1. Michael Graf’x Photography Website Project
Justin Gahring, Rachel Dotson, Shelby Robinson, Keely Jabloner
Professor Kastner
December 1st
, 2015

2. Staci Sulhoff is an extremely talented photographer out of the North Georgia region. Her
passion for photography started when she was only eight years old and has only grown stronger
since then. Staci specializes in a variety of photography shoots including weddings, senior
photos, and sports. Even though her abilities for being able to capture the most memorable
moments are outstanding, her website required some improvements to match her talents. As a
team, we thought it would be best to use this opportunity to enhance Staci’s website.
We reached out to Staci to get her ideas and find out information on what she has
established for her photography website currently. After discussing with her we found out she
has two websites: Michael Grafx Photography and Staci Sulhoff Photography. Michael Grafx
Photography is incomplete while Staci Sulhoff Photography is newer and is still being worked
on. It is best to constructively critique both sites to understand the impacts and changes we made
to enhance her photography business.
Staci’s original site, Michael Grafx, was created with a dark background with three
squares for images to distinguish the different photo shoot categories. When the page is fully
loaded two of the three images are black missing pictures for the categories. The way it is
formatted makes users think that you would click on the square where the image is supposed to
be to browse through all of the pictures. However, users must actually click the words below the
images. Some of the words are cut off from being on the main screen for a laptop without having
to scroll. It is also important to note that Michael Grafx’s site is an unresponsive design making
pieces not easily viewable especially on mobile devices.
The site’s format is setup to have a menu on the left side of the page that is always there.
Menu options include home, portfolio, view your event, sitting tips, contact, and password. The
view your event button navigates you to a variety of shoots. The categorization of the images are

3. not put together in a manner that guides users to exactly what they hope to see. For instance, as
users scroll pictures of sports, senior photos, and weddings are altogether. Shoots have been
uploaded vertically so users continuously scroll to view more.
There is a call to action to “watch our videos” on the lower left of the homepage, but you
have to scroll down to view it unless users are on mobile devices. It directs users to another
website with a video Staci has prepared for customers to get a chance to see a quick compilation
of a lot of her work. Staci also has a unique way of allowing her previous clients to view their
entire photo shoots by clicking on the password option on the menu bar. Altogether, the content
of Staci’s photos are wonderful, but the website required some necessary adjustments.
The second website we spent time on was Staci Sulhoff Photography. A quick viewing of
this website and she had already made huge improvements for user friendliness, adding an
appealing design, and easily accessible information. However, this website is also incomplete
because we believe she is still working on fully developing it. This version of her photography
website is also great because it is highly responsive. If users decide to browse Stacie Sulhoff
Photography on their mobile devices it fits very well.
Staci Sulhoff Photography was created with a white background that completely focuses
user’s eyes on her photography. On the homepage there are three main photos that break her
business into three categories: photography, fine art, and graphic design. Photography directs
users to her photography from her shoots but has much less content of images than her old
website. The fine art category takes users to images of fine art that she has taken. Lastly, her
graphic design option showcases her previous graphic design artwork she has created. Every
page the site directs users leads to a simple design with specific paths customers are going to

4. take. This makes it very easy to navigate through as well as keeps users from continuously
scrolling. The visual design looks extremely neat, crisp, and clean.
The menu bar is at the top of the website with four options: home, about, blog, and
contact. When users are on their mobile devices it allows the menu to be hidden and revealed
when ready to access. The about section allows for a drop-down menu giving customers the
opportunity to learn more about Staci and the chance to review her resume. If users select to
learn more about Staci, they will read great content with information all about her as well as find
out what she looks like. If users select to review her resume, they will get to view a beautifully
created resume with all of her background. With Staci’s photos, we wanted the users to see her
brilliant work with the current senior portraits, sporting events, and weddings. Even though she
used a wide array of photo variations, the user has access to see authentic colorful pictures to be
able to bring out the photos with the white background.
We decided to create a new website for Staci to showcase her work. Squarespace is a
designing website that has many tools to assist new website creators. It allows users the
capability of picking between templates, changing colors, adding calls to action, and really
everything a website would need.
The categories we kept for users to click between are: home, pricing, about, session tips,
blog, and contact. This website is responsive and shrinks the images that are placed on each page
for mobile devices. It also hides the categories to select for smaller devices. Each size of a device
will increase or decrease what is visible. On each page of the website we added a large image
from one of her photography shoots with wording on top of the image identifying what category
was selected. Altogether the site is extremely visually appealing with lots of white space but
strong beautiful pictures Staci has taken centered on the site. When users scroll below the main

5. image on all pages, there will be either three small circles with pictures or a small carousel
showcasing Staci’s work depending on the page selected. This new website was also designed
with the Z formation in mind.
The home page has a long banner at the very top that says “Click here to book your
session today!” The letters are in white and the block is black to hopefully draw user’s eyes.
Squarespace does have its limitations and we wanted to have a call to action on the large main
image on the homepage. However, we placed a button right below in a bright orange color for
the call to action. This call to action says “Book Now!” Both calls to action spots direct users to
the contact page to finalize a meeting with Staci.
When selecting a type of photography to browse, the pictures are sorted so that if users
are wanting to view sports they are only looking at sporty images and so on and so forth. The
images are in the carousel style to allow customers to go left and right instead of continuously
scrolling for more images.
We added the category of pricing to give users an idea of how much a session would cost.
Of course there is always customization and add-ons that can increase a photography session
cost, but the purpose is to give an idea of what the investment will be.
Another change we made was on the contact page. When users are interested in
contacting Staci, they will also learn the area she is located in so that might help in identifying if
someone wants to commit to a photography session.
Our group focused on making sure there is no website loading errors, there is images
plugged into necessary spots, and it is a visually appealing website. Between Staci’s two
websites she did not have calls to action or content in an organized manner. Having Staci’s
photos sorted together in a better way with plenty to browse through created a much more user-

6. friendly experience. Our site offered two calls to action on the homepage that will hopefully
drive users to set up photo sessions. Additionally, she did previously have a blog section on the
Staci Sulhoff Photography but with only one post. It would be great for her to keep it updated so
that future customers could learn more about her and her sessions. On our site we have a page
dedicated to her blog. Staci has a passion to also teach others and her plans for the blog is to
showcase highlights or the best images from the session and upload videos on “how-to’s” for
upcoming photographers. Each blog post would have links to a proofing gallery where clients
can see all the photos and order prints.
The social media plugins were an important aspect we wanted to integrate into each of
the pages. There is a Facebook link at the top of the homepage and on the bottom of every other
page. Connecting the site with her current social media will create a great linkage between her
online presences. Facebook will also generate more clients because there will be constant
updates of “sneak peeks” from her shoots. Since both sites are connected, users will end up in the
same places hopefully booking a new session or returning to book another session.
Staci Sulhoff does some amazing work and we wanted her photography skills to be very
well demonstrated through her website. If Staci continues to update the Staci Sulhoff
Photography website, we hope the improvements we made would be added to her site that is
already live.