Web Site Design Clients
PioneerValley.info
This is a site I've been working on just for myself - no client involved. It is intended to be an overall resource for people, places and things in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts, since there doesn't currently seem to be a single site to serve that purpose. Given how many new people move here each year (just new enrollment at UMass Amherst each year is equivalent to the population of entire small towns!), I think it could be very useful. As a plus, it gives me a reason to get out my camera and make day trips - something I don't do often enough! I could really use some writers and photographers to help build the content - if you're interested,
Jane Hanson Productions
Jane Hanson Productions of Easthampton provides musical theatre production and direction and the Summer Musical Theater Intensive and Summer Vocal Music Academy camps. The Proficient Musician offers individual and masterclass vocal and choral instruction and lessons. The original site was created by a graphic designer lacking HTML experience. The redesign involved re-doing the logo to sit on the black background (previously, it was black on white , and appeared as a white 'box' on top of the background), implementing templates and CSS styles to make updates and future design changes easier, re-organizing the structure, adding navigation, and including a 'hide email' script to reduce spam. Basic search engine optimization techniques were also incorporated which should result in much more traffic to the site.
Hilltown Land Trust
The Hilltown Land Trust is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving agricultural and rural land in Franklin and Hampshire County. This is a complete redesign and expansion of their old site, which consisted of six pages and no images. Due to the completely volunteer nature of the organization, I received very little direction on how to proceed with the redesign and content development, which I developed with the target audience in mind. Since this is a land trust, I felt images would be important, and solicited several from board members, as well as using my own photography. However many of the Hilltowns do not have high-speed internet access, so the site is also designed to load quickly. In addition, search engine optimization techniques were implemented which have resulted in an average 10x increase in visitors since the site was updated in August 2007, allowing many more people to find out about the organization, and about land trusts in general.
Bindery in a Box
A smaller site used to promote and provide detailed information on a hand bookbinding system developed by Dea Sasso of Northampton, MA
Michael Kuch
The web site of the artist and fine arts bookmaker Michael Kuch, a protogé of the late Leonard Baskin. Includes images of Michael's paintings, sculpture and books, show information, and a CV. If you live in the Pioneer Valley you've probably seen his sphinx sculpture, which is on permanent display in downtown Northampton.
Chris St. Pierre Photography
A portfolio site which uses Javascript to redirect viewers to two different versions, depending on their monitor resolution. Developed entirely via email with the client, who was living in France while the site was developed. Contains NO Flash, but does incoporate a javascript to show the status of loading images on the portfolio pages.