Web design / Tulsa, OK
Downtown Tulsa is full of Art Deco built on oil money in the 1920s and 30s: terra cotta, zigzag ornament, the spire of Boston Avenue church. Route 66 runs through town along 11th Street, still lit in places by old neon. A city that looks like this has opinions about design, even if nobody says them out loud.
So a generic template stands out here, and not in a good way. A boutique in the Tulsa Arts District or a coffee shop on Cherry Street with a site that looks like every other small-business theme is throwing away something the city gave it for free.
Start with the mark
We’d often begin a Tulsa project with brand identity rather than pages. Not because every business needs a new logo (many don’t), but because the website follows from it: the typeface, the color, the way photographs are treated. If you already have a good mark, we’ll build around it and leave it alone. If it’s tired, a focused logo design project is a much smaller job than a full rebrand and fixes the thing people see most often.
Resist the urge to go full Deco pastiche, though. A sunburst motif and a gold border look like a themed party. The better move borrows the attitude (confident type, a strong grid, one decorative idea used well) and keeps everything else modern.
A lot of newcomers
Starting in 2018, the Tulsa Remote program paid remote workers to move here, and plenty of other people arrived on their own. New residents don’t have a cousin who knows a good electrician. They search, read reviews and pick from whatever they find in the first few minutes, which is a real opening for a local service business. A clear site with honest service areas and a quick way to book can win customers who would otherwise go with whoever has been around longest.
If you’re new yourself and starting something, keep the first site small. One page is enough to begin with, as long as it explains the offer, shows a little of the work and makes contact easy. Add to it as the business finds its shape.
Broken Arrow is not a Tulsa neighborhood
Broken Arrow is a big city in its own right, reaching over into Wagoner County, and the people who live there search for Broken Arrow. Owasso to the north, Jenks and Bixby to the south, Sand Springs and Sapulpa to the west, Claremore up in Rogers County: each has its own schools and its own loyalties. A site that says “serving the greater Tulsa area” and stops there leaves most of that on the table.
Pages for the towns you serve should say something true about each one, not repeat one paragraph five times with the name changed. If your current site is that kind, a redesign can usually keep what’s working and rewrite the rest. Restaurants have their own version of the problem, and our restaurant guide deals with it; artists and makers in the Arts District might start with our notes for artists, photographers and other creatives.
Tulsa paid people to work remotely, so this part may sound familiar: we have no Tulsa office, every call is on Central Time, reviews arrive as shared links, and the finished site is yours to edit in Framer.
Two Tulsa questions
We’re on Route 66. Should the site speak to travelers or locals?
Both, but not on the same page, because they want different things. Locals want hours, the menu and what’s new this month. Travelers want to know why you’re worth the stop and how long it’ll take. Give the road-trippers a page of their own, linked from the top, and regulars won’t have to scroll past it.
Can you design around our existing logo?
Yes, and we’d rather do that than redesign something that works. If it’s holding the site back, we’ll say so plainly and show you why.