As If You Needed Another Reason To Heart Squarespace? Cover Pages.

The following post is brought to you by Squarespace. Our partners are hand picked by the Design Milk team because they represent the best in design.

So, last year I started a nonprofit. Ok, so I know what you may be thinking. Good for you, Amy. But what does this have to do with Squarespace?

Well, here’s the thing that we all have in common. We’re all doing A LOT. I don’t know anyone who’s not juggling so much that sometimes it feels like we all have multiple personalities. I’ve tried to design my own website and let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty. I’ve already admitted that I’ve drunk the Squarespace Kool-Aid, but that’s because it easily gives you a place to tell others about what you’re doing without forcing you to become a website designer. And honestly, I’d rather be doing other things (pretty much any other thing) than designing a website.

Squarespace’s Cover Pages product is probably one of the coolest they offer. (And just in case the sponsored part of this post makes you doubt my love, I also want to say that I completely pay for my two Squarespace sites myself. I just spent so long struggling and looking for website solutions that’s it’s such a relief to have something that works.) OK, sincerity covered, here’s the download on the Cover Pages. Cover Pages are basically a simple elegant way to convey a single idea. This is your splash page, your placeholder page, your “under construction” page. I created an intro video page for my site and it took me less time to make the page than it did for the video to upload to YouTube (I’m particularly proud of the opacity of the video. Nice little feature.)

How to Make A Video Cover Page
If you’re already sold on the video cover page, here is an abbreviated how-to so you can get started making your site dynamic. (Get the full-tutorial here.)

1. Get your YouTube URL – If you don’t already have a video uploaded to YouTube, this is only step that might take a little time. (I turned a slideshow presentation into a video that I uploaded to YouTube.)
2. Click the ‘share button’ and copy the URL.
3. Add the background video by opening the Cover Page type.
4. In the media video, add your YouTube URL
5. Play around with the filters and playback options. This is the fun part!
6. Add an overlay color to give your video a tint.
7. Set a static mobile image for when the video might not play on a mobile device.

*Note: The background videos don’t include sound, so you don’t have to worry about about music or noise

During the nearly yearlong process of creating Cover Pages, Squarespace came up with hundred of iterations of Cover Page solutions for nearly every conceivable use case. Of those versions, 28 made it onto the site. And each Cover Page has multiple features like the Montage Cover (above), one of the more recent Cover Page layouts that lets you play with collaging your images. So if you’re like me, have a Squarespace account, but didn’t know about the Cover Pages, consider this a public service announcement. It’s one of those little details that makes your site really sing. And is so easy that you can focus on the cool stuff and trust that the look of your site is completely under control. The only problem is that it’s so easy that you’ll start to collect sites. I have two, and am tossing around a third idea. But that’s also the beauty of it. Focus on the ideas. Leave the site building to the experts.

Try out Cover Pages with a free Squarespace trial, and get 10% off your first purchase using offer code DESIGNMILK.

from Design Milk http://design-milk.com/needed-another-reason-heart-squarespace-covers/