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Design your site with Lanlan

Work out how your site should look and sound before it's built — in five minutes, or with a whole design team.

You can go straight to building, and Lanlan makes sensible choices. But if you want a real direction — colours, fonts, the feeling of the site, how it talks — Lanlan can work it out with you first.

Three ways to start

Concept pictures. When you start something new, Lanlan often shows a few pictures of how the top of your home page could look, each with its exact colours and fonts. Pick one and it builds from there. This takes a minute.

A basic design session (about 5 minutes). Lanlan asks a few quick questions about the feeling you want, sites you like and who your visitors are. Then it proposes colours, type and a direction, with concept pictures to choose from.

A full design session (30 minutes or more). Lanlan brings together a small team of named experts chosen for your kind of business — for example a brand strategist, a designer who knows your industry and a communications specialist. They ask the questions you didn't know to ask, and they disagree with each other when it helps. You answer, push back, and decide.

Start a session

In Tell Lanlan, ask:

  • "Before we build, can we do a design session?"
  • "I'd like the full design team for this."
  • "My site feels off and I can't say why. Can we rethink the design?"

Lanlan checks which kind you'd like, then starts once you agree. You can also open the Brand Guide page and press Run a design consultation.

During the session, Lanlan asks one question at a time. Answer in a sentence or two; there are no wrong answers.

Choosing a direction

Concepts arrive as cards in the conversation. Each one has a picture, its colours and its fonts. The picture shows the feel; the colours and fonts are exact. Grey lines in the picture stand in for your real words.

  • Use this — go with that direction.
  • More like this… — steer it: warmer or cooler, calmer or more playful, bolder or more classic type, more photos or more illustration, or in your own words ("more editorial").
  • Show me more — a few new ideas.

Concepts can be for a website, an app, a document, slides or an infographic, not only a home page.

What you keep

At the end, Lanlan writes a brand brief: your colours, fonts, voice and visual direction. It's saved with your site, and every later change follows it, so you don't have to explain your style again.

Open the Brand Guide to see it, or press Print / PDF to share it. To change it, ask: "Make our greens a little warmer and update the brand guide."

If you had a design team, you can ask them again later:

  • "What would the team think of the new About page?"
  • "Ask the team to review the site now that it's built."

What it costs

Design sessions are included on every plan, free and Pro.

What to try next

If you get stuck

Ask Lanlan. In Tell Lanlan, "I can't figure out how to…" almost always gets you unstuck. For anything Lanlan can't help with, email support.