Allison Sagraves

After 31 years working for M&T Bank, where she was the founding Chief Data Officer, Allison Sagraves was ready to launch her second act. In July 2022, she started a consultancy focusing on advising start-ups with breakthrough technologies in the data sector. She knew her purpose was larger, though, and soon coined the term Applied SerendipitySM to encompass her life and business philosophy of caring, preparing, and daring to act.

Allison needed All The Things: A brand palette, including fonts and colors; a handcrafted logo; a photo shoot; and a website that would showcase her expertise and connect her with prospective clients, potential new opportunities for advising, and speaking engagements. For help with her branding and photo shoot, she worked with the talented Casi Hall.

Done and done. What a pleasure it was to give her the web presence she deserves!

Kind words

The brand & web design process

First, Casi talked with Allison, who filled out a lengthy questionnaire to help Casi frame her thinking. Casi created some high-level mood boards and then worked with Allison to refine the elements of her new brand. With Allison’s approval, Casi packaged all of the branding elements and sent them my way.

While Casi was working to create the branding elements, I spoke with Allison to get an understanding of what her website needed to accomplish. She wanted something simple, but bold with prominent headlines and text and clear calls-to-action. Overall, she wanted the site to feel elevated and offer a high-level overview of her expertise and speaking prowess. She created all of the content for her site based on an outline that I created.

Allison is by no means a “tech person”—it’s a common thread with my clients. She’s always on-the-go, often from overseas or cities across America, and doesn’t need a website that would distract her from her work. She needed something that would “just work.” Something that would make it incredibly easy for her to share her thoughts, news and career milestones, and connect with prospective clients.

I knew Squarespace would be perfect for Allison!

Allison’s new brand is fresh and verdant—much like the forest compound from which she works. It pulls together three beautiful shades of green and a lovely copper-toned accent. Her brand palette includes two fonts—a delicate sans serif and a simple, stately serif font. Casi gave me a gorgeous brand palette to play with!

I had lots of fun designing Allison’s website with colorful photos and nifty scroll-to-stick effects. The result is a web design that’s as fresh and totally badass as Allison herself.

Here’s a look at her new website home page: