I purposely didn't allow myself to read about this topic before sitting down to write, because I know there are a hundred other posts about why people are using Squarespace, and I didn’t want to be influenced by “good reasons” that aren’t necessarily “my reasons.”

First though, a little background about me – I am a freelancer and I have this blogger business, but I also work a traditional 9-5 at a boutique design agency that specializes in web and graphic design. We use Wordpress at work, and while I am mostly on the print side of things, I hear and am involved in a lot of the day-in and day-out struggles, which is why when I get home from that job, and sit down to work on my personal stuff, I breathe a sigh of relief as I log into Squarespace. Here are five reasons I'm obsessed with Squarespace, & put all my clients on it, too!

IT'S RESPONSIVE

Over half my views each day come from mobile devices. I need the interaction to be easy and seamless for those viewers. While there are many templates on other platforms that are responsive, it is still something that you have to be wary of. You have to put time and energy into it, test things, adjust things, re-test things when your plugins update, etc. That sounds tedious. I’m too busy for tedious, y’all. Starting a business, running a blog, planning webinars, being involved on social media… there is no time to be constantly stressed about my site working on mobile devices, and then being in a panic when something updates and breaks the whole code.

IT'S BEAUTIFUL

I have yet to see a Squarespace site that is just ugly. It’s probably harder to make a bad looking Squarespace site than it is to make a good looking one. The bones that they provide you with in their themes are extraordinarily well designed. I might be a traditionalist – but grid systems just work. They always have. It’s pleasing to the viewer, it’s professional, and it’s simple. I don’t value design that pulls out all these crazy tricks, I value design that has balance and is cohesive and effective. Squarespace makes creating that so much easier.

IT WORKS

At my 9-5 this happens more often than you would think – wordpress plugins update and all the sudden your site went from working great to a heaping mess. Usually the fix isn’t that hard or drastic, but it’s still time you have to take out of your day to figure out – and if you aren’t savvy, it’s time you have to pay someone else to figure out.

The thing is, to make Wordpress function the way you want, chances are you are gong to use plugins. And plugins are risky – you are trusting some other developer, they are going to do updates, they are going to slow your site down, and they are going to interfere with other code. I don’t want to have to think about any of this once I am “done” designing my site.

With the exception of some word choice changes, the bones of my site haven’t changed since I created it. It’s worked seamlessly, flawlessly, on all devices, across all platforms, and it natively does every little thing I can think of. I don’t have to be concerned with the idea of plugins to “make things better” because things are already amazing.

IT HAS EXCELLENT SUPPORT

Any time I have a question about Squarespace I get a direct answer in less than 24 hours. I get personalized emails that go into explicit details, link to videos and other articles that might help, and direct contact information if the support team needs to hear back from me for some reason.

I’ve even had success in the forums that Squarespace offers. I’ve asked questions about the best place to enter custom code, about differences between templates, and a few other things, and there are swarms of people just waiting around ready to offer their expertise. It’s a great tool to have at your disposal, and very effective.

IT'S INTUITIVE

At some point, you finish designing the site and pass it over to the client. This is scary for both you and the client. All of my clients have expressed a want for it “to just be easy” when it comes to updating the blog, or changing out photos in a gallery, or prices, etc. With Wordpress I often feel like I’m very confusing when I try to explain to a client that each product on a product page is really a blog post…? When I used to use Wordpress it just felt like I was constantly “rigging” things and then to turn around and explain that to someone who doesn’t understand (or want to understand) it became extremely confusing.

When I wrap a project now, and do a quick tutorial on using Squarespace, do you know what happens? “Oh! That’s easy.” Or “That makes sense!” Do you know what a relief that is to hear? Such a relief! I no longer feel like I am abandoning a client in the great abyss and hoping they figure it out – we part on terms of positivity and comfort and confidence! Phew!

What are some features you love about Squarespace? Let me know in the comments below! I'm constantly discovering more and more that I love about it, so I'd love to see some new things! Also - I've got some super exciting news coming up soon, so keep checking back for that!

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Hi! I’m Kaitlyn!

I believe that you can create a life and business you love by listening to your own inner guidance system. I think there's plenty of strategies + hacks to learn and a ton of “how to” content you can consume but ultimately you are your best guide, the best guru, the best compass, and the best source of inspiration! I’m here to help you learn to trust that voice inside, step into your incredible power, and create YOUR dream business + life.

Let’s work together!

TYPES OF INFORMATION

Photoshop uses Pixel-Based or Raster information. You might also see this called Bitmap information. It all means essentially the same thing: there are a ton of little squares making up the file you are building and working on in photoshop.

All those squares hold information, including color information. This is great, because it can show slight tonal changes in a photograph and look the same on your screen as it would in your hand. But, there is a risk in that. These squares start out at a certain size (determined by how you set up the file, and if there is an image, how that image was captured). Altering the state and size of these squares slowly degrades the image over time. Also, you can’t stretch those squares any larger, because there just won’t be enough information there to fill them anymore, and you will start to see the outlines of the squares (or pixels).

Illustrator on the other hand is Vector-Based. This means, basically, there is a really intelligently created mathematical algorithm at play when you are working in Illustrator. So, unlike Photoshop, the information is essentially limitless and we can zoom in, or resize the design to any size, and never run out of information. We wont ever see those pixel squares, because there are none there in the first place.

When I sit down to start a project, I think of the end result to determine which program would work better. If I am creating a logo, that is going to need to be resized about a hundred million times, and change from being small enough for a business card to large enough for a billboard, I choose Illustrator. If I am creating a one-off advertisement for a local band’s show that has their picture on it, I’ll head into Photoshop because I can just create it at the final size and I’ll have photo retouching and manipulation tools for their picture.

HOW YOU WORK

Another big difference is apparent when you are actually using the programs and that is between Photoshop’s layers and Illustrator’s objects.

Photoshop uses the layers panel to separate out different parts of whatever project you are working on. So each element has it’s own layer. Back to the band’s show poster: we’d have a layer for their picture, a layer for the text, probably like 10-15 other layers for other text elements, maybe a rectangle that is behind the text so we can see it, etc. All of these would show in the layer panel (where we would name them so that we don’t confused and waste time finding layers later on – right?) And when we wanted to adjust or move something we would first select it by clicking on it in the layer panel, and then doing whatever adjustment.

Illustrator also has layers, but as far as I know, no one actually cares about them. Okay, false. As far as I know, myself and four other people I’ve ever met, are the only people that care about them. Layers work differently in Illustrator and one layer can have a ton of stuff of in. BUT for the most part, Illustrator is object based – meaning you click on what you want to adjust and see it become outlined (so you know what you selected) and then you can proceed to change or do whatever.

FILE TYPES

Reviewing each file type in depth is for another post, but I’ll go over some basics now.

In Photoshop, I always save my working file as a .PSD. This is probably the default setting, and it is great because it saves all your layers and masks and adjustments and anything else you did in the file. It’s a larger file type, because of this. Generally you wouldn’t send this file to a printer or upload it online

When you have a complete file, you would probably save is a .JPG or .PNG. JPGs get a bad rap because they compress your images, and can cause distortion. BUT, at the end of the day you are going to have to use JPGs at some point, so just keep in mind that you will lose some quality and design and edit accordingly.

I have a fun fact about JPGs that I learned in school and always thought was so crazy. Every time you save a JPG you lose quality in your image. If you look at a histogram of an image it shows the tone values across your image. When you save a file as a JPG you cut off the highest highs and lowest lows. If you were to open and save a JPG file a few thousand times, you would eventually cut off so much information from the darkest darks and lightest lights that you’d be left with a gray square. That’s pretty crazy isn’t it?

Now, unless you are a photographer who is heavily manipulating their images, we don’t really have to worry too much about this. So, I only say this to help you understand what do/are JPGs better. Generally speaking, we are all Internet entrepreneurs so our online graphics wont feel the affects of this much, but it’s a good thing to know for future reference.

This is why a lot of people prefer PNGs. PNGs are great in that they don’t distort quality and they do support having a transparent background – however the file sizes are generally larger and some older browsers do not support PNG format.

Illustrator saves files as .AI file, natively. These are fine, they are kind of like a .PSD file in that they save all the layers and don’t flatten anything down. However, they are specific to Illustrator, so .EPS files have become more popular they maintain size and quality and vector elements, but can be opened by other programs besides Illustrator.

You can also export a vector file as a JPG or PNG, but you will lose the “vectorness” of it and the image will be stuck at whatever size you save the JPG or PNG. This is fine, as long as you also save a .AI file, in case you ever need to edit something again.

The most popular choice would be to save your illustrator file as a PDF because that is generally a supported file type and doesn’t affect quality or try to rasterize your vector art. It also can maintain the ability to be edited in Illustrator if you select that. It’s like the best of all worlds.

CONCLUSION

Phew. This was lengthy. Can you see why this video was just NOT HAPPENING? My hope is that this will help clear up some questions for people and if it creates any new questions then go ahead and ask in the comments below and I’ll answer them for you!

I did make a quick guide that you can either print off or save to your desktop for future reference. It’ll help you decide which program to go with! Click below and get access to the resource vault, where that and lots of other goodies are!

Happy Thursday, y’all!

I’m Kaitlyn, your design assistant! I work with successful creative entrepreneurs to create cohesive, clean, and compelling visuals for their businesses. You can keep being the #girlboss you are (but with more time to focus on growing your empire)! Let's set up a time to chat!

Why I'm On Squarespace (& Put Clients On It, Too!)