Project Purpose
In 2022, my parents bought an old historical bed and breakfast in Center, Texas, in hopes of renovating it and turning it into beautiful and functional long-term rentals. It has been a very long process, and they are still renovating to this day. When it came time to start renting out some of the apartments, they turned to Facebook Marketplace and word of mouth to try to find tenants. Pine Colony Inn does not currently have an official Facebook account or Website. So I developed a working website and business Facebook account for the Inn.
The Project
I used these photos because they are familiar, and that will help with brand recognition. The Pine Colony Inn is over 100 years old, and so the people of Southeast Texas know and recognize the building and its history. I didn’t want to create a brand new brand with modern themes because there is no connection to it. I am playing with nostalgia with the photos and history.
Challenges
The hardest part of the project was designing the website and the Facebook account. My clients are not very tech-savvy, so I needed to design these sites in a way that they could take them over and successfully use them. The Facebook account is a basic business account where they can showcase all the best sides of the Inn, and the website is a more formal version of the Facebook account.
Project Process
At the beginning of this project, I pulled photos off of the old Pine Colony Inn accounts that the old owner would use, but the accounts were treated like personal accounts, so I contacted Facebook to have the old accounts taken down, so that ours is the official and only account. After that, I contacted my clients and asked for photos of the apartments and information about the property. Most of the time was spent on designing the website and Facebook account. The website has a photos page, a contact page, and an overall information page for potential tenants to view. I even created an official PIne Colony Inn email for contacting the owners.
Overview
Throughout this project, I learned how to design websites for businesses and other overall design skills. I also learned more about content creation and what posts get the most interaction. Despite these obstacles, I learned more to use my previous skills and hone them to produce the end result I was seeking.
Insights
This project helped learn that not every business needs to be on every trend, and some websites need to take it back to the basics. You need to know your target audience in order to create content and sustain clicks and views. Lastly, is to work with your client at every step of the process, because we both want a successful outcome, and that only happens when you use constant communication.
Video Run Through