We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Farrah Fox a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Farrah, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I stumbled into the world of graphic design and web building mostly by accident; I’m a photographer first, but have always had an interest in visual storytelling, photo layout, and well-executed design. In 2016, a few friends and photo clients asked for help bringing the new photos I had taken into their existing websites, and I quickly noticed areas for improvement in how their sites looked and operated. I took a few one-off web design projects over the next few years before enrolling in my first online course in Squarespace customization + coding. It opened up a whole new world of web design to me that I never thought I could access, and I quickly fell in love with developing sites that prioritized both the user experience alongside the visual design. From there, I built on my knowledge using Squarespace forums, YouTube videos, and code experts that could provide specific support for tough coding challenges.

While understanding the basics of CSS and HTML is crucial to web design, the most important step for me comes way before I ever start designing or building. Brainstorming with my clients, gathering inspiration, and understanding their current pain points with their site is the first step in any solid project. And it’s the coalescence of this work — the first exploratory mockups, the development of designs that answer all their queries and develop solutions to the problems they didn’t know they had — that is the true skill. This is the phase where I spend the most time on any given website project.

Listening and empathizing with a user’s experience is the crucial piece here; great design must fully understand and embody the end-user’s point of view. And I’m designing not only for the person who will eventually see this website, but also for the person who will manage it. I build each site with my clients in mind and aim to make it as simple as possible for them to take ownership of their websites and make changes as necessary.

Farrah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I fell into web design by way of photography — I love the storytelling side of web design, and how a really great website can draw you in with its aesthetic, interactivity, and ease of use. I am primarily a self-taught designer and have used online courses and free resources to build my design + development toolkit. After spending a few years in the agency world (and running my own business on the side), I made the leap to full-time freelance in 2023.

I believe that websites should evolve and grow with my clients. This is why I’ve focused my training and offerings solely around accessible and user-friendly platforms (Squarespace and Shopify) and take the time to train my clients on how to manage and update their sites once our engagement has ended. I want my clients to walk away from our projects feeling not only excitement about their beautiful new website, but also the joy and confidence that comes with taking ownership of this new asset.

I’m most proud of the onboarding process I’ve developed to really get to know a client’s needs before we ever get into design. I spend a lot of time brainstorming with my clients and auditing similar websites in order to understand their end-users and how best to structure the website content and user journey. This step is so crucial and lays a solid, strategic foundation for the aesthetic design we’ll layer on top.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth!!! To date, the only marketing I’ve done has been via the occasional LinkedIn or Instagram post sharing recent work. But I’m consistent with adding site credit to the footer of every site I build, and every site with that stamp carries my full confidence as something I’m proud of.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Designing for clients is always a delicate dance, and a lesson I’m still unlearning every day is to not take things personally. It’s tough when clients don’t love the work you’ve done or don’t stick to timelines or follow instructions — and it can feel like I’m failing as a service provider when things don’t go according to plan. My recent motto has been “My worth is not determined by my work.” For me, this is a reminder that I am inherently valuable no matter what I’m able to produce.

Contact Info:

• Website: farrahbfox.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farrahbfox/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farrahbfox/

Image Credits
portrait photo credit: Kenzi Flinchum