The Stonewall Wesleyan Church project was fairly involved: the site features a fully interactive blog, Google Maps integration for directions, a catalog of weekly teaching messages (also published as podcasts), and event calendar.
Additionally, it contains specific functionality for specific leadership groups within the church (such as a management tool for the worship leader to create schedules and set lists, a document center for board members etc.The design for this site came at a time when I had made a personal committment to not use blue in any designs (it's very easy to burn out on colors!). One of the visionaries for the site handed me a wonderful picture of a coffee cup and, well, the design seemed to naturally flow from that.
Technologies: Dreamweaver 8, ColdFusion MX7, Spry Framework, Illustrator CS2, Photoshop CS2
http://stonewallwesleyan.com
My brother--a crack video-production guy--and I often swap work with each other. Deviantmonk.com is a result of such a collaboration (he did the designing, I did the slicing, HTML-ing and programming).
Deviantmonk.com was born because my brother was dissatisfied with the extensibility of blog engines like Blogger to handle his portfolio the way he wanted. I built him something that does.
For example, not only does deviantmonk.com allow him to categorize portfolio material, more importantly each category of post allows for specific functionality that allows him to fine tune exactly what is displayed for the piece of portfolio material. Additionally, there a little bonuses--like a script which connects his portfolio to Flickr--which makes this a far more robust solution that he would otherwise have.
Technologies: Dreamweaver 8, ColdFusion MX7, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Technorati API
http://deviantmonk.com
Phillip Newton, a computer support specialist, approached me about desiging a resume site for his job search.
The fundamental approach was simple: Keep it simple and clean with nothing whatsoever to get in the way of the whole purpose of the site: the resume.
By far, phillipnewton.com is one of my simplest designs, but it is also one of my favorites. Content is king, after all, and I think sites like this reveal that aesthetics--important as they are--need not be the primary vehicles of effective communication.
Technologies: Dreamweaver 8, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Spry Framework
http://phillipnewton.com
Several months ago, two entrepreneurial ladies approached me with a dream and exciting business vision. I took their vision and created an online magazine that would utilize professional design and the level of functionality that accomodates thousands of interested visitors. The end product: maryandstella.com, a full-scale and completely interactive online web magazine for women.
Besides the standard blog and forum features (which were designed and programmed from scratch), maryandstella.com features a fully-functional Content Management System which allows its administrators to quickly and easily manage databases, upload and format feature articles, administer the forums, etc.
Technologies: Dreamweaver 8, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Spry Framework, ColdFusion MX7
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This is a custom blog that I designed and built for myself partly because I wanted to learn how to build and blog, and partly because I became frustrated with the limited capabilities of services like Blogger and WordPress.
I built the blog engine with ColdFusion MX7, and it includes a custom CMS that allows me to pretty simply manage posts, comments and registered users.
Technologies: Dreamweaver 8, ColdFusion MX7, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, moo.fx Framework
http://existdissolve.com
"Room7 is a community of individuals who believe that change needed in our world and together, are trying to figure out the best way possible to be that change."
room7.org is a fully dynamic website with a custom Content Management System (CMS) that allows administrators to add, modify and delete content. Administrators can also use the functionality of the CMS to upload .mp3 files that are available to stream through an embedded Flash mp3 player. Soon, room7.org will be complemented by a customized forum where users can post messages and chat with other website users.
Technologies: Dreamweaver 8, Photoship CS2, Illustrator CS2, Flash 8, ColdFusion MX7
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Get Glued, the official site of the Wesleyan Church's Kansas District kid's camp is flashy, exciting and a joy to visit and navigate. Utilizing eye-catching animations and small, visual details, this site provides an excellent example of our interest in moving web design beyond simple HTML!
http://www.kswesleyankids.org/
Plungergirl.com is a blog design I recently created for Erin Lohden. I have to say, I had a lot of fun on this project. I had a lot of creative license on this project, and I think it shows.
In designing this blog, I tried to balance a raw, grungy feel with minimalism. So while the design has a lot going on, it is also extremely simple and pared down, which helps to maintain the concept without complicating it overly with design elements which exist merely for the sake of filling up space.
This is also my very first blog integration with WordPress. This was a good learning experience for me, because I have a couple other projects coming up that will be WordPress implementations as well—I have certainly learned a lot! While getting past WordPress’s quirky architecture takes a bit of getting used to, once you have it down it is quite easy to use and—for the most part—really powerful.
Technologies: Photoshop CS2, Dreamweaver 8, WordPress
http://plungergirl.com