My approach to web design is clean, simple and functional. I uncover the primary goal of a website (i.e. sell widgets, help people contact me, expose my work) and build the site so any user can easily accomplish it. I’ll sprinkle in some SEO, web analytics and links, but only after I’ve nailed the user experience.
Despite the fact that I built Pamela Ferdinand’s first site nearly 7 years ago, the design still works, but the functionality was seriously lacking. Pamela wanted to add a blog and promote her upcoming book, “Three Wishes: Our True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood“. A static, 7-year old site wasn’t going to cut it.
Heavily leveraging the original design and sprinkling in some Wordpress magic worked like a charm. The design stayed consistent for past visitors, but adding Wordpress gave Pamela the flexibility to easily manage multiple content types/categories (Blogs and Articles) and the freedom to make updates and additions to her site whenever she feels the need. Add in a simple, yet compelling Flash intro by my friends at Overthink Designs and this site was a perfect match to Pamela’s needs.
Janina used a free site builder service to get her photography online, but realized quickly that the simple templates and limited tools did not give her photographs the treatment they deserved.
She wanted to really showcase her work and make the site’s sole focus be her photography. We settled on a design that we think does that at jordonezphotography.com.
Bikram Yoga Quincy wanted a refreshed website and a easy-to-manage class schedule. Leveraging a custom design on top of Wordpress I was able to deliver exactly what the business needed. The Weekly Schedule Wordpress plugin gave me the flexibility to also highlight “Today’s Classes” in a module throughout the site for users looking quickly for what’s going on today. The plugin also allowed me to associate each day’s instructors to their bio.
All in all, Bikram Yoga Quincy is very please with the website and they’re eager to see how their students react to it as well.
Mamas Move needed an updated website that allowed them to modify their content without affecting the overall design and layout of the website. I implemented a compelling design and layout on top of Wordpress which gives them the flexibility to edit content while maintaining a professional look and feel.
Included on the site is a Wordpress powered calendar which allows Mamas Move employees to maintain class and event schedules directly in Wordpress. Add some basic SEO best practices and Google Analytics and Mamas Move got an enterprise class website at a fraction of the cost.
Hancock Building Associates was looking to expand on their already successful residential and commercial construction business and moved into the solar and skylight business. Focusing on design, information and SEO I built a site that featured Hancock’s expertise in building solar and skylight installations.
Google Analytics (a free and robust website tracking tool) lets Hancock monitor their website traffic and adjust to meet their target market’s internet browsing habits.
Jessica Doherty is always looking to improve her website and fortunately she keeps turning to me to take her site to the next level. Powered by Wordpress with a JavaScript gallery, her photography site is clean and easy to navigate.
Wordpress gives her the ability to edit the text (rates, contact info, etc) without worrying about affecting the overall design of her site.
Just a quick note about this site’s newest redesign. I really liked the birch tree image and color scheme of my old site, but felt the layout didn’t focus on anything. So I rearranged the homepage, introduced clear navigation and generally tightened up the whole design.
It took a few months to complete due more to a lack of time than the site complexity. Obviously, its built on top of Wordpress, but has a completely custom template. The birch tree illustration came from iStockPhoto and the icons were curtosey of Komodo Media.
Some highlights include the “What I’m Reading” section which is a “best of” listing from interesting stuff I’ve found in Google Reader and my resume (which still needs a lot of work).
Last, but not least, I even tweaked my Twitter profile design to reflect a bit of what I did here.
I hope you enjoy it.
Hancock Builders was one of my first clients and has been working with me for about 5 years. They recently decided that it was time to update their 5-year old website and once again turned to me for direction. Together, we came up with the new HancockBuilders.com, a site that better reflects their professional construction experience and brings the site up to “Web 2.0″ standards.
The site utilizes some advanced slideshow and gallery techniques which add a nice aesthetic while also improving the user experience.
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After:
New Leaf realigned their focus and brand (from Productions to Speakers) and needed an updated website to reflect this new direction. Working closely with the client, I took her well planned out vision and turned it into NewLeafSpeakers.com, a functional showcase of her services and speakers.
The site is built on Wordpress and allows her to update most aspects of the site herself.
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After:
After I finished Susan’s book site (The Book of No) and added the ability for her to edit the site on her own with Mambo, she was ready to upgrade her main site at SusanNewmanPHD.com.
For this project we opted for Wordpress and a very clean design that would allow her to highlight her books, articles and press coverage all while having the ability to make simple text edits herself. View before and after shots of the site below:
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After:
