CannyBill.com design project discussion with the client Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine and the designer Andy Clarke (@cowshedstudio) of stuffandnonsense.co.uk and creator of Hard Boiled Web Design.

We started off discussing the reasons behind why Wladimir chose Andy to be the designer for the new CannyBill and why Andy wanted to dig into this project. The main reasons behind the relationship aside from good mutual respect was the fact that Andy was allowed to do this project open to the public.

Here’s a nice quote by Andy from his blog wrapping up the CannyBill project:

It was a pleasure to work with a team of smart people who really get it. They encouraged me to push the design as far as I needed and went with me in using HTML5 and CSS3 extensively. As client‘s go, they are also some of the bravest in allowing their design process to be open to the public.

We discussed the Prices and plans page design a bit, really delving into this question Andy brought up on his blog:

When is it the right thing to do not to attempt to reinvent a well established, tried and tested design pattern or convention. This question has come up while I have been designing the CannyBill prices and plans page.

I happen to agree with Andy here, that it’s not so much about the design pattern itself as it is doing what’s appropriate for the website/project. In this case, the CannyBill audience is very similar to the 37signals products audience that riffing on the way they’ve done the basecamp pricing and plans page is rather appropriate. Personally i’ve always researched design patterns and I get into that aspect of web design very deeply. However, I can’t say that i’ve really considered them based on the familiarity the target audience has with a specific type of design pattern, like the pricing and plans style of page.

When the subject of copy writing was touched on, specifically the work Relly Annett-Baker (@RellyAB) has done for CannyBill. I asked what it was like working with a copy writer, in this case a freelance copy writer.

Andy’s approach is that you need the copy before you can really do a great job at the design and markup. So often he says that he’ll dig into creating some of the copy himself when he needs it, for several reasons. Just so he has it to work with when designing. I’ve always said that a designer who can write has a killer skill set. Andy also talks about the micro copy and the importance of paying attention to it as you design.

My bad jokes aside, this was a really wonderful discussion, one you don’t get very often with both the designer and client at the same time. Many thanks to Wladimir and Andy for taking some time out to talk with me.

Full disclosure: CannyBill/dpvision was recently a sponsor of unmatcheedstyle.com.

The final product of the project, CannyBill.com: