Zing Agency - A Dynamic & Innovative Creative Agency

Zing is a dynamic and innovative Web Design & Development agency based in South Africa.

This is a personal project of mine. I was responsible for designing the branding and website of this agency. In this case study, I’ll be documenting my process for creating the complete website design and handing it off to the developer.

Discover: Background, Target Audience, Competitor Analysis

Define: Problem Statement, Solution, Goals

Ideate: Sitemap

Design: Visual Design, Responsiveness, Prototyping, Testing

I decided to create Zing alongside a developer friend. We wanted to unite our skills and provide complete website design & development services.

As a new agency in a market filled with competition, we knew we wanted to stand out from the crowd somehow. Our website would be many people’s first encounter with us, so we had to nail it.

We want our website to appear exciting and interesting, as well as informative. We want to tell users the following:

Who we are.

What we do.

What our work looks like.

Zing aims its services at South African businesses with bad online presence. We target mainly open minded businesses that see the value in a good website.

I performed research into the target audience. South African business owners are aged around 35-45 years old (sources: https://businesstech.co.za/news/banking/40721/what-sas-sme-landscape-looks-like/, https://www.citizen.co.za/business/personal-finance/current-state-of-small-business/).

In total, 12 competitors were analysed:

Agencies that focuse solely on Web Design & Development

Marketing/Design Agencies that have Web Design & Development within their range of services.

The main aspects that I looked at for these companies are: Service Quality, Recognition, Price, Website Quality and Social Media Presence.

Some of the key takeaways (when it comes to websites) of this analysis are:

There’s no company (at least among the ones analysed, which are some of the biggest/most known agencies in South Africa) that does everything right. They all lack when it comes to certain aspects.

A lot of competitors lack when showing off their work. I also looked into best practices of showcasing projects.

Most of the companies have blogs, which help their brands get recognised and also help with SEO.

Building credibility from your website is very important.

Problem & Solution: Zing Agency requires a quality website, that displays their work, who they are and what they do.

Project Goals: Design a high quality website that displays all of the information mentioned above. Another crucial part of the project is for the website to build credibility and stand out from the crowd.

A sitemap contains information about all of the pages of the website and how navigation will be done through them.

For Zing, I wanted to be more experimental than usual. I knew I wanted something that would stand out from the crowd.

My approach was a semi-maximalist website, characterised mainly by large typography, funky colours (using the brand’s yellow a lot), large components and interesting animations.

Because of this, I decided to go in without wireframes. This isn’t something I usually do, but in this case, for a more experimental style, I felt that a wireframe would be limiting my creativity.

One of the most unique and interesting aspects of the website is the mix of Sans Serif and Serif typefaces. I decided to use a Serif typeface to emphasize certain words and add more visual interest to the site.

The website has a few brand elements that are repeated throughout the design: mainly the “curve”. This element resembles a smile and it also symbolises growth (looks like an arrow pointing up in the hero section). In the hero section, it’s also meant to direct the user’s attention towards the “contact” button in the navbar. It’s almost as if the curve connects the words “digital success” and “contact”.

The website is fit for all devices. I handed off the design in two formats: horizontal desktop and vertical mobile.

The website was prototyped using Figma. A big part of the design are the animations, which add a lot of interest to the website and make it more memorable. Below is a playlist with videos showcasing some of the website’s animations.

Using the prototype, the website was tested by several users, in order to conclude that the website is user-friendly and appealing to the target audience. Any feedback was implemented.

After aproximatively three weeks, the Zing Agency website design was finished. Currently, it’s awaiting development and it will be up as soon as possible.

The website I built for Zing Agency is a lot more unique than what I’ve done before. I experimented with a style that was new for me: maximalism. Though, I wouldn’t call this a maximalist website, I would say it is maximalist inspired at least.

I experimented a lot with typography, mixing Sans Serif and Serif typefaces to create an interesting look. I experiemented with large components and interesting colours. Overall, this was a new experience for me and I’m very proud of what I managed to build.

When it comes to the process behind the website, I learned a lot regarding competitor analysis and its importance. For Zing, I dived deep into other competitors, analysing their websites to see what they do right and what they do wrong. I realised how important this is and how much it helps me in knowing what I’m supposed to do.