Work

In Your Face Apparel

Research
Branding

I directed the development of a new website and catalog of a custom apparel company.

A mockup of in your face apparel's updated website page, on a laptop screen.

Objective:

Redesign In Your Face Apparel’s website to clarify the company’s functions and services. Also provide a space to include a space for products to be sold online.

Background:

In Your Face Apparel is a custom apparel manufacturer with the majority of business in promotional apparel. Their services are complex and vast, and they struggled with how to clearly express their capabilities through their website. When I applied for the job as marketing coordinator, I looked at their website and thought they were a small mom-and-pop screen printing shop.

On the contrary, their capabilities expand far beyond screen printing although their website didn’t show it. They needed to highlight their abilities and modernize the copy and images on their site. Their services included a lot of wordy, technical jargon that was not user friendly, and left any viewers of the website feeling lost.

Madi Gilbert standing with co-workers at an industry convention in Las Vegas, 2019. In Your Face Apparel's old website home page, before changes.

Role:

As the new marketing coordinator, I was first given the assignment of simply updating all of the copy and images on the website. I worked in collaboration with the marketing manager to come up with suitable copy for every website page. Six months in, the marketing manager left their position and was not replaced so I was left to work directly with the president of the company on the remainder of the project. Going into this, I had no knowledge of web design and learned entirely on the job for this project.

Process:

I worked within the existing website on Wordpress. Unfortunately, the website had been modified so many times over 10+ years of existence that it was full of outdated and bugged plug-ins. Working within wordpress was difficult, but in the end we were able to get the website to a functioning point with a refreshed look.

We decided the website needed a hero image slider for the homepage for announcements and ads for current products- all banners which I produced in Photoshop.

After a few months, the sales team gave feedback they had heard from customers about the website.

Customers asked for the following: 

  • Better online ordering experience
  • Clear pricing
  • Faster load times
  • Educational materials on decoration techniques
  • Clearly labeled photo examples of different decoration techniques
  • End-user friendly side (company contact information hidden)

The owner selected a website programming agency they wanted to use, and I worked in collaboration with them to develop a brand new web page for In Your Face Apparel.

The programming agency requested a branding guide with approved logo colors, branding colors, and fonts. I was informed that we did not have one, and so I looked up how to create one and made one myself.

In Your Face Apparel's branding guides created by Madi.

We explored our competitors’ websites and highlighted features we wanted to emulate.  The retail or end-user friendly side would simply be the same as wholesale, but with different pricing and some menu tabs hidden from view.

Initially the website had far too many menu items under each section, and it was unclear which items were ready to order or custom made. We made the decision to break out ‘In Stock Apparel’ and ‘Custom Apparel’ rather than have everything in one menu.

I drew up some wireframes with Photoshop and communicated back and forth with the developers to tweak and adjust the final product. All product photographs were taken and edited by me. An initially 2 month process turned into four, but the website successfully launched in March 2020.

In Your Face Apparel's updated website home page. In Your Face Apparel's updated website catalog page. In Your Face Apparel's updated product listings page.