The first design (pictured top-left) was intended to use WordPress as it’s backbone, and was a bit more “flashy” using a lot of vector image elements. The second design (pictured right) had a similar feel, but was trimmed down, with minimal art and a simple layout.
One theme that is consistent with both designs, is the house. This is the building that the MRC’s Portland location operates from. It is a beautiful, Victorian-styled building on 14th St. and Sandy Blvd. A photo of the house was a prominent fixture of MRC’s original site and I wanted to carry that over into my designs. A photograph of the house didn’t fit well within the designs I had in mind, so I decided to build a vector version of the house in Illustrator, which is what you see in these two designs.
The version that was chosen was the more minimalist option, sans WordPress install, but with pure, valid HTML & CSS. The only change they requested was the color. They felt that the Dreamsicle orange was a bit too bright and cheery for their tastes, and asked for a more neutral color. I re-worked the scheme and presented them with an Earthy-blue version with pleasant green highlights. They were pleased with this new look and I was given the go-ahead to begin the build.
The only portions of the designs that were not mine, were the logos, which had already been established, so I did my best to incorporate them into my layouts by making some color adjustments.
If you haven’t caught the links throughout this post, you can find their site here: Men’s Resource Center & Women’s Counseling Center.
I am appreciative of the opportunity to work with MRC, and for the freedom of expression allowed to me while creating their online presence.
