[Applied Design Thinking]

A Web Design Project for a New Custom Blinds Company

The Back Story 

Vera Blinds is a newly launched business offering custom blinds, shutters, draperies, and modern window treatments. This project marked the company’s first website, making clarity, trust, and visual credibility especially important from the start. The goal was not only to establish an online presence, but to introduce the brand in a way that felt modern, polished, and welcoming to first-time visitors.

The client placed strong importance on showcasing modern interiors and window treatments, which introduced a key challenge: How to preserve the same modern room hero image’s impact across devices.

The Competition: Heuristics

Before design began, I conducted a light heuristic review of local competitors to understand the landscape. Many competing sites relied on outdated layouts and contained accessibility issues that could limit usability. This presented an opportunity to design a site that felt current, intentional, and easier to navigate—helping a new business stand out in a crowded market.

A real-world design decision under responsive constraints

This project surfaced a common but critical issue in modern web design: beginning with a desktop-first layout when the experience is driven by large, visual hero imagery.

The initial concept relied on a wide, immersive image to communicate modern interiors and custom window treatments. While effective on desktop, that same composition did not translate cleanly to mobile, where compression reduced hierarchy, legibility, and visual balance.

While this image looks completely perfect on a desktop view, the mobile view had issues because of the ratios. A translucent overlay was created to maintain visual continuity across devices.