Who am I?
Hi, I’m William Corner and Corner Mindscape is the name I use to provide professional web design and development services to my wonderful clients.
I have a Masters degree in Philosophy and Literature and worked for several years as an English language teacher in India and Japan before turning my attention towards web design and development in 2010. Since then I have worked as a web designer and developer in contractor, in-house managerial and agency environments.
I try to draw on all aspects of my varied experience in my current work.
I have certificates in HTML5 and JavaScript coding from W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium) and a multi-disciplinary digital background so I can do many things myself. For larger projects, I work with trusted specialists with enviable copywriting, graphic design and coding skills.
Web design and development services
It is important to know the difference between a web designer and a web developer. A web designer will typically work on the look and feel of a website using graphic design software. A web developer will take that design and build the website in a code editor using a range of different languages – HTML, CSS and JavaScript are used to display the content of the website (‘frontend development’), various other languages can be used for programming the structure behind-the-scenes (‘backend development’). In larger companies, these jobs are often distinct and the skills do not overlap – designers cannot code and developers do not work on visual design. Be aware that if you hire a web developer, you may also have to hire a separate web designer and vice versa.
I provide both design and development services.
I have produced graphic design for print and worked on large websites purely in the code editor. This integrated approach is useful if you are a smaller organisation who cannot afford (and probably don’t require) a team of specialists. Since I am designing and developing your website, you only have to communicate with one person and that person only needs to communicate with themselves!
If you are a large organisation and want to hire an agency, I recommend GRIT Digital.
A storytelling approach to web design
There has been a lot of interest in recent years about the use of storytelling on the web, employing narrative frameworks such as ‘the hero’s journey’ on everything from Case Studies to Contact Us pages.
This is because storytelling works.
Storytelling is the most powerful tool human beings have to make sense of the world. We use stories to synthesise and interpret the phenomena around us – to organise time and action so that we can make things meaningful – to ‘get’ what’s going on. Stories are used to grasp everything from big life events to small everyday interactions.
Using effective storytelling on your website helps to create engaging, intelligible and memorable experiences for your users, clients and customers. You can use all the fancy visual effects and employ all the latest design trends you want, but it’s a waste of time and money unless your site tells a coherent story.
For an overview of this process, I strongly suggest you visit Donna Lichaw’s website.
Storytelling does not require coding or digital design skills, but it does require understanding the basics of how to tell a good story. Coding and digital design skills are then needed to realise that story in a visually engaging and interactive way.
This is where I step in!