Day 003

A new day! Today’s focus was the Build page, I started with a pretty large template page thinking I’d cut it short but I ended up rolling with the size and building out a massive hub page. The plan for the build page was pretty simple, the three core pieces of building a page followed by each of the categories of building you’d likely need to know for building a Van itself.

I have some content that I’ve pre-built for these pages but a perfect example of no plan surviving first contact with the enemy, I realized a few of the categories actually belonged in the construction section. Seen above the Gutting section has ironically been gutted from the final page!

Quick note hehe, I took the photo before I noticed I had forgotten to fill in the buttons on the page, so feel free to ignore that 😅 . As the core of this page will be the final blueprint you end up with I figured the aesthetic from a complicated blueprint would be a nice backdrop. I had issues with the template builder in this section as the diamond was an element I couldn’t access as it was behind the text/header/button, to get around not being able to change the diamond color I simply overlayed a semi-transparent black on top of the image to make the title header pop.

Another foray onto Canva resulted in some custom images for the three-panel section, these are what I have decided are the three core pieces of the build section and thus they are centralized and focused. Ideally, a user will go through and read each page before proceeding to the rest of the page. I’ll be building out the pages for these three buttons after finishing all the hub pages! The process, of course, is first to define your needs based upon your daily activities, before you can decide what you need in a van it’s logical to surmise what you actually want to be doing on a day to day basis as a prerequisite to the blueprint.

Next up is everyone’s favorite part, the finances! We would all love a luxury 1 million dollar ultra-lavish-van, but the reality is we’re all working with different budgets. Some people are working off of absolute barebones budgets while others have saved for years for their venture, whatever your financial situation is defining the limits you have when it comes to spending is the first task, then making it work with your actual build comes after!

Finally the blueprint, I’ll be providing templates for users to print out and design manually or download and use electronically, as well as teaching the actual skill of blueprinting to the end-user I want for someone with no experience in planning anything construction-wise to be able to leave this page with an understanding of how to use the templates successfully whether that’s creating an advanced electrical diagram or a simple pen and paper build.

The first two core sections of the build page, these are all essentially background lessons on the different facets of building many users will already know parts of what is needed from their life experiences yet some will have had absolutely no experience with any sort of manual labor. It’s for that reason that I’ll be creating in-depth tutorials on each part of the build so they can actually undertake a build feeling confident in their ability to actually create.

Electrical specifically will be a very detailed guide, the result of a bad insulation job is a bit of a draft whereas what happens with a poorly wired electrical system can be disastrous and potentially fatal. It’s for that reason that I’ll be covering the topic in-depth in a school-like fashion to keep users safe, I’ll probably have to write some form of disclaimer just in case…

The same idea as the above paragraph, two more key pillars to almost every van build will be carpentry & plumbing. There are lots of people who’ve gone their whole life without touching a wrench or a hammer and these tutorials will teach them all about the tools they might need in their builds as well as give them some techniques and confidence in the process of their build.

I know there will be plenty of users that think blueprinting is overkill, and that they just need to buy a van some wood and get to work yet the plan is the most important part of the build and I wanted to stress that to the end-user doing so with one of my favorite quotes from the bodybuilder Kai Green.

I was going to cut the page here, but I really liked the look of the paint-splattered orange box, I figured the people scrolling past the above content might still be on the fence about van life so I injected a bit of motivation in the form of a reality-slap-in-the-face to help those people who are still doubting vanlife.

The original picture was a fake video screenshot, but I liked the style it had and jumped over to Canva to recreate it as best as I could while adding a bit of vanlife flavor to the whole thing, I think it adds a nice little bit of flair to the page!

I don’t know who’s scrolling all the way down here but I ended the page off with a simple reminder of the world that’s out there and a CTA prompt for the Newsletter and eventual social media profiles.

Overall, it was a very productive day and tomorrow I’ll be tackling the construction hub page. Until next time!

-Cassius Fragomeni