Katie Zana
Maximalist brand & web designer for the radically authentic.
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Designing a digital portal to honour the original portal: life itself.
Chloe is an Irish Integrative Midwife living in New York City. Her intention for her re-brand and new website was to honour her Irish roots and folklore, feminine linage and the old ways of midwifing. Simultaneously, we found ways to honour her deep experience as an OBGYN and the masculine, beloved concrete jungle she's welcomed and served all people for a decade.
To me, incredible websites start with incredible branding. I mine the lore of the person, then the business - because for solo business owners, their brand is just an extension of them.
This is why websites are THAT DEEP for personal brands. It's often an expansive and moving experience for my clients. This is why so many become dear friends by the end of the process. Why I could go to most cities in the world and be welcomed to a dinner table... 'did their website'. Ha.
Supernatural Midwifery uses my CHAMELEON template (https://shop.pearler.work/products/chameleon) as a base (see my other post).
From there, we heavily used all the image block tweaks we could to create collages that look like they've been made in an external app. Pinned blocks for sticky, parallax vibes. Transparency and box shadow galore for it to honour the veil, the portal, the shift from the womb, to the world.
Go, be moved. ⋆°.☾⋆.ೃ࿔*:⋆ supernaturalmidwifery.com (https://supernaturalmidwifery.com/)
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I designed my CHAMELEON Squarespace Template to be exactly that: so clever and flexible that it would never look 'template-y'. I know my clients and customers well: they are allergic to looking regular.
CHAMELEON goes against what a template 'should' be - a best-practice blank canvas where people can imagine their own brand.
I find that to be the opposite for My People. They need to see the ✨maximum✨ of what's possible and would rather tweak and strip back where needed. So, I decided to never 'dumb down' my designs.
I use CHAMELEON as a base for all of my client projects and below are examples of customers who have DIY-ed their Squarespace template.
I have two starting designs, AURA and SLAY. They are the same template, simply with different branding. They are designed to be 'chameleon-ed' into each other in 30 minutes.
It takes a lot of clever-ness for this to work, in combination with such maximalist design. So, CHAMELEON leans heavy on CSS variables so that the customer can simply swap out hex codes, fonts and their box shadow and border styling within a few minutes and see an instant vibe-shift... without actually needing to know how code works.
If they want everything to have a glow-y effect, for example, the box shadow values will update and make most edges of every page element have this look.
It's a template, so it's crucial I lean on as much native functionality as possible, including updating the template to include Finish Layer features, animation and more.
CHAMELEON has now been enjoyed by all manner of brands, including: aura videographer, cult hair salon, spicy marketing consultant, astrologers (so many astrologers), dog photographer, integrative midwife, writer, intuitive nutritionist, artist, psychotherapist... that'll do. You don't have all day.
View Sit, Stay Slay ꩜→
(https://slay-chameleon.squarespace.com/)View 100% That Witch ꩜→
(https://thatwitchh.squarespace.com)CHAMELEON product page ꩜→ (https://<https://shop.pearler.work/products/chameleon>)
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I was my own client for this project - the 3rd iteration of my business, so it had to be special. I like to show the most that’s possible for the maximalist people and brands that magnetise to me. My Squarespace site is a culmination of what’s possible with native tools, clever CSS, a dash of JavaScript, GIFs… and a deep connection to my sense of authenticity. This design isn’t about trends. Customers are bored of this - Gen Z has demonstrated this first. It’s about showing all the facets of me, what I’m about and how I weave that into UX and function. This is how I’ve magnetised a steady current of clients who are ‘just right’ for me over many years of building Squarespace sites.
Immerse yourself, have fun, have a giggle. There’s Easter Eggs and side quests littered throughout:
https://pearler.work
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