People love Perch: Sarah Evans

We love to hear how much People love Perch and this interview is with Sarah Evans of Sarah Evans Design.

Tell us a bit about yourself:

I’m a London based Freelance Web Designer. I’m a designer who also does front-end development. I tend to work with individuals and small businesses, producing websites which successfully showcase their product or services. I like to take on complete web projects, from the UI/UX through to build.

I went freelance late last year after previously working for design agencies when I lived in Bournemouth. The past few months have been full of exciting new experiences.

What sites have you used Perch for recently?

Naturally Sassy is a responsive website for natural and healthy recipes. The client needed to be able to continually update the content, especially with new recipes and
ingredients. Large parts of the site were handled by the Blog add-on, proving it can compete with Wordpress for the use of blog functionality.

Sarah Evans Design is my portfolio site which I decided to redesign when I went freelance. The site was previously built on the Concrete5 CMS. Perch was a platform I had been watching develop for a while, and was keen to try out. I was also looking for a CMS I could specialise in and recommend to my future clients, using it for my own website it was a great way to get started with Perch.

Why did you choose Perch?

My initial interest in Perch was that it gave me total control, it isn’t bloated by code you didn’t put there like many other CMS options. This means my own site and my clients benefit from a fast and optimised website, which is easy to maintain going forward.

I also liked what Perch stood for, it’s for professional freelancers and agencies, it’s not trying to compete with the build your own website services and encourage a template/theme market.

How did you find working with Perch?

I really enjoyed working with Perch, I get a big smile on my face when a project comes along which is suited to Perch. Being a designer it’s important to me that the CMS doesn’t dictate the design so I have no constraints. I love how easy it is to get started with implementing Perch into existing HTML. It’s fitted perfectly into the way I like to work.

The occasions I have needed help Perch Support has been amazing. I’ve always had a response the same day which has put me on the right path.

How do the content creators/site owners find working with Perch?

I usually spend up to an hour with the client running through how to use the Perch Admin, sometimes they have a few follow up questions at a later stage but that’s usually it. I always tailor Perch to how the client will need to use it, making the experience as easy as it can be for them. They are generally relieved that it makes sense to use, and doesn’t require any technical knowledge.