My website is using a theme I got from Rocket Themes but I now want to redesign the entrie site using some of my artwork and making the portfolio more prominent. So, of course, looking for a good time slot to do that in.

Thanks to Front-End Design Conference for not only the inspiration, but for giving me a reason to actually post something here!

New site for SouthWind Boats

This site actually launched a few weeks ago but I’ve been a bit too busy to write about it! This is a custom designed site for SouthWind Boats of Cairo, Georgia.  Their old site was built with Flash and ColdFusion so they were looking for a fresh design that they could update themselves.  I chose concrete5 for this project.

SouthWind Boats are built by Seminole Marine Group, long time builders of the award-winning Sailfish line of saltwater fishing boats.  Each SouthWind Boat is assembled from start to finish in a 155,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in Cairo, Georgia.  Seminole Marine Group’s highly experienced team applies its over 25 years of proven boat building experience to each detail, delivering a truly premium line of Sport Decks and Hybrids. Seminole Marine Group has received the NMMA Customer Satisfaction Index Award 5-years in a row and this commitment to quality shows in every boat.

The new homepage for ExpertImage

This is my latest web design project to go live and I’m very pleased to see it up and running. The design was completed about a month ago and went live over the MLK holiday weekend.

My task for this company was to create a new look for the landing page and interior pages, and then provide the HTML and CSS to their developers to plug into their ASPX framework.

I received a nice comment about the implementation of the design from their developer, Scott Walker.

“We have inserted your design into our ASPX framework. In fact, it was very easy as your design/code is very tidy!”

ExpertImage is document management software produced by Applied Technology Group, based in Idaho. ExpertImage software streamlines image management processes, expedites searches and retrievals, manages image access, and improves image retention policies.

The site can be viewed here.

I want to say a special thanks to Jordan Lev, John McBride, Thai Bui and Franz Maruna for their hours of volunteer time or donations. You can learn more about the web team here.

This custom-designed web site uses concrete5 for its framework, an open source CMS created right here in Portland.

I took on this project after visiting the arboretum many months ago and noticing that they needed a volunteer web master. As I enjoyed the arboretum I volunteered to help out. Little did I know what I was getting myself into!

Hoyt’s old website used Plone for their content management system (CMS). Plone runs on  Zope & Python and the learning curve is pretty much vertical. As my background was in WordPress or Joomla, over time it became clear that due to the steep learning curve and the lack of Plone developers in Portland, that we needed to switch to a PHP-based CMS.

After some heated debate amongst the local community, I settled on concrete5.  It looked dead easy to use and the executive staff at Hoyt loved that it was developed in Portland. This is my first site in this CMS and I’ve been so impressed with it that my next web site is going to be concrete5 also.

I couldn’t have done this without the help of those mentioned above, so again, Thank You!

I recently had to opportunity to redesign the look of The Florida Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus (FACVB) website.  The client had the templates in place from the developers but wanted the look and color palette improved.

Below is a before and after gallery of the homepage and the interior template.

My first priority was to create an new header graphic that said “Florida” because let me tell you, those green and orange squiggles just weren’t doing it for me.  I was inspired by one of the photos in the header slideshow featuring the bright yellow beach chair that you can see in the slideshow. To me, a beach chair screams Florida and I wanted my very own omnipresent beach chair.

Now, with big photos already on the main header, there was no way another photo header would work here. An illustration was the only way to go. This illustration came from a stock image site and I edited it to work in the space.

Other than the header, I worked on toning down the color palette and giving the navigation bar and other section headers some “shine” and  depth to the navigation bar background and other headers.

Overall, I think it’s a big improvement and I’m happy to have this project in my portfolio. I think, this might be one of my favorite aspects of design…rescuing other designs!

Visit the allure laser treatment web site.