BRAND + WEB DESIGN
A wedding and portrait photographer's complete rebrand following her name change, paired with a custom Squarespace website built as a deliberate differentiator in a market dominated by Showit templates. The work created a romantic-botanical visual identity, integrated Pixieset gallery delivery, and mobile-first storytelling for an audience that finds and books photographers on their phones.
ROMANTIC, BOTANICAL, ELEVATED
Alleigh Somers Photography
Strategic Narrative
The Brief
Alleigh Somers came to Dssentials with a working photography business running through a website that wasn't keeping pace with it. Two distinct service lines — weddings and portraits — were routed through a single contact form. Her current Pixieset site had lots of layout limitations that didn’t allow her to showcase the luxury nature of her work. The copy was warm but softened her authority in the moments prospective clients most needed to feel her command of the day. The brief was a full Squarespace 7.1 rebuild, with the deeper job upstream of design: a brand system that could hold weddings, portraits, welcome parties, and styled shoots without flattening into one undifferentiated stream.
The Strategic Decisions
Three calls shaped the build.
First, the color system runs on editorial discipline — sage green carries every action moment on the site, with cream, sand, and blush rotating as section backgrounds and dark green reserved for editorial pause. One rule, held everywhere, doing more for clarity than any individual page choice.
Second, contact routing was rebuilt as intent-aware: a chooser page at /inquire and two unlisted intake pages, each form sized to the decision being made, with CTAs across the site routing wedding-context visitors directly past the chooser.
Third, a blog taxonomy of seven categories and five tag groups was built around the searches her ideal couples actually run, with a naming convention that holds from carousel title to gallery filename to alt text.
The Outcome
The site reads as a curated editorial presence rather than a working photographer's portfolio. The architecture sorts visitors into the right path on its own, and the brand system gives Alleigh somewhere to add work for the next three years without it drifting.
Primary Logo Design
Logo Design Breakdown
Moodboard & Color Palette
Alternative Draft Logo Concepts
Full Crest Logo
Simplified Crest Monogram
Wordmark Logo
Iconography
Monogram
Stacked Wordmark Logo
Squarespace Website | www.alleighsomersphotography.com
What Alleigh had to say…
As a business owner, you have this grand vision of what your business is going to be. What is challenging for some, is how to make that vision a reality. I don’t mean a business plan; I mean the most important part… YOUR BRAND!
That is exactly what Dssentials achieved for me. I told them everything I wanted to incorporate, who I was as a person, and the message I wanted my brand to deliver. They absolutely nailed it, and my clients love it just as much as I do! It has helped me differentiate myself from the herd, and capture more market share just on brand recognition alone!
I have used their services on several different branding journies with my business, and it’s been nothing but exceptional. Consistency, Creativity, Communication, and Candor is exactly what you should expect from Dssentials.
Homepage • We used this page to introduce Alleigh's talents and ways of working to prospective clients through photo-forward layouts, layered brand patterns and color blocking.
Experience • This page is dedicated to educating prospective couples about what it's like to work with Alleigh from booking through to portfolio delivery.
Blog Home • Alleigh plans to have an active blog as a part of her site to help drive SEO strategy, so the homepage has to be a place where users can self-serve via the posts organized by tags and categories.
About • This page gives couples a peek behind the curtain to learn more about Alleigh and was a prime place to showcase the pink hue in her color palette alongside more feminine imagery of florals.
Inquiry Home • Clients can inquire in two ways - for weddings and for portraits. This inquiry landing is a great place for visitors to self-select and only fill out a form that's more closely related to their photo needs.
Portrait Inquiry • We created distinct inquiry destinations for Alleigh's client types. This page is dedicated to those looking to inquire about a portrait session, so they don't get overwhelmed with any wedding-related inquiry details.
Portraits Home • For those who want to explore her portfolio further, Alleigh has two separate Portfolio homepages. This portraits one helps give a preview of her work, and the types of portraits she offers.
Portfolio Sample • For couples who want to see specific wedding examples, they're able to scroll through six curated portfolio galleries that provides more insights into the specifics around that wedding, and provides extensive imagery.
Blog Post Sample • An example of an educational blog post within her blogging space, The Candid Chronicles. She's able to create linking strategies, boost SEO terms and showcase her vast photography knowledge.