Tiff did a killer job documenting our organic design process for the new Second and Park in an earlier post, so I’ll spare repeating those details here (needless to say, designing away from the computer is endlessly refreshing).

Instead, I want to discuss a few of the design choices I made for the new secondandpark.com, and how I tried to force myself out of my comfort zone.

A page is all you need

I’ve long been a proponent of the lean and mean, singlepage-style site. And yet it’s intimidating to actually limit yourself to just one page — will it really be enough?

As it turns out, there’s a certain elegance in limiting yourself to a single page — you focus solely on the message, branding, and pitch in a way that escapes a typical website structure. Much like the way Twitter forces you to edit your thoughts into little ‘idea nuggets,’ a single page site can make you re-think your entire strategy.

Many of the conventions and patterns we use on a ‘standard’ website don’t apply to a single page site. Navigation, plopped into the site header? Well, you really don’t need much navigation on a single page site — what you do need, you can integrate within the text. A consistent, rigid grid layout? You won’t need one, because the site doesn’t have to support pages of boilerplate text. You get to design each block of copy (instead of each page) much more closely, and you can work a lot more personality into the styles without worrying about consistency across a large site.

See if you can design your next site with fewer pages or views — You may find that imposing a little constraint makes you a more disciplined designer.

A big, chunky, sexy font

I don’t have a formal background in type, but I do know a good typeface when I see one. Enter Sentinel. From Hoefler & Frere-Jones, a foundry that has been on an absolute roll the last few years (Gotham, Archer, Knockout, and Whitney are pretty much the most lovely, versatile fonts around these days), Sentinel is a seriously sexy slab serif. Big, chunky, curvy and very flexible.

When you get your hands on a good font, you can let it do the talking. I’ve been itching to really experiment and push myself by ‘going big’ with type and using it as a graphic callout. This draws a lot of focus to the copy, which is exactly what I wanted to do with Tiff’s wonderful callouts and headings. If it feels like the site is saying “Blammo!” with a little nod and a wink, I’ve done my job.

Headless horseman

Tiff and I felt she’d have the most luck on her web copy business working with other design agencies. She’s got a lot of of experience and is one helluva project manager — so she knows about hitting deadlines, how important it is to get good content from clients, and working well with teams.

So, in addition to the leaf-monster callout on the homepage, I wanted to have a direct and clear pitch that spoke directly to the needs of agencies. This is the design I came up with:

Notice there’s no header? I felt that designing this page ‘headless’ would make it feel like a one-sheet print piece — a uniquely designed and well-crafted layout that fit into the overall site design language (colors/type), but also felt unique and thoughtful. This way, we could send clients the link directly, and the pitch could inform the homepage (and vice-versa).

The site also follows some basic landing page design concepts — it doesn’t compel you to go follow links. The goal is to get people to digest this page in full, not fritter themselves away to some other site.

Danke

One thing that great web app companies do well is humanize their interface copy. Twitter, Flickr, and 37signals are all exemplars of the idea that the copy is the interface. Every bit of language on an application or a page counts.

For Second and Park, I wanted to make sure that filling out the contact form wasn’t boring — instead of the normal “Success: Form submitted!” robot-noise, you’ll see another custom-designed page. I think it keeps the site’s tone friendly and excited.

I hope you all dig the new secondandpark.com. If you know of a design agency who could use some copy help, don’t be afraid to pass them our way.