Our team keeps an eye out for beautiful sites, and we're always impressed at what our clients create! A brand new design caught our eye this month: Flowers By Janie, a gorgeous site built using PhotoBiz 8.

This website was designed by Swell, a boutique design studio based in Calgary, Alberta. We thought this was great, and wanted to know what an independent agency thought about working with the new PhotoBiz builder. We reached out to Alaina Recsky, the creative mind behind Swell, to get her feedback and learn a bit more about her process while creating the new look for Flowers by Janie.

Tell us a little about Swell!

Swell is a design studio based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, catering towards branding, identity, website design and brand management. My philosophy focuses on creating and delivering high-caliber designs for businesses and organizations of all sizes. I love working with great people and great ideas.

How did you get started working with Flowers by Janie? What did they want to accomplish with their design?

The first design business I owned catered for wedding stationery, so from there I had nurtured many relationships in the wedding industry that I brought with me to Swell. I’ve been working with Janie for years on various design projects and was approached to deliver a rebrand on both their identity and digital presence.

Flowers by Janie has grown and excelled over the years and she wanted to have a brand that better reflected her business goals, vision, audience, and aesthetics. She wanted a brand and website that was elegant, modern, and timeless, yet fresh. The website had to be functional and approachable, yet be on trend for years to come. We wanted to stick with the PhotoBiz platform because her site was already performing well with the builder, and PhotoBiz 8 had most of the features other builders were providing.

Was this your first time working with PhotoBiz? How was the experience, and were you able to customize things you needed to?

This was the first time working with the platform PhotoBiz. It was a great experience, both on the development/design side and on the support side. I found it easy to customize certain aspects to our liking, with the option of adjusting HTML/Java/CSS further. Support on the phone was always friendly, helpful, and never rushed… which is hard to find these days.

How did you like our template selection?

My client had already scouted a template she wanted to use, so there wasn’t a process of picking one. From what I could see though, there was a great selection to choose from.

Which platforms have you designed with in the past? Would you work with our builder again?

Typically the main platform that I build and design with is Squarespace. I’ve also built many sites with Wordpress and Flothemes. I found PhotoBiz really easy to use, easy to find my way around in the back end and easy to find support when needed through online tutorials or contacting support. I would recommend PhotoBiz to my clients and would work with the builder again.

We are thrilled that Alaina and Janie could work together to build an incredible brand using our platform. We're seeing so many examples of PhotoBiz 8 being flexibile and customizable enough for an agency... yet easy enough for non-web-experts to create stunning work, too!

Whether you build on your own, get our team to help, or hire your own web designer, we are happy to be here to support your business and help you flourish!

Alaina Recsky

Head of Creative and Owner of Swell

Alaina Recsky is the creative mind behind Swell. She brings years of experience in the design and entrepreneur industries. Over the years, she has worked with creditable companies of all sizes and has launched countless brands to stand the test of time. Alaina is a hustler, down to earth and detail-focused designer. Her aesthetic approach is modern, minimal, fresh, timeless and different. She believes in an intentional design approach, simply working with good people and a good cup of coffee to start the day. // Photo by Modern Nest Photography