Christi Daugherty is the international best-selling author of the Nightschool Series, The Secret Fire and soon to come The Echo Killing.
Christi has written two series of books for young adults, and is about to start a new crime series for adults, so the look and feel needed to become a bit more adult. Christi felt it was time for a new website design to mark her move into the Crime Fiction genre where she felt that a darker style, full of shadow would be more appropriate. Keywords for the design were simplicity, darkness and above all to get the feeling of a crime writer. Plus Christi was familiar with WordPress so wanted to stick with it.
Books are personal choices and these days readers want to feel connected to authors. The website design needed to be accessible and aspirational.
A few carefully chosen images and the scene is set for the crime writer. The subtle background image silhouette is of a creepy wood and you can just make out the dark lines of the trees at midnight. A showcase image on the home page with the Echo Killing cover completes the scene. Red buttons and links stand out well against the dark background. Red is an emotionally intense colour, it represents fire and blood, love and passion so was the ideal choice for this project. The font family is Open Sans, straightforward and readable. All of the existing content was easy to migrate as the site remained on the WordPress content management system.
I loved this project and Christi was an absolute pleasure to work with every step of the way.
“Thanks so much for this – I love it! It’s got the perfect dark look and feel. It is all mystery.”
“Shout out to @traceyrickard, web designer extraordinaire. She made my new website as dark and cool as I dreamed.” via Twitter
