Portfolio

Franchise Direct, et al

In 2007, the folks at Franchise Direct re-built their research portal from the ground up. The new Web site offered five times the information it ever had, and boasted a slew of Internet-friendly technologies to boot: audio, video, news feeds, a blog.

Fantastic. They only got one thing wrong. The interface. Instead of going up, site usage dropped.

For this project, I worked solely on the interface, clarifying and prioritizing the core information areas on the home page, simplifying the site’s overly-complex information architecture and navigation, and adding a layer of warmth and human personality.

After the designs were approved in Photoshop, I coded the templates in XHTML/CSS to modern Web standards, working with staff to ensure the site’s critical search engine ranking was enhanced.

I’ve never worked on a design that wasn’t improved by the client, but working on this project was a lesson in just how healthy a client/designer collaboration can be.

Update, January 2008: the design has proved so successful it’s currently being ported to the other sites in the extensive Franchise Direct network. The German-language Franchise Direkt is the first to roll off the production line.

Visit : franchisedirect.com, franchisedirekt.com

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Scenic Hudson, Inc.

I’m super-proud of my work for Scenic Hudson, an environmental NPO that works hard to protect the Hudson Valley from daft development practices and pollution.

This was my first Drupal re-skin. As usual, I considered WordPress as the content manager for the site but Drupal’s community-oriented structure and its rather amazing flexibility won me over. Working with Drupal is a lot of fun because its template system is quite evolved and its module manager makes adding extra site functions a cinch.

I also developed a set of branded e-mail newsletter templates to work seamlessly with Democracy in Action’s Salsa toolset.

Finally, to help the folks at Scenic Hudson to adjust to new work-flows, I prepared a small library of screen-casts on topics as diverse as adding pages, adjusting the site navigation, altering the Flash loop on the home page, and prepping images in Photoshop.

Visit : scenichudson.org

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Stone Ridge Orchard

Modern day think-shop Think Tank 3 hired Design ICU to code the new crisply-branded site they’d developed for Stone Ridge Orchard.

I sliced’n’diced Think Tank 3’s Adobe Illustrator files and coded the pages with best-practice semantic techniques to make the site as relevant to searches as possible—all without diluting the orchard’s brand experience.

Visit : stoneridgeorchard.com

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The July Group

The exceptionally flexible-minded folks at The July Group needed to punch through the glut of artists’ reps’ sites and establish themselves as a contender in the marketplace. My analysis of competitor Web sites showed real problems in interface design in this market segment, so I knew we could do better.

Without resorting to ugly pop-up menus, or a clunky page-refresh, the solution we settled on includes a fancy “magic panel” that allows the site to reveal three clickable lists without chewing up valuable screen real-estate.

The site also includes a custom content management system that allows The July Group to add/edit/manage their roster of artists via a simple Web interface.

Visit : thejulygroup.org

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Kim Wozencraft
Official Web Site

Most famous for her autobiographical novel, Rush—and the movie version starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jason Patric—Kim Wozencraft needed a Web site designed and launched to coincide with the publication of her fourth book, The Catch.

This was a very cool non-corporate project to work on, and I love how it turned out.

Visit : kimwozencraft.com

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Starry Night® and Orion®
E-mail Newsletters

Through the grapevine, the folks at Imaginova heard about my interest in astronomy and asked me to work on developing a regular e-mail newsletter for users of their rather awesome Starry Night® planetarium software. I’d been a user myself for years and now, once a month, I get to design and edit one of the best astronomy newsletters online. This is our fourth year in production.

Visit : Starry Night® Times Newsletter

In fact, Starry Night® Times is so successful we re-brand the content each month and send it to Orion® Telescope’s e-mail list, where it also generates significant sales.

Visit : Orion® Sky Times Newsletter

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Scenic Hudson, Inc.
Competition Server

This custom-programmed gallery/voting system allows members of the public to upload their artwork to one of several age-based galleries.

Casual visitors can then browse the galleries and, if they register for free membership, grade each image.

On the back-end, staff at Scenic Hudson can view rankings based on the number of votes each image has received and its average score.

Sweet little project.

Visit : competitions.scenichudson2.org

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Stone Ridge Library

This was a major makeover project. The original site consisted of two very badly coded pages. The library hired Design ICU to develop a comprehensive Web site for the local community.

So that’s what I did, then added a News & Events database which allows library staff to maintain an ever-current list of library events. As each event’s date passes, the database automatically removes the listing from the home page.

Visit : stoneridgelibrary.org

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New York School of T’ai Chi Chuan

NYSTCC’s Web site was buried deeeeeep in Google’s search results, several pages after their competitors. They engaged me to convert their old-fashioned code to Semantic HTML.

About a week later, a search for “Tai Chi New York” listed tachichuan.org as the third unpaid link on the first page of Google results.

The code has been so simplified that NYSTCC staff can now easily make text changes to their own site without worrying they’ll break something in all that nasty old table-and-font code.

Visit : taichichuan.org

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Tulia

Graphic designer Maria Mavromatis hired Design ICU to convert her Photoshop files into a working Web site.

I coded the site for maximum accessibility in XHTML/CSS, did a little Flash work, and selected a third party e-commerce provider to handle credit card order processing.

In and out. Didn’t even need stitches.

Visit : tuliaskincare.com

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Beef: The Movie

New York film-maker Jon Baskin had no time and no budget.

What he did have was a really sweet project for me to work on.

A quick and simple job like this just goes to prove that, if you follow basic design guidelines, you can achieve great results.

Visit : beefthemovie.com

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Boat Holidays Ireland

The Irish Boat Rental Association selected Design ICU to develop and launch their portal site which acts as a central directory for eight boat rental companies in Ireland.

Using a super-simple Content Management System I wrote in Perl*, each member company is able to add/edit/delete their own special time-sensitive offers. No special skills required. They just copy-and-paste text directly into their Web site.

* This was ages ago, in the bleak years before WordPress and Drupal. But the software is still in place and still works perfectly.

Visit : boatholidaysireland.com

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More Web Sites

abbeyplc.co.uk
catharinecenter.org
cycletoursireland.com
irishmarinefederation.com
marbletownplan.com
longreacharts.com
thebay.tv
wastrategy.com

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