Get to know me
Life
I’m Pedro and I grew up in Póvoa de Varzim, a piscatory city in the north of Portugal where the sound of waves crashing on the sand and the sea breeze were a constant presence. Maybe that’s what made me a happy and relaxed person.
While playing football, I discovered my passion for design and started creating custom football boots for my colleagues and pre-game shirts for the clubs I played for.
While studying for my degree in electrotechnical and computer engineering, my love for design led me to design and develop two online stores – one for me and one for a friend. I kept studying and obtained a master’s degree in electrotechnical and energy systems engineering, what leads to today. I work as an engineer, while still pursue my true passion that is web design and development.
My workflow
As someone who takes pride in their work, I am always looking for ways to improve my productivity and efficiency in order to deliver the best results possible. For now the following workflow works out the best for me, and allows me to maintain a constant communication with my clients.
In this first part of the project I mostly want to know the customer/business, the message it is intended to transmit through the website, type of design, etc. Here we decide what topics we should cover and its priorities within every page of the website, the number of pages, the structure, and points we might find relevant to the project.
From this point I can start designing your website!
I start creating the structure of the website and its design considering the guidelines of the client/business. It’s in this phase that I start choosing the images I’ll use and edit/resizing them, aswell as choosing the text fonts, and website color palette. The client/business will always have the opportunitty to make adjustments, give opinions, ask for changes, etc
In a bigger project this step will surely take longer because I might design more than one mockup for the client to choose from. I’ll be in constant contact with the client/business to make sure every step makes us both happy.
This is where I start developing the elements of the website. Things like the website copy (these are the texts that will be on the website), the SEO orientation (Search Engine Optimization), writing code, etc. In this phase the website will be fully developed, with the possibility to make some final minor adjustments to it, so I can optimize it for mobile devices too. The backoffice will be also developed in this phase, together with the next phase.
The website will be fully tested in terms of usability, performance, safety and security, cross-browser compatibility, mobile responsiveness. In the end of all the tests, we enter the next phase.
The domain and hosting are configured and connected to the website, which allows the website to “live” online 24 hours a day. It is important that a short training is provided to you, the client, so you feel comfortable if you need to interact with the backoffice. This is further discussed with you regardind the preferred method for this training.
This is the moment we most want to achieve, your website is live. The launch of your new website makes us both happy because it means a successfull project that means both your goals and mine!
This phase of the project is as important as the other ones all together, because it is what maintains the website “safe and sound”. What this means is that the website has to be constantly monitored to guarantee that it is up and that has enough resources to run properly and provide a positive user experience. Regular maintenance can help you identify and fix technical issues, update content and optimize your website for search engines, while ensuring it is up-to-date, accessible and responsive across different devices and browsers.
Failing to maintain a website can result in decreased traffic, lower search engine ratings, and most important: security vulnerabilities that can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive information (personal data, for example).
Therefore, it is truly important to regularly maintain and secure your website to prevent negative consequences.