I have personal attachment issues. Most recently, to my beloved pair of “traveling” shoes. They were a light brown suede with bright pink laces and soles. Classy and comfortable, they’ve seen the cobblestones of Dublin, crowded sidewalks of New York, New Orleans’ bourbon-marinated streets and Chicago’s frigid bridges. Alas, I knew it was time to let my well-loved friends go when Lake Roundpeg tried to claim them for its own, glomming them in mud. They were done for. (Actually, they’re still sitting on my porch because I still haven’t been able to completely let them go.)

So when the time came to redesign the Roundpeg website, I was fully aware of all the love and care that went into making it attractive and useful. As with everything, time marches on and while nothing was wrong, the Roundpeg website definitely needed some updates.

How do you elevate a mature brand, bringing it into the present without ignoring the hard-won past?

We started our web redesign with a branding conversation. For every page we asked: Does it look like us? Does it sound like us? Is this who we want to be? Wait, who are we anyway?

During several focused sessions, we reevaluated our brand prior to delving into the redesign. These meetings in addition to my months at The Peg, working closely with Lorraine and checking in with Jenna on guidelines laid out over the years, I had a pretty good idea of how to proceed.

Outwardly, Roundpeg sets itself apart by giving our clients control. We use Divi builder in WordPress to build effective websites and train our customers how to use them. We’re also accessible and responsive: every call is picked up on the first ring.

Inwardly, we’re an approachable, experienced and curious bunch (in every sense). My guideposts for the redesign, as well as most Roundpeg projects, were between stodgy corporate professionalism and charming affability. We know what we’re doing, and we want to show you how.

Like a good pair of shoes, the new design needed to fit well and just as importantly, work well. What decisions did we make to bring the Roundpeg site up to date?

For one thing, we took our own advice and dropped the drop down menus. In this mobile-friendly age, drop downs are becoming a thing of the past. We didn’t want our users to navigate menus with tiny text on a device only a few inches tall. If the wrong tab was hit, they’d have to start over.

Getting rid of drop downs forced us to make thoughtful decisions about how we wanted visitors to move through our site. We want our visitors to find what they are looking for on the home page, reaching it with one click or tap for details. Most evident is our desire to help our clients, showcased right on the front with the “Take Control” and “Let Us Help” sections.

Making intentional decisions allowed us to get rid of our clunky side bars. Each page is clear about what it does. Instead of a side bar with several possible calls to action, we placed full-width calls to action at the bottom of each page. Our thought is that if a viewer is interested enough to get to the bottom of a page, they’re probably interested in talking to us.

The other main objective of the new site was to showcase the resources Roundpeg has to offer. Dates for upcoming webinars and seminars are on the home page, as well as links to some of our many downloads. Discipline-specific resources are also available on each of our product pages, including strategy, web design, graphic design and content marketing.

While sentimentality can make it difficult to let go of the familiar, we believe our new website is more functional and serves our customers better.

I just saw a slightly used pair of my beloved travel shoes for cheap on eBay, but maybe I’ll branch out for a newer, better, different pair. Maybe.

Roundpeg is an Indianapolis web design firm.