R!ch Cihlar

Cleveland artist and gallery director Rich Cihlar, professionally known as R!ch, is entering a new phase of his career. Rich came to me with 2 needs: his site was broken and needed fixing; he also needed a site refresh.

Solving Some Problems

The site had a few problems. There was the technical issue of his subscription plugin not working. This had to be resolved by hooking up a more robust plugin and enabling more secure email protocols.

But then there were the other issues. His homepage had duplicate content. His blog posts were inaccessible. This was a job for a comprehensive redesign.

A screenshot from R!ch's original homepage. The page consisted of three copies of the same carousel.

A Dynamic Approach

I got to work on the staging site to remove Divi and start adding in custom post types for events, videos, and gallery pieces. This was a crucial step in making the site data-driven and future-proof.

Promoting Exploration

Rich’s goal is to reach 1,000 “true fans” — people who return to his site and purchase his work at least once every three months. This vision shaped every aspect of the site’s design, with a focus on creating an environment that encourages that kind of ongoing engagement and conversion.

The site is designed to take advantage of tags to identify relationships between different posts, products, and events Rich posts about. This info is then synthesized in the sidebar, to make exploration and conversions feel like an obvious next step for the visitor.

A sample blog post. Note the related products, events, and posts on the right-hand side.

The Design

Rich knows a thing or two about good galleries. They're clean, and give each piece of artwork space to speak for itself. Rich's redesign is built to evoke this philosophy.

Take a look at the Figma files to get a sense of the overall look and feel: