{"id":138,"date":"2014-09-26T17:50:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-26T12:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahmadawais.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2017-08-21T21:42:09","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T16:42:09","slug":"re-designed-propakistani-pk-360-re-branding-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahmadawais.com\/re-designed-propakistani-pk-360-re-branding-project\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Re-Designed ProPakistani.pk? A 360 Re-Branding Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many other tech-junkies in Pakistan, ProPakistani.pk has been a permanent fixture in my RSS feeds for many years. I’ve watched them grow from a relatively lowbrow tech blog into a thorough, to the point, actually valuable online telcos resource. Part of that has been seen partly from ‘the inside’,\u00a0as my team is contributing content here for some time now, and I’m happy to say that my involvement now runs even deeper: I designed & developed the fourth version of ProPakistani.<\/p>\n

I applaud ProPakistani.pk because Aamir Attaa and his team had always given their level best when it came\u00a0to breaking news relevant to telcos niche. Not only this but I believe that ProPakistani has evolved into something much bigger than what it used to be, due to continued improvement; something that is evident when you go and compare the quality of today’s articles with those posted a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n

However, for a long time, I had this feeling that ProPK design is holding it back somewhat, nodding back to the days when it was a less well-respected blog in Pakistan. So, when Aamir Attaa asked me if I’d like to redesign the site, I jumped right in at the chance: in my mind, this could be the opportunity for the visuals to more accurately reflect the quality of the content within.<\/p>\n

So after multiple sleepless nights, ever-changing deadlines (due to the political situation in Pakistan), me and my team,\u00a0finally present you all, with the latest re-design of ProPakistani; the fourth as they say.<\/p>\n

To define what’s what and how we did everything you see I planned to write about it, about the process as we went through it. Neither I or the ProPakistani team have any plans to ‘crowdsource’ feedback, but this is a rare opportunity, one can get, to talk about some of the decision-makings, and yet I’m a big fan of transparency.<\/p>\n

Step # 1:\u00a0<\/span>The Pinned Points#<\/a><\/h2>\n

When Aamir Attaa contacted\u00a0me<\/a> for a redesign, our team after three meetings pitched a proposal of what we intended to deliver. After individual discussions over Skype one of the three tracks, we pitched, was approved. Then there was a meeting between two designers including me, three developers and a third party designer. Which led us to few key improvement factors: The pinned points<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Flat<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Trendy<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Responsive<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Sleek & the\u00a0bigger, the better approach<\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Pagespeed & more\u00a0<\/strong>intuitive custom notifications<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Pinnedpoints\"<\/p>\n

    In the beginning, to form loose ideas of a possible aesthetic, as well as tackle the somewhat complicated issue of ProPK\u00a0broad categories\u00a0and how to create a sophisticated responsive design, we started off with the above points.<\/p>\n

    Step # 2:<\/span> Design\u00a0Phase#<\/a><\/h2>\n

    The design process began with a lot of research followed by several discussions, and if my recollection of lost isn’t misleading me, then we had 23 meetings. One thing I’d like to mention about my team is, we don’t sit in the form of groups of designers, developers, etc. but we keep on changing our sitting arrangements depending upon the projects we are working over.<\/p>\n

    To be more clear, let’s say we got the ProPk’s project, the RFP (request for proposal) was addressed, and stuff was finalized. Then in-house we decided about how much time each and everything will take, to who will be working on what. We manage all this stuff over an internal dashboard, where all the set of tasks are created by a particular project lead, who then assigns every task to a particular person. Then at the very end, we get to have the names of all the team members working on a particular project, i.e., ProPakistani. We had two designers and three developers working on this project. So, now whenever these five people are working over ProPK, it is compulsory for them to be seated together. This workflow enhances the performance of team members and reduces a lot of fuss.<\/p>\n

    Finalizing the Design#<\/a><\/h3>\n

    What started with three different designs after a research over 200+ sites ended up in one single workflow within the third week. After that, all we had to do was design what we had in the form of sketches over pages. Took hardly five days and we had a winner. Two quality assurance tests led to the final design pitch which later got approved by Aamir Attaa and his team. It was something like the one below.<\/p>\n

    Key\u00a0Design Aesthetics#<\/a><\/h3>\n