Their current website did not reflect their business now or their future business plans. The company had a new website design but they were unhappy with it. Another factor, the redesign project had been ongoing for over six months without a new website design launch.

The old site (left) and the new site (right): (click to enlarge)

The resolution:

I was hired as a commercial web designer. My first full project was to redesign and/or update the new design they had partially ready. I updated what I found but had concerns it would not meet their business needs. As well there were readability issues and lots of ‘coming soon’ pages. I resolved to quickly mockup what I felt was a good mashup of how the brand and new design could be revamped quickly and meet their new business needs. I wanted to get feedback on the new design but felt I needed to see what the feedback was on the design I had finished for them in which they had already invested quite a lot of time and money into.

In the review meeting I began to hear from the committee (approximately 12 people) a great deal of dissatisfaction with the design. All of the things that I heard coincided with what my new mockup would provide.

The meeting was beginning to be a bit of a disappointment for them and I was determined to see them succeed with their new website. I then took a small risk and asked to present the new mockup.

With some additional discussion of the merits of the new mockup it was approved and the meeting ended with a committee happily anticipating a fresh new website.

The Current Website

Two weeks later the new website was revealed and is now on their live server (http://swdirect.com):

Since that time I resolved to move them into a CMS solution (on a newer more flexible server and hosting plan) and bring their blog onto the same server thus giving them a better position from which to grow their business online.

The Future Website

The new future website: (http://209.200.244.128/)

Yes, the website looks the same.

The goal was to rebuild with the same design but graduate from the flat html pages they were using to a new CMS driven site that had additional search engine optimization possibilities. My goal was to do this in a seamless manner for their visitors. At the same time I wanted to take their blog from one hosted on a third-parties server to a self-hosted blog on their own server. And to better apply their new branding bringing it inline with the already live website.

The Blog

The old blog: (http://southwestdirect.wordpress.com/)

The new future blog: (http://209.200.244.128/blog/)

Once they have worked out some additional web hosting issues with some of their other websites I am hoping the future sites will be launched and provide them with much more control over their online presence.

Branding For Web Based Software

Along the way I was also assigned the project of branding a new web based software program they were building: (https://swdirectngl.com)

view the live website

A WordPress driven e-commerce site designed to allow artists to publish and sell online learning workshops.

The main focus of my role was to put together a website where different artists could host and sell online classes. Each artist needed access to their students accounts, sell through their own paypal accounts and manage access to separate classrooms for each workshop. Oh, and it needed to be easy to manage the many different classrooms and student subscriptions.

I put together a website that gave the artists exactly what they wanted customizing not only the behind the scenes operation but also the level of participation the artists wanted their students to have.

Utilizing the WordPress dashboard and notes features I also added the instruction manual for the artists on how to create new workshops and manage their student subscription accounts.

visit the live site

A small group of artisans wanted a web presence to showcase and market original artwork to interior designers, home staging experts and commercial space designers.

Having worked with me on her personal website Jane asked me if I could develop a site for this group. Putting it all together I found a great magazine style template with a built-in dynamic centerpiece and got the site setup and launched in just a matter of days.