Creating a Cohesive, Professional Website for Claire Ortalda

A website rebuild often begins with a practical problem: pages that are hard to find, information that has lost its structure, or a visual identity that no longer feels unified across the site.

Claire Ortalda’s project began with a different but related challenge: the content was strong, but the presentation had become visually inconsistent. Fonts, colors, and image styles competed with one another, creating a hodge-podge appearance rather than the cohesive, professional experience her work deserved.

The goal was not to rewrite Claire’s story. The site’s copy and messaging had already been developed. Our role was to bring the visual and technical pieces together: create a more polished design system, improve the presentation of the existing content, develop a more distinctive way to showcase Claire’s books, and build a website she could continue to manage herself.

And along the way, we tried something increasingly important in modern web design: using AI as part of the creative process.

Rebuilding Claire’s Website Around a Cohesive Design System

A professional website depends on more than attractive individual pages. Its fonts, colors, images, spacing, layouts, and navigation need to work together so visitors experience the site as one intentional whole.

The earlier version of Claire’s website included a mixture of visual treatments that did not always feel connected. The rebuild provided an opportunity to establish greater consistency across the site. We refined the visual language, created stronger relationships among the page elements, and made design choices that allowed the content to feel more organized and considered.

This kind of work can be easy to underestimate because the finished result may look simple. In practice, visual simplicity usually comes from resolving many small decisions: which type styles belong together, how much space a page needs, where images should appear, how sections should be distinguished, and which elements should receive emphasis.

The aim was to make the site feel polished without making it feel over-designed.

Designing Graphics That Support the Website’s Purpose

The graphics were an important part of establishing the new visual direction. Rather than treating images as decorative elements added after the fact, we explored how they could support the meaning and mood of the site.

Claire’s 5-star response to the finished work captured the success of that goal:

“Marcia (quite patiently) worked with me on some fantastic graphics (my website landing page is sooo outstanding) that exactly represented the meaning and mood-feeling I wanted to convey. I am so proud of my new website.”

That testimonial matters because professional polish is not only a matter of technical correctness or visual tidiness. The design also needs to feel appropriate to the client and to the work being presented.

The new graphics helped create a stronger first impression while giving the website a more distinctive identity.

Creating a Custom Presentation for Claire’s Books

Claire’s books deserved more than a standard list of titles. They are a central part of her professional presence, so the website needed to give them visual distinction while keeping them connected to the overall design system.

Custom coding made it possible to present the books with a more tailored appearance. Instead of relying entirely on generic content blocks, we could shape the presentation around the character of the collection: how the covers appear, how the titles are introduced, and how visitors move through the information.

This is one of the advantages of combining thoughtful design with flexible development. The technology serves the communication goal. It gives important content the space and emphasis it needs without forcing it into a one-size-fits-all layout.

So Where Does AI Fit Into Website Design?

One of the most interesting parts of this project was using AI as an assistant throughout the creative process.

Not as the designer. Not as the decision-maker. And definitely not as a magic “make me a website” button.

Instead, AI helped us explore, research, compare, analyze, and iterate.

That distinction matters.

One of the biggest advantages of AI-assisted design is that it can change the economics of exploration. Traditionally, a designer might spend hours developing one graphic direction, only to discover that it wasn’t right for the client or the project.

A Real Example: Researching a Visual Era

One of the ways we used AI was to explore the visual language of the Saul Bass era. Bass’s iconic movie posters for films such as Vertigo and North by Northwest are instantly recognizable—not because they were packed with detail, but because of their bold typography, limited color palettes, simplified forms, and distinctive sense of movement and tension.

We used AI to help us research that visual territory: fonts, color relationships, illustration approaches, composition, and the characteristics that gave the work its particular mood.

We ultimately decided not to create Claire’s graphics in that exact style. The goal wasn’t imitation. Instead, we were interested in understanding what created the feeling his work evoked and then asking how some of those principles might inform something original and appropriate for Claire.

That distinction is a good example of where AI can be particularly useful in creative work. It can help a designer investigate a visual reference much more broadly and quickly—but the designer still has to determine what belongs in the final work, what doesn’t, and how to turn research into something original.

Instead of spending hours developing one graphic direction and discovering it wasn’t right, we could explore several visual approaches quickly, compare them against Claire’s goals, discard the weak ones, and develop the strongest direction further.

That doesn’t mean every AI-generated idea was good. Far from it.

It meant we could get to the bad ideas faster, identify the promising ones sooner, and spend more of our time on the part that actually requires human judgment: deciding what works.

AI also gave us a useful partner for visual research and analysis. We could examine possibilities, ask questions, compare alternatives, and use those explorations to inform the next round of design decisions.

The result was not “AI designed Claire’s website.”

The result was a broader, more flexible creative process in which AI helped us explore more possibilities than we might otherwise have had the time to explore.

AI Doesn’t Replace Design Judgment

This is an important distinction as AI becomes increasingly common in creative work.

AI doesn’t eliminate the tedious parts of design. It changes the economics of exploration.

The tools can generate possibilities. They can help with research and analysis. They can accelerate iteration.

But someone still has to look at those possibilities and decide:

Does this actually communicate what the client wants to say?

Does it belong with everything else on the site?

Does it feel distinctive—or does it look like something generated for everyone?

Is it appropriate for the audience?

And perhaps most importantly: Does it feel like Claire?

Those are design decisions. They require context, taste, restraint, and an understanding of the client.

The tools expanded the field of possibilities; human judgment gave the final website its discipline and coherence.

Keeping the Website Manageable in WordPress

A successful website project also needs to account for what happens after launch.

Claire wanted to be able to add her own blog posts and make modest changes to the site without requiring a developer for every update.

For that reason, the finished website was built in WordPress. This preserved a practical level of independence for Claire while allowing the site to benefit from custom design and development where it mattered most. She can continue publishing new blog content and handling routine updates within a familiar content-management system.

That balance was important.

The site needed to look and function like a custom professional website, but it also needed to remain useful and manageable over time. A beautiful website that a client cannot comfortably maintain is not a complete solution.

The Result: A More Professional Digital Presence for Claire

The new website brings together several kinds of work: a more consistent visual system, custom graphics, stronger page presentation, tailored book displays, and a WordPress foundation that supports Claire’s continued involvement.

The project was not about changing the substance of Claire’s work. It was about creating a website capable of presenting that work with greater clarity, cohesion, and professionalism.

Along the way, it also became an opportunity to experiment with what an AI-assisted design process can look like in a real client project.

AI helped us research, explore, analyze, and iterate. Custom coding allowed us to move beyond generic layouts. WordPress ensured that Claire could continue to participate in the life of the site after launch.

The result is a more unified digital home for Claire’s writing and books—one that is designed to make a strong impression today and remain useful as her online presence continues to develop.

What This Project Says About the Future of Web Design

There is a lot of noise right now about AI “designing websites.” Some of it is deserved. Some of it is hype.

The more interesting question, at least from a designer’s perspective, is not whether AI can produce a website.

It can produce something that looks like a website.

The interesting question is what happens when a human designer uses AI to expand the creative process rather than hand the process over to a machine.

That is where I think we’re headed.

AI can make it easier to explore more ideas, test more possibilities, analyze more information, and iterate more quickly. For small businesses and individual professionals, that could eventually make a level of thoughtful, customized design more accessible than it has been in the past.

But the technology is only part of the equation.

The best results still come from knowing what you’re trying to accomplish, understanding the person or business behind the website, making deliberate choices, and knowing when an idea—even a very clever one—is simply not right.

Claire’s new website was a chance to put that approach into practice.

And I suspect it won’t be the last time we rethink how we build websites.