One of my current clients and longtime friend, Samantha Bauman, came to me looking for help building a website for her lake house vacation home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Her and her husband Mike had some specific goals. They were looking for a user-friendly website to share with friends and family in an effort to increase vacation rentals.
Sam works in real estate, so she already knew the importance of great photography. By the time I jumped into the project, she had already hired a trusted real estate photographer to capture the interiors of the space. They were bright, colorful and exactly what we needed to get started. Where they needed my help was with copywriting, logo design, and the website build out.
The logo
In 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Sam would often pack up her family and escape to the lake house. She appropriately began calling it her ‘Covid Runaway’. This amusing name inspired the final name that stuck – Lake Como Runaway.
The condo is located only a tenth of a mile from Lake Como in the town of Lake Geneva. It is a relatively quick drive from the city, making it the perfect getaway for people living in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. When designing the logo I chose to incorporate a quintessential “lake” visual – a canoe and paddles – to communicate fun and leisure. The rich dark blue was inspired by the interior design of the condo. A mix of script and block fonts add to the visual appeal.
The website
We chose to build this website using Squarespace. This platform offers modern and professional templates optimized for desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. It was the perfect solution for this project. She wanted a simple, clean layout highlighting the interiors of the space and the amenities of both the condo and the community.
Additionally, we embedded a virtual tour (hosted on YouTube) to really give people and interactive way to experience the space. The contact page is very simple and straight forward, useful and functional.
