Tina Michalowski
If you’ve followed my business for any length of time, you know that working with supremely talented woman business owners is what gets me up in the morning. So imagine my delight when the powerhouse that is Tina Michalowski reached out to me for help building a website for her new business!
Level Next Advisory helps SaaS and tech leaders make clear decisions, lead with confidence, and navigate growth, scale, and complexity—without losing focus or purpose. Tina’s the rare coach who has personally walked the walk and has deep experience at every stage of the leadership journey. Not only does she offer a variety of one-on-one coaching opportunities for executive leaders, developing leaders, and leaders under pressure, she also offers ongoing advisory partnerships, group coaching and speaking and facilitation.
I am HERE 👏 FOR 👏 IT 👏
It was such a pleasure to give Tina the platform that her talent deserves. Check it out below!
The web design process
I love it when women have a strong vision for how they want their business to show up online. Tina was no exception!
She wanted a fairly simple website, with Home, Services, About, and Contact pages, as well as a custom intake form and a calendar so prospective clients could schedule a discovery call. She had a strong sense of the vibe she wanted for her business: a subtle, classic, and timeless look with a little somethin’ to zhuzh it up.
To get started, I connected her with Casi Hall, a dear friend who’s also a fabulous photographer. My highest recommendation is that I trusted Casi to bring my own brand to life. She knocked it out of the park, and I knew she was the perfect person to get Tina some solid brand photography options! I knew Casi would not only take some gorgeous headshots of Tina, but create some lifestyle poses to bring her brand to life. And along the way, Casi always takes some branded “b roll” shots that are wonderful alternatives to generic stock photos.
On the branding side of things, Tina had already created a subtle, simple logo for her business, but didn’t have other brand elements like a color palette or a font suite.
When it came to colors, she knew she wanted neutrals—a soft cream, a light beige, a taupe, and a charcoal. Nothing harsh or too saturated. But when it came to a “pop color,” she was stuck on what to choose. I gave her the same advice I give all my clients in that situation: If you go to your closet and fling open the doors, what color would you see the most of? For solopreneurs, that question is a great starting point and a practically guaranteed way to land on a color palette that will make your website feel like you. Tina’s answer was quick: A berry purple. Gorgeous!
She left the font question up to me, which was awesome. I love any opportunity to play :) Knowing that she wanted a classic, timeless look, I selected Prata for her headlines and Open Sans for her paragraphs and buttons. Prata is a classic font with beautiful curves offset by sharp, triangular serifs. It manages to be both timeless and fresh at the same time. With such a strong headline font, I knew the paragraph font had to be open, approachable, and readable. Enter Open Sans, one of my favorites!
Once we had the branding nailed down, a gallery of gorgeous photos from Casi, and Tina’s wording, it was time to start designing!
I had so much fun with this one. Subtle websites are hard to come by nowadays, when trends lean toward big, bold fonts and bright colors. But that just means that going subtle is, oddly, a fabulous way to stand out!
I kept the design light and airy, with plenty of white space between elements for the eye to rest. The site uses offset photos and subtle animations for a bit of visual interest and brings in two shades of purple as accent colors. One of my favorite elements is the use of lines and outlines. They offer a hint of strength and definition, and contrast beautifully with the site’s soft, subdued color palette. Of course I had to spice things up with a dash of custom code along the way :)
Take a look at Tina’s new Home and Services pages!
