The owner of Studio Lotus, an Atlanta Pilates studio, came to me because her site had outgrown its existing design. The site needed a structure designed that would appeal to new customers, existing clients, and teachers looking to bolster existing education. Using her existing collateral as a basis for the redesign, I better adapted her palette to the new design, and redesigned the interface with drop-down menus to help users better navigate the site.

This project came to me through my trusted programmer, Kim Flournoy. She had been hired to build a site for Guiding Hands, a California-based special needs school. All they needed was a designer. After working with their team, we came up with a colorful palette that showed the diversity of the children and programs the school offered, along with a structure that makes it easy to find a variety of information. Here’s a screen capture of the site. 

This site was a collaboration with another Chicago-based designer, Amanda Mans of Blueprint Design Group. Amanda created the design for the site for this Oak Park, IL based interior design business, and I built out the site. I loved bringing Amanda’s designs to life.

I created this site for DJ Anderson, a Bay Area-based career and life coach. With this site’s design, DJ wanted to create a look that was distinctive and stood apart from other coaching sites. (During our research, we found that there are far too many sites with rainbows and bursts of light.) We used a refined palette that was soft enough for individuals, but sophisticated enough for corporations. And we used the metaphor of stacked rocks to indicate that the person was on the right path.

Gynecologic Specialists of Northwestern is a new practice recently established by three of Chicago’s best doctors. (Dr. Lauren Streicher frequently appears everywhere from print to TV to radio, addressing issues of women’s health and was recently named one of Chicago’s top doctors by Chicago Magazine.) In collaboration with the introduction of their new practice, the doctors wanted to launch a site that would allow them to interact with their patients in a variety of ways. On the site I created for them, you can search for detailed information on more than 100 different gynecological conditions, surgical options, or procedures. You can access post- and pre-operative instructions and request appointments and prescriptions online. You can even log in to access test results or send a secure message to any of your doctors.

Old Colony creates a variety of co-branded snacks with well-known companies, like Andes, ReaLemon, and Musselman’s. (You may already have sampled their snacks on airlines, one of their biggest clients.) They needed a site that enabled direct sales to customers who wanted to order their products by the case, and facilitate inquiries from new customers. Everything on this site was handled from scratch (so to speak). Shawn shot all the photography and I rebuilt everything on the Good Barry platform.

Paint-your-own pottery studios are common in pretty much every town across the country. Thomas Claire Kristin LaMarre wanted to take that successful business model into consumer’s homes. Her new business is completely Web-based—you order their pottery kits online, and everything you need to create your own custom pottery is sent to you. You simply return it in their pre-paid packaging, they fire your masterpiece, and they send it back. The model is great for rainy-day crafts or parties. The site design presented a lot of different challenges in customization, but with the programming skills of Pixel IQ, I’m thrilled with the result.

A common failure of current Web sites is that once they’re built, they sit. Simply having a Web site is no longer enough. A site must be a dynamic destination that acts as a bold advocate on behalf of this subject. In this article, I interviewed a number of experts who advised readers on how to take their Web sites to the next level. (And also warned about a number of potential pitfalls along the way.) This article will appear in the February issue. Read it here.

A few months ago, I was asked to create some designs for the redesign of Storey Publishing. Having been a veteran of two redesigns for ChronicleBooks.com, I was eager to help contribute to the strategy for this North Adams, MA-based publisher. Although my final designs weren’t chosen for implementation, I was delighted to contribute to the process. Here is my design, and here is the new Storey site.

Maybe you know Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova for their music. Or maybe you saw (and loved!) the movie Once. Or perhaps you saw them on the Oscars when they won the award for best song. This site celebrates the beauty of their music, using a custom Flash player to play music and video, original show photography, and a WordPress CMS for easy updates.