Thea

(2020)

Thea is a freelance collective helping small businesses by developing ethical strategies and accessible websites.

New site

In October 2020, my friend Coni and I launched Thea, a creative collective to help small brands have big conversations. At Thea, we help founders find their personality and purpose by developing ethical strategies and creating inclusive content. But shortly after launch and after collecting initial feedback, I decided to improve our website.

Outcomes

I learnt a lot from Laura. Her experience is different from mine as a designer, and as a person. So sometimes, her ideas challenged mine but this turned out to be the perfect way to confirm whether or not my original strategy was as smart as I thought it was. I also learnt a lot about inclusion. To present our freelancers, we chose not to put languages and/or citizenships at the forefront. Yes, we’re proud of them, in part because they come from various places and speak different languages. But attaching people to labels doesn’t show their full story and could be considered as tokenism.

Visit Thea's website
Thea's homepage

Image description: Thea's homepage has bold and vivid red and pink colours. There's a collage of women protesting together from all backgrounds and ethnicities.

Replatforming on Webflow

I had originally built our website on Readymag which looked like a nice platform but ended up having serious limitations for us in the long run. We switched to Webflow for better responsiveness and improved accessibility functionalities. Webflow also includes a CMS system which makes everything easier when it comes to posting new content regularly.

Content design for a freelance collective

In this new version, we merged the services page into one, presenting only three ways to work with us, based on budget. First, you can come to Thea for a chat. Or, you can come to Thea because you know exactly what you need, like a series of articles or a logo, and you don’t have the in-house resources for that. Finally, you may need Thea for the full ride with your very own dream team to come and go as you need to achieve specific projects.

Thea's freelancers profiles.

Image description: Freelancers working at Thea: Coni Longden-Jefferson, Tamara Sredojevic, Laura Sinisterra, and Clo S. Each card opens on click, showing a short bio about each freelancer.

Featuring social proof

As a collective of freelancers, new clients always ask us who we've worked with. Although I don’t advise having a separate page for testimonials, I do recommend having a separate clients page to show the names and type of work we do.

How we go further with a diverse team

Thea is the result of several great minds working together – some of them being Thea freelancers themselves. I designed the site with Laura in Figma, and it saved me from painful mind blocks. Alyssa X helped with CSS, Shahrzad Darafsheh with motion, Hannah Milan with accessibility and Clo S gave her final green light in UX.

Thea's contact page.

Image description: Thea's contact page has bold and vivid red and pink colours. It's got a black and white collage of women on the phone from the 60s.