To illustrate my web design classes, I redesigned and rebuilt a site for my friend Ariel Karass. He’s an amazing yoga teacher and needed a professional, easy-to-update website.

UX

I thought through the user flows for the main visitors: current students, potential clients, and studio owners looking to hire. Retreats and private lessons are the most valuable events for his business, so I made sure they were called out on the home page. I also suggested an email capture form as the most important way to keep in touch with his fans, and a responsive website so they could easily skim information at any screen size.

UI

I kept the design super simple, so it’d last Ariel a few years. Centered typography conveyed the idea of balance, while sans serif fonts showed his modern approach. Dark, saturated colors added a feeling of strength, and clean white highlights gave a lift of inspiration.

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Development

I coded the frontend using Hammer and Sass, using Bourbon for mixins, Bourbon Neat for grids, and my own custom framework of partials.

For the backend I chose Couch CMS, since it’s super simple to build and administer. I had the static HTML turned into a dynamic website in four hours, and Ariel is able to add new classes, pricing, and retreats himself.