cNanny
Project: Landing page and branding for a nanny placement platform
Elements: Visual Design | Branding
Where: Freelance for cNanny
Summary
cNanny
cNanny is a platform that allows parents to find thoroughly vetted nannies at a much lower price than a traditional nanny placement agency.Finding adequate child care is a huge issue. Parents have to find someone who they can trust to come into their home and take care of their most precious charge with no supervision. The process of interviewing nannies is laborious and time consuming. When a parent finally makes a decision, it doesn’t always work out. They then have to go through the whole process again, which is stressful and disruptive to the children.cNanny makes the process easier by ensuring that only quality candidates are featured on the platform. The nannies are thoroughly vetted through:Knowledge and personality assessmentsBackground and driving record checksObligatory CPR and first aid certificationMultiple interviewsFurther, to attract higher quality candidates cNanny works to ensure that the nannies are paid what they are worth by making the salary negotiation process transparent. Both the parents and the nannies are informed of the market rate for the nanny’s services based on her experience and the services being asked of her.
Landing Page Goals
The two main goals of the landing page are:Get parents to sign up for the serviceGet nannies to apply to be featured on the platformTo achieve these goals, the problems I solved for were:Enable both parents and nannies to quickly understand what cNanny does and why they need itConvey professionalism and trust without seeming cold and keeping a style that is appropriate to the childcare industryMaking a clear call to action
The Process
The Solution
I created “Why cNanny” and “How it Works” sections using a combination of icons and easy to scan text that clearly lay out the benefits of cNanny to the user. Further, I interspersed these with full screen images overlaid with call out quotes to emphasize the key points.
To get the balance of professionalism, warmth, and trust while being appropriate to the childcare industry:
I chose a soft color scheme that combined whimsical purple with a more serious green.
I used a standard layout that has a clean and professional look combined with evocative images of nannies with children.
Finally, I made clear calls to action by including “Find a cNanny” and “Become a cNanny” buttons, that are emphasized through size, color, and position.
The Final Design
Landing Page - Final Visual Design
The Process
Competitive Analysis
I looked at a wide variety of websites, including websites that:
provide similar services,
deal with similar subject matter,
have a similar target market, and
have a similar purpose.
I put screenshots of these sites on a Pinterest board so I could easily view them together to pick out overall themes and choose designs that seemed particularly effective and relevant.
Takeaways
Color Scheme
Many childcare sites used green, blue, or pink
Page Format
Most home pages were one, long scroll, page
Scannable
Combination of icons and text used to make information scannable
Imagery
Images of smiling people interacting with each other used to illicit emotion
I incorporated most of these features into my design.
Logo
I designed the cNanny logo, including choosing the color scheme, which I then incorporated into the landing page.
I started the logo design process by making black and white logos to test. I produced 12 rough ideas, some electronically using generic icons and typefaces, and some sketched by hand. I showed these to 13 people asking each person which they preferred.
First Round Logo Experiments
There was no clear winner, but designs three and six emerged as favorites. However, I received feedback that none of the designs had strong enough branding, as they were all a little too generic. I decided to do another round of sketching to push for a stronger, less generic brand.
Second Round Logo Sketches
I chose the best three sketches to recreate electronically in Illustrator and to add color to.
Because cNanny is in the business of childcare, the logo needed to have a certain whimsy and warmth, but it was crucial that this did not overpower the sense of professionalism and trust. During the competitive research, I noticed that I lot of childcare related sites use green, blue, or pink in their color schemes. cNanny wanted to differentiate itself visually from its competitors by using a lavender color. With lavender being more on the side of whimsy, I decided to pair it with a green, a color more commonly used by competitors, as well many financial websites, to bring a more serious tone with calming effects and connotations of stability.
Ultimately, none of these three new designs resonated with cNanny and we settled on a combination of the second new design with design six from the first round.And the final design used a script typeface for “cNanny” to evoke subtle whimsy and a rounded sans serif for the tagline for softened professionalism.
Final Logo
Wireframes
Sketching
With the logo finished, I moved on to designing the landing page. I did timed sketches to generate a variety of possible layouts.
Layout Sketches
Wireframes
I then transformed the most successful layout into a wireframe in Sketch. I went with a long scroll layout that pulls from the design patterns noted in the competitive analysis.
Landing Page Wireframe
Visual Design
To turn the wireframe into a final mock up, I added color, and chose typefaces, imagery, and iconography.
Final Design
Color Scheme
The main color scheme, lavender and green, was set by the decisions made for the logo. I paired these with a white background, for a clean trustworthy feel, and dark gray on the footer to end the page.
Typefaces
The header font was the same rounded sans serif used for the logo. I paired this with a more conventional square-end sans serif for the body text to maintain professionalism and readability. The body font, despite being more conventional, has a rounded feel to tie the design together.
Imagery
Imagery was crucial to creating an emotional reaction to the landing page. Inspired by the more emotive designs seen in my competitive analysis, I decided to use full screen background images showing nannies and children together. For the hero image, I found a photograph of an older female adult hand and a child’s hand holding a heart reminiscent of the logo.
Despite using stock photography, I was very careful to choose images of people that seemed like real people and not models to heighten the connection with the user. Further, I chose images that portrayed ethnic and age diversity. The images all show the nannies playing or reading with the children to emphasize the quality of care provided by cNanny.
Iconography
I chose relatively simple, rounded icons, reminiscent of the typefaces. Then, to brand these more strongly to cNanny, I added the heart from the cNanny logo to most of the icons.