Why does our new website not look as good as the visual or mockup presented by the design company?
GMI Construction launched a beautiful new website today, and theirs looks better than the visual. It’s essential to understand a website visual is like a showhouse on a new housing estate. It has the best furniture, fixtures and fittings to sell the dream/vision.
Website designers sell the dream website using stock photography featuring corporate models, CGI, stunning product shots and video; replacing them, is a nightmare once removed.
But it wasn’t a nightmare for GMI because they commissioned Neilson Reeves Photography to project-manage the photography while signing off the design visual by web design company, PixelKicks.
But how do you ensure your new company website looks as good as the dream visual sold to you? Let us start with the wrong way and, unfortunately, the most common practice.
The wrong way to replace stock images on your new website
It’s common practice for website design companies to ask you to replace all stock images and text with your own about two weeks before the site is due to launch.
Replacing these stock images is virtually impossible, especially in two weeks, because, more often than not, the images that made the website so visually appealing feature beautiful corporate models illuminated with bright Californian sunshine. Working in ultra-modern, new offices adorned in this same bright, beautiful light. And neither your staff nor offices look anything like this, plus your office is in rainy Manchester.
We know all this at Neilson Reeves Photography because we often get calls from desperate marketing managers two weeks before the new company website launch. And as good as we are, we don’t have superpowers that can change offices, people and location on a dowdy wet grey Manchester day within this two-week window. It’s not possible or even realistic.
The right way to replace stock images on your new website
Marketing Directors like Ian Chevau of GMI construction know the right way to do it, and that’s why GMI’s new website looks better than the visual.
GMI Construction invested heavily in a new website designed by one of Manchesters’ best website design agencies, Pixel Kicks. While simultaneously commissioning Neilson Reeves Photography, Manchester’s best construction and architectural photographers, to strategically plan and shoot all the professional photography. The website project took around six months from inception to completion, giving us the time to create authentic, high-quality images to replace the stock photos.
Working closely with GMI and Pixel Kicks, we planned every shoot around their people, projects and process. The 6 months design window allowed us to find the right people, get to know their process and select a good representative sample of their projects to showcase on the website. And because stock images usually feature beautiful blue skies and ethereal lighting, the time window allowed us to plan shoots to coincide with the best light and weather conditions.
