Before any visual design began, the priority was what platform would be the best to move forward with. I weighed three paths forward: staying on Wix, since the blog was already established there; migrating the blog over to Shopify to join the already established print shop; or starting fresh on a new platform entirely. Staying on Wix would have left the print shop permanently disconnected from the blog. Migrating to Shopify solved the platform-count problem, but Shopify's blogging tools were too limited to support a content-driven travel blog, so it would have fixed one issue by creating another. I also considered Webflow and WordPress, but ruled both out on cost: Webflow requires an additional paid tier just to add ecommerce to a site, and running a blog and a shop through WordPress would have meant paying for hosting plus separate plugins or apps for each. Squarespace was the only option that handled blog content, an online store, and email marketing natively, in one plan, without stacking on extra costs for either half of the business.

With Squarespace decided, I mapped a full sitemap before any visual design began, covering not just the homepage but every page's internal structure. The homepage flows in a fixed sequence, Hero, Our Travel Philosophy, About Us, Featured Blog Posts, Browse Categories, Print Shop, Subscribe for Updates, Footer, so it could act as a single landing point directing visitors into every part of the business rather than functioning as just a hero banner. Each section builds on the one before it, moving a visitor from an emotional hook into the people behind the brand, then into the two things the business actually offers: blog content first, giving away the free stories and information that build trust and give returning readers a reason to stay, followed by the print shop as the natural next step for anyone already invested enough in the story to want to take a piece of it home.

Beyond the homepage, the sitemap laid out the Blog (Blog Collection → Blog Post Card → Blog Post Page) and Print Shop (Collection → Print Item → Cart) as their own structured flows, plus a Contact Us page. Two pages in that original plan, Work With Us and a Portfolio page linked from the Contact form, were mapped but haven't been built yet; they remain part of the roadmap rather than the live site.

Before the final rebrand, I'd designed an earlier version of the site in Figma over a year prior, with a color palette that was more of a placeholder than a finished decision. That version was built around a travel stats section (countries roamed, continents journeyed, US states explored, national parks wandered), and the category system was designed to mirror those stats directly: USA, International, Wildlife, Adventure, Stays, Food, Cities, Hiking, National Parks, Travel Tips, Photography, and Pet Friendly, letting visitors browse by the same destinations and milestones the stats were counting. The plan at the time was also to eventually split content into three distinct arms: Destinations, Travel Tips, and, once the print shop was reintroduced, Photography Tips.

Most of the underlying hierarchy carried forward into the final site, but the category philosophy changed direction. The travel stats were cut because they felt generic rather than distinctly ours, and were replaced with the Philosophy section, which said something specific about how Keith and I actually think about travel instead of just counting destinations. That shift away from stats-driven categories led to the simpler, story-driven six-category system in the final site (Road Notes, Weekend Escapes, Trails & Parks, Lessons Learned, Photo Stories, City Wandering), organized around the kind of story being told rather than a checklist of places visited. And rather than relying on visitors to find their own way through navigation alone, the final homepage brings blog content back onto the page directly through the "Journey So Far" feed, paired with a more prominent category highlight, so visitors get a guided way in instead of a path they have to go looking for.

The original About block ran three ideas together in one paragraph: introducing us as the couple, stating the philosophy, and inviting people to follow along. Splitting it into Hero, Philosophy, and About let each section do one job and tightened the language along the way, "figuring out how to weave wanderlust into our everyday lives while working a traditional 9-5" became the hero's punchier "squeezing wanderlust into the daily work grind." The result reads less like an introduction and more like a thesis that unfolds across the page, hook first, why second, who we are third.

I started with word association and moodboard-style references to figure out what the mark needed to feel like. From there, I used our own trip photos as inspiration, pulling shapes and details that could become part of the mark instead of using generic travel icons.

I sketched through several directions before landing on the circular badge. I added a driftwood texture to give the mark a more natural, tactile feel and keep it connected to the outdoors and travel.

Rather than creating just one logo, I built a small system with different lockups for different uses. This included the full circular badge, a horizontal icon and wordmark, and the standalone mark. This gave the brand a few flexible options while keeping everything consistent.

The palette was pulled directly from our real trip photography: Coastal Cream, Driftwood Ink, Pine Harbor, Rust Trail, and Weathered Sand. Using colors from the photography helped the palette feel natural alongside the images instead of competing with them.

After launch, I changed Driftwood Ink to Deep Driftwood, a warmer brown that worked better with the rest of the palette. The original felt a little too flat and cool next to the warmer Rust Trail and Pine Harbor, so the browner tone gave the palette more cohesion while keeping the warm, natural feel.

Typography went through its own refinement. I initially chose Fraunces for its personality, but comparing the full alphabet side by side against Newsreader made its wonkier letterforms clear, particularly the J, which felt too distracting once applied across the actual brand. I moved to Newsreader for headers and section headings, Inter for body copy, and Instrument Serif for navigation and smaller utility moments like category labels.

Once the logo system was in place, I sketched out a few directions for smaller illustrations before landing on the final set. For a travel-themed icon, I considered a plane window with clouds and a wing, and a car rearview mirror framing a wildlife scene. I moved forward with the plane window since it tied more directly to the act of travel itself, and set the rearview mirror concept aside to revisit later rather than cutting it outright. For the film reel, I sketched out which kinds of shots should fill each frame (a mix of travel, wildlife, hiking, and portraits) before finalizing the illustration.

A boots-with-wildflowers illustration was also fully developed in the same style, but ultimately cut: the linework in the flowers and boot came out more controlled and precise, while the film reel and plane window kept a looser, more hand-drawn feel. The boots illustration didn't match that same loose energy.