ALISON MILES
Author and illustrator
The Challenge
Creating a website for a children’s author and illustrator can be challenging because it often needs to appeal to a variety of audiences.
When Alison approached us, she had already written and illustrated several children’s books before realising that promoting her work was crucial and therefore having a website needed to be an important part of her marketing strategy.
Alison had started selling books on Amazon but wanted more control over sales and the ability to branch out into mugs, t.shirts and other ‘Snippy’ paraphernalia.
The Solution
First and foremost, we wanted the website to be fun and welcoming. We went for a simple layout that is easy to navigate but uses bright colours and creative fonts that will engage children as well as adults. Of course, Alison’s illustrations are the heroes of the site, and we did not want the colours to ‘jar’ or overwhelm the these. The jewel colours taken from the lovely little book graphic (used as a logo) work perfectly.
We wanted to tell Alison’s story visually with personal photos that give visitors a glimpse of her creative, ‘wordsome’, and musical world.
Alison was keen to reach out to schools, book festivals, libraries, community centres and publishers. Including ‘work in progress’ imagery and more information about why and how Alison does what she does gives people a reason to follow her and discover more.
While work was taking place on the website, Alison was putting together her ‘Snippy the Crab’ show for performance in a wide range of venues. A video promoting this on the website provides a flavour of what to expect. Videos are easy to access and this type of content can inspire children and help schools book her for visits.
At the moment the website is very ‘Snippy’ centric but it will be easy to adapt this when Alison creates a new book series.
The online shop will also be easy to grow by adding categories for other book series or products.
Children and adults can join the Snippy Club, Alison’s mailing list, to keep in touch with upcoming events, book launches, special offers, games and downloads.
The Future
This is just the beginning for Alison and we feel that the website is a great foundation to help her grow and develop her business.
Alison uses wonderful poetic and musical vocabulary and going forward it will be easy for her to add more videos with her reading snippets from her books. There is nothing nicer than hearing the books as the author intended them to sound.
Using a creative font and graphic frames for Alison’s online storytelling can easily be adapted to give children some extra online experiences e.g., online quizzes, downloadable pictures to colour in, ask Snippy a question … and much more.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE
Saying about us
Jane was the perfect find for me, and I didn’t have to look too far as she had designed my husband’s website a few years earlier. We have very different professions and needed two totally different vibes. Jane hit the target perfectly both times. I am thrilled with the balance that Jane has achieved between making my website both fun — a must as a children’s author and illustrator — and classy. I love Jane’s originality, adore her choice of colours and am thoroughly impressed by her inventiveness. I am very proud of my website and have received nothing but praise for its appearance and functionality. Thank you, Jane.
ALISON MILES, AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
