"She Doesn't Have A Stick In Any of Her Body's Orifices"

 I do so love Melody Watson, my website designer.  Melody is the ultra-cool woman who designed the web site for my book, Lessons In Stalking. She is a woman of extreme patience combined with a true artists eye for shading, color, and technique.  When we met to talk about my site overhaul, she was very professional in her questions. I, however, was ill-prepared to answer.

Melody:  "Have you given any thought to color schemes?"

Dena: "Um, no blue. Oh, and I don't like pastels. My home is yellow and red. And I like purple. But I probably can't do purple on a professional site, huh?"

Melody: "Well, we'll see. What about pages? Do you know what pages you want for your navigation bar?"

Dena:  "Oh. Lessee...probably the same ones I have now, except I'll take out some and replace with others."

Melody, smiling serenely as she sips her coffee: "Sounds lovely. We'll come back to that as well. Now, what is the feel you want for your site? When someone, a potential client, pulls it up for the first time, what do you want them to go away thinking?"

Dena: "Professional yet fun!" (See, I actually had an answer for this one) 

Now, if someone gave me the task of creating from scratch a new website with "any color but pastels, unsure about pages, and totally professional yet fun," I'd run screaming from the room. I need much more direction than that. Melody, however, thrives on it. She loves the thrill of creating to the client's vision without the client (moi) even clearly knowing what their vision is.

So we've been hammering ideas back and forth and landed on one that we're both excited about it. As we discussed it, here's a portion of the e-mail Melody sent me and that she graciously gave me permission to post here:

And if I get it just right, your site's visitors will think "highly professional but she doesn't have a stick in any of her body's orifices" and they will think, "wow, she's incredibly sophisticated but I could throw back a beer with this woman, too!" and they will want to hire you immediately just so they can try and get anywhere close to what a kick ass woman you so clearly are, just by visiting your site. It's subtle and it's bold, all at the same time...it's aged and shows fine history, and the texture is nearly palpable. But at no point does it overwhelm or overshadow the content of the site.

 Does it get any closer to mind-reading? I almost burst a lung laughing at the line, "highly professional but she doesn't have a stick in any of her body's orifices."  I've threatened to use that as my new tag line:

"Looking for a writer to inspire and motivate your tired copy? Hire Dena Harris! She's highly professional yet doesn't have a stick in any of her body's orifices."

 

That is soooooo me.  Now admit it...aren't you kind of curious to see the new site?