Intro
Sunflower House Nursery is a children’s nursery based in Hillingdon, West London, with locations in Hayes, Uxbridge, and Cowley.
We designed their first website and got a chance to have another go when their first site got lost somewhere on the internet (we didn’t host it then). So to ensure that never happened again, we took over hosting and management to ensure everything would be smooth sailing.
When we designed the first site, we had a chance to create some 3D graphics, and I wanted to save some of the graphics for the new website.
Brief
When we discussed the website and the design, we spoke about the ethos of Sunflower house and what they wanted to convey. I had the image of a child sitting on their parent’s lap while the parent is looking at the website, and I wanted it to be engaging for both the parent and the child.
Bright and colourful, full of wonder and joy, but with a clear message about the nursery’s ethos.
We also spoke about what other websites they liked and didn’t like before we presented them with our design. There were minor tweaks to make before we went live.
Solution
We used photos that showed some of the play and fun the children would enjoy and some of the drawing elements we created to show a childlike and fun side to the site. Including our 3D designs of stylised trees and grass that we influenced by the children’s TV my nephew was watching at the time.
There was a choice to go big and bold and bright and colourful. We wanted the website to be friendly and approachable. As I mentioned before, I wanted the child to enjoy looking at the website while the parent was busy looking through it. That was the cornerstone of the website design.
Conclusion
As creatives and illustrators, we love to work on anything that lets us explore our creative side. The first website we created for Sunflower House Nursery allowed us to use 3D imagery to create an aesthetic that both kids and adults would enjoy, and we got to push and refine that on this website.
Small visual embellishments, such as the hand-drawn background to some sections, added playful quality we wanted to get across from their motto – “Together we play, learn and develop.”
It was a joy to work on this project, and we look forward to working with them again in the future.
