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All Faiths Day School

The All Faiths Day School website had some unique challenges. The Director wanted "bright colors" and a website that would portray the happy place that this school is. We opted to use a professional photographer to capture the beautiful faces and happy atmosphere of All Faiths, because we understood that this is exactly what the prospective parents would want to see. I wanted the website to have a unique look, not the boxy type website that dominates the internet. One of the professional photos had a beautiful little girl running, carrying a piece of black plastic that lines the play area under the pea gravel. I decided to cut her out of the photo and turn her facing the opposite direction. I then put balloons in her hand and had her running into the website. I converted their black and white logo to a transparent logo, and faded it over one of the photos taken by the photographer. The entire page is Flash, which enabled me to use video and a Flash slide show on the home page. This website includes a page to pay tuition, and passworded teacher pages for parents. The precious welcome message is the voice of a 4-year-old girl, a student in the school.

DavidCoudrain.com

David Coudrain is a talented country singer and minister to teenagers. His website needed to provide information about his youth retreats as well as to sell his music, paid for and downloaded from the website.

David's favorite place is the Lost Maples State Park where he loves to go each fall and where one of his youth retreats is located; David believes that nature is a conduit to God. I wanted his website to capture this love of nature, with the theme of the maple leaf, as a symbol of Lost Maples. The background images, behind the text are all photos of his retreats, layered beneath a technical application called "noise" which gives it a grainy look. I included audio files of leaves blowing and birds singing which play as the maple leaves fall down the as the page opens. I finished the look with a font that has a western texture and appearance. The website has the resulting feel of nature and tranquility. We also wrote most of the text for this website.

Liberty County Genealogical Society

Liberty County wanted a website that portrayed the historic nature of their organization. I traveled to Liberty County to photograph historic structures to use as part of the artwork in the website. The home page features an historic map of Texas as the background. I took a scan of this map and digitally cut out all of the tears and tatters so that it would have a 3D feel to it. I then put a drop shadow behind the map giving it the appearance of floating above the page--one of my favorite attributes of web design is to give the page depth and dimension in this manner.

I located a font which resembled script of the Victorian age for the title. I cut out the ruberik (fancy swirl under the title) from the authentic signature of Sam Houston and placed it beneath the title. I used one of the photos I took in Liberty County as a background for the text, with a color overlay, and isolated a silver frame from a photo which I layered over one of the ancestoral photos they had. I then layered this framed photo on top.

The result is a deeply textured page which seems almost 3D in its layers of historic documents and photographs.

Ultra Con Incorporated

Ultra Con is a pipeline construction company that needed an online presence for their current clients, as well as Search Engine Optomization (SEO) to recruit potential new clients. Their internet audience includes executives in the oil industry in Texas, especially Houston, and Oklahoma, although the work all over the US. The challenge of this website was to create a first-class impression for moneyed oil company clients, but to do so with existing client photographs. I proposed that we use their existing logo, which is designed to look like a backhoe. I animated the logo In Flash to drive across the page to its place, with a backhoe sound coordinated with the movement. Second, I used one of their photos, cut out the sky, and annimated a beautiful Colorado sky to be in constant motion across the home page in place of the sky in their photo. The colors were pulled from the blue in the logo, and the taupe of their company caps and shirts. The lower informational section is over a faded image of the same photo above with a transparent color overlay, anchored with their photos of pipeline construction on the left. The custom, one-of-a-kind Flash website gives oil company clients a great first impression.

Landman-Ed.Com

Landman Ed.Com is a business that educates prospective "landmen", or men and women who research titles and technical information in the oil well industry. This client had a vision of what she wanted--a collage of some of the more beautiful courthouses in Texas where landmen spend most of their time. She needed to input a great deal of searchable data, but she also wanted simplicity so that when someone found her website they could easily see seminar dates and contact info.

Together we selected the courthouse photos we wanted to use, and I blended them together with an eye towards balance and drawing the eye to the center. You may notice that the lines of the courthouse roofs work together to point to the center of the page. I used the same sky behind all of the courthouses, and then put a vector mask over them to fade and blend the edges together to create one image. The blue color was picked from the sky, while the tan represented a neutral, and somewhat masculine presence, to appeal to the majority of her male dominant internet audience. We also designed the logo and Search Engine Optimization on this website. The result is a visually appealing, earth-toned website that appeals to her unique internet audience.

Nurse Fisher.com

Nurse Fisher is a working Physician's Assistent and highly qualified lactation consultant who is personally driven to help new mothers breatfeed their infants. This website had very unique needs and technical requirements. She needed to offer several online services, including face to face personal consultations via webcam, purchase and download secure training sessions, and schedule email and phone consultations directly through the website. For these processes, the customer needed to pay for the service and then automatically be taken to an online medical questionaire form to be submitted prior to the consultation, and then an appointment needed to be generated. This website reminded me that whatever needs the client has for their website, there is a technology solution! The design was geared to mothers of infants, soft colors, photos of baby toes and fingers, and a cute baby giggle that welcomed them to the website. The home page pictures a photo of Nurse Fisher dressed in scrubs holding a newborn. The background color was selected from the tone of the scrubs to present a clean, clinical feeling. The home page is entirely in Flash, with movie-like motion and an auto-play slide show. We also created all of her social platforms, Twitter, Facebook, and her Blog, which we branded with her colors and logo.

Gravett Racing, LLC

Gravett Racing is a company that repairs motorcycles used for racing. In this unique business, we needed to find a fun, cool and young design that appealed to his unique internet audience. The owners requested chrome and charcoal as a color scheme, which was an excellent suggestion to begin with. I converted their black and white logo to chrome, and gave it a transparent background, which I floated over a couple of their personal racing images which I converted to black and white and faded into the logo. The center photo is the owner, in full racing attire, which I cut out and used as the centerpiece of the page. In the background, another image of the owner is converted to a shadow and placed behind him. I chose to use red as a natural accent color for this page, and the cubes as navigation completed this cool page. This website has been online for a number of years and the owner tells me that he gets lots of compliments. It is unique, there is not another website like this out there. All of our websites are custom designed for each client.

Biskamp Electric Inc.

Biskamp Electric is an electrical contractor that needed a website that was colorful and unique. The photo of the electrician climbing the ladder helps to break up the bland, square page that seems to dominate the internet. In this photo, we swapped out the ladder, the hard-hat, and the hand of the electrician carrying the cable so that it would personalize it for Biscamp. The red navigation bar resembles the red line that is below their logo in their business cards, stationery, and other materials. The background image is a rendering of one of their actual photos, which I converted to a lined drawing. Prominently displayed is their social networking and a link to the Better Business Bureau, where they can easily tout an A+ rating.