A Website Redesign in Her Voice

Cassandra's Roles:

Designer, Copywriter, Editor, and Creative Thought Partner

How We Began

Diona Reese Williams, wow, I'm lucky to know this wonderful human. She is the person who knew exactly what she needed to support her evolving creative process. She knew what she needed and she intuitied that I was the person who could meet the task at hand.

Diona and I met at Prescott College's Nature and Place-based Early Learning Summer Institute. She and I attended as participants our first year there and then we both returned as presenters and mentors the next year. The team of mentors and presenters was small and close-knit and yet we didn't get to know one another too deeply. Little did either of us know that a few years later we'd be on the same page with a whole lot to offer each other.

It's wild what happens when you ask for exactly what you need. Diona did just that on February 14, 2022. She texted me asking me if I'd support her creative process with season 3 of her podcast. She knew she needed to do this next iteration differently and she knew she needed to have a creative teammate.

We co-designed the beginnings of what would become our creative partnership over the course of two hours-long phone conversations, me walking miles with the dog getting more and more excited for what was to come (me, not the dog, though he loved the walk, too).

We started our creative partnership focused on season 3 of Diona's podcast, just like she knew she needed to, though this project has actually transformed into something else that's still in process!

During one session of ours, Diona brought up how she was needing some updates to her website that a marketing specialist had designed for her several years prior. Her personal brand was going through a metamorphosis and she knew she wanted that change reflected on her website. Like I'm known to do, I dropped a small breadcrumb that I have been designing websites since I was a child heading to computer camp every summer. Then and there she started calling me baby website genius and we both knew I had outed myself as not only a creative and reflective person but also a technical one. This has been just one of the millions of ways we've come to know one another in deep and supportive ways.

home page - redesigned by Cassandra, photo by Theresa - gallery of images from recent children's book events

Redesigns: A Secret Treasure

What I love most about redesigns of personal brand websites – in comparison to original designs – is that the redesign is a direct reflection of a recent change a person has gone through. The redesign often signifies a dramatic shift in personhood.

What I love most about working on personal brand websites is that I get to write copy from the person's unique voice and perspective. And to be able to write with their voice and perspective, I need to get to know them. The special thing about Diona's and my working sessions is that I unintentionally began taking extensive notes during each and every one of our multi-hour long sessions. The by-product of this extensive note-taking was that I started writing just like Diona talks (and I increased my words per minute). A year into our creative partnership I started using an AI note-taking tool that helped me track our notes more seamlessly but that first year was the year that I learned how to write like Diona speaks. I learned what words she utilizes and how she uses them. I learned her cadence, her tone.

Her website redesign then came out of me like a wellspring. Yes, it was work but it was effortless work. We were of one mind with this redesign.