First of all, it is important to understand the basic functions that the Company wants in their website and the basic look they want to go for. The basic look could also be as much as just describing stuff like "Professional", "Artistic" etc. After that, it is important to find out the target audience of the company and the kinds of designs they find attractive these days. Once this is done, the prototyping phase starts.

This phase takes a bit of time. After finding the niche of the Company and the taste of its target audience, a design needs to be created wherein all the functionalities requested by the Company and the aesthetics liked by the audience has to be perfectly showcased. After coming up with a basic design it is a trial and error game with the Company where the basic design is slowly tweaked as per the Company's preference. A constant feedback loop must be maintained between the Company and me for the best output.

At the end of the collaboration, I can either show the Company how to handle the website themselves or I can offer to do it for them as and when required. Company's Preference.