Day Rate Case Study: The Cabins at Capitol Reef
While every single day rate-style project is so incredibly different & is catered to each client’s individual needs, we wanted to write a series of blog posts that detail what some of these days look like in actuality. Our first featured project is for The Cabins at Capitol Reef where we were able to craft branding (including some fun, simple illustrations) & a refresh of their existing website to ensure everything felt on-brand. Note: Your day rate might look different from this & the timing + deliverables will NOT always align with this – so take it with a grain of salt! However, hopefully this gives an idea of what the logistics of a day can look like, as well as how the process works.
9:00 AM
Start group iMessage thread with the clients & send an official kickoff text to let them know what to expect & what I’d be working on for that initial stretch. I also had a couple of quick clarifying questions about the cabins before jumping into any design work, so we chatted back & forth a bit on those items first! Behind the scenes, I start with some of the initial information & design inspiration sent our way before the project – then from there, I begin curating my own Pinterest board to feel out the overall style & direction of the brand.
10:30 AM
Finalize the mood board, along with the color palette I think would work best for their project. Then, write up a short description about why I’ve selected the items I did & how I think we could use this inspiration moving forward & send over to the client via iMessage for their initial feedback. This check-in allows us to gauge whether this is aligned & on track right off the bat, or whether we need to make adjustments to the design before continuing forward!
11:00 AM
With the client’s approval on the brand direction, the next couple of hours are dedicated to executing the actual brand designs. Because we wanted a very desert-inspired, organic, handdrawn vibe, I began by sketching simple (very very rough!) illustration ideas onto paper & brainstorming what might give us some fun marks for the brand.
12:30 PM
With the client’s approval on the brand direction, the next hour or two is dedicated to executing the actual brand designs. Because we wanted a very desert-inspired, organic, handdrawn vibe, I began by sketching simple (very very rough!) illustration ideas onto paper & brainstorming what might give us some fun marks for the brand. Once I felt I had a lot to work with, I scanned in the designs, cleaned them up in Illustrator, & began using the strongest ones alongside typography. This is a pretty fluid process as I play around with different fonts, layouts, etc. but after some exploration, I finally landed on a set of elements that I loved & sent a layout over to the clients featuring what I’d been working on.
1:00 PM
The client LOVED the designs & approved them all on the first round! Because of this, we were left with three hours to dedicate to their website. They had started creating the site themselves but were using a platform called Lodgify for their AirBnB bookings that had extremely (EXTREMELY) limited design options & they never really felt like they were able to get it to look the way they wanted. After a bit of digging, I found that while the native design options & templates were super minimal, it *did* allow us to add custom CSS code which broadened our options significantly. With that in mind, I dug right into the design, & after an hour or so, sent over a preview of what I’d been working on with the homepage to again be sure that it fit their overall design style. Because the client came to us without content for the site, we used “filler” text / lorem ipsum to build sections around so that they could add their copy later on!
2:30 PM
With about an hour & a half left of our day, I wanted to make sure that we could make a huge impact in such a short amount of time & prioritize getting the rest of the pages freshened up! After the client approved the homepage + overall styling we’d done, I double checked that they’d be okay with me digging in & making edits around the site that I’d recommend which they quickly agreed to. This made the job so much more doable as they were able to trust in the expertise I brought to the table & allowed me to dive in & make some quick refinements to freshen things up – in the end, the finished project ended up feeling like a whole new site!
Have questions about how these days work or interested in booking one for your project? Learn more here.