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A Few of My Favorite Design in a Day Quick-Launch Squarespace Websites

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When Kath & I launched Design in a Day, we didn’t know quite how it would all shake out. Would people dig the idea of launching in just one day? Would be it overwhelming for us? What were we getting ourselves into? 

It turns out, it’s definitely filling a niche for folks who are in need of a website ASAP and don’t have the bandwidth for a custom design process. I’ve certainly learned a lot from the process as well–fast design is a unique challenge and I’m finding that process is even more critical than ever with this quick turnaround.

Here are a few of my favorite Squarespace websites we’ve designed and launched in just one day.

Charlotte & Daughters – charlotteanddaughters.com

How much do I love this website for an Oakland floral design company? Charlotte came to use as a referral from the awesome crew at Flight Design Co, so her branding was on point. (Seriously, if you’re in need of a full scale strategic branding process to infuse new life into your branding, they are the team to go to.)

What works about this site is that Charlotte had stunning imagery of her portfolio of work. We were able to create a gorgeous website based around her creations and Kath trained her so she can add more of her work, organized by wedding couple, to the site as she grows her business. 

The Black Power Series/NYU Press – blackpowerseries.com

 A new non-profit website designed on Squarespace for the National Lutheran Choir

The Black Power Series is a new book series coming from NYU Press and edited by Ibram X. Kendi (whom I’m proud to say just joined the faculty at my alma mater, American University, as the director of their new center on anti-racism research and policy) and Ashley Farmer, which is the first scholarly series dedicated to “chronicling Black Power, its antecedents, and its capacious legacy.” They needed a website–and fast! They were about to issue a call for contributors and needed somewhere to send people. 

We had a great time working with their vibrant color palette (the galleries in indexes in Squarespace are great for color-blocking, which can be a really great design detail) and bringing in very strong typography. Plus, they have the infrastructure in place to build out their site themselves as they add contributors.

Emily Gertz, Science Writer – emilygertz.com

Emily is a journalist writing about the environment, energy, technology, science, and people and a friend of my client Michelle Nijhuis. She needed a quick site to showcase her work to attract the eyes of editors and collaborators.

One of my favorite tricks for portfolio-style sites is actually setting the sites up structurally akin to a blog, so that it’s motivation to post new work. It also reduces some of the limitations built into Squarespace’s galleries, so you can really showcase work in a way that makes sense to you, rather than whomever developed the gallery functionality of Squarespace (which I imagine was created with photographers in mind, specifically). We did just that for Emily, using some of her favorite fonts and the Rally template as a starting point. 


As I’ve said many times, Design in a Day isn’t right for everyone–it’s a very distinct process and it won’t fit everyone’s personalities, but it’s been fun seeing the diversity of types of projects it does work for. When we first conceived of designing and launching a Squarespace website in just one day, we were pretty sure it was be exclusively service based businesses, but it’s really been all sorts! How cool is that? 

Disclosure: Please note that some links on this website are affiliate links, which generates a small amount of revenue to support the free content we provide.

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