China Food Services Redesign

Published January 31, 2011 | By Sarah

I just recently launched a complete redesign for China Food Services. By complete, I mean a total and complete transfer from just a standard html based site to a full WordPress CMS including content transfer, content editing, site organization and consultation, social networking, layout and design, and plugin and media installation.
Frank was a joy to work with, because he’s very detailed and he knew what he wanted the site to communicate. He’s got a lot of passion for his company but he just needed someone to help him communicate that passion beautifully and effectively through the web. In order to help him do this, we first needed to talk through exactly what his business is all about. As a CEO with your mind on so many different aspects of your company, it’s sometimes difficult to express the basic nuts and bolts of what you do to the public. After I wrapped my mind about his business, what he wanted to communicate, and his target audience, I was able to come up with the basic organization and content layout for the site.

This is a before shot of what the home page of his company USED to look like. As an IT guy he created it himself several years ago. Because of lack of time in the past several years, it was severely dated in look, and it also was a bit confusing to navigate through without clearly stating the purpose. After getting the content and basic organization down, I focused on giving him a look that also clearly communicated what his company is all about as well as an equally fresh and inviting web presence.

Because this site is designed for both potential clients and partners as well as investors, it has to be able to be easily navigable and easy to keep updated. WordPress was a great choice because of the ease of adding audio and video, the simple yet robust blogging features, as well as the ability to create professional web pages and contact forms. Here are just a few of the features I implemented.

A welcoming splash page with links to the main three areas of his site.
A double horizontal menu for the main site pages which, again, highlight his main areas of expertise.
Vertical Menus for several pages to easily navigate through information that would otherwise involve a lot of scrolling.
Social Icons within the header for easy access but with a subtle design so as not to be distracting.
Individual Page Header designs that clearly depict the focus of the page.
Integration of Youtube Videos, Flicker Images, and Audio for investors.
A contact form for potential partners and clients

Plugins used for this site include the following: