Project Planner
Whether yours is a brand new site or the redesign of an existing site, this document will help us get started. My project planner is available to download as a PDF or Word doc.
Want to Talk?
Just interested in a more informal chat? See my contact info—and don’t sweat it: chats are free and you’re under no obligation if you just want to ask a couple of questions.
I enjoy working with small business owners and creative folk and helping translate their needs and vision to the web. If you’re gunning to go and have a project in mind, download my project planner, otherwise, let me tell you a bit more about the services I provide, the process of designing your site and my background.
If you’re located in the Baltimore or DC metro area, I’d be happy to meet for coffee or a slice of sweet potato pie to talk about your project. But, if you’re further afield, we can still work together with ease; I often collaborate with clients via email, IM and Skype.
Services
I am currently available to work with you on your web projects including the following skill sets and services:
- Web design & redesign
- Custom or bespoke WordPress themes
- Online branding & identity
- W3C standards
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
Process
If you’ve never managed a web design project before, it can be a little overwhelming—Where do I begin?—and you can find yourself buried under a lot of jargon, like CSS, SEO, CMS. You don’t need to know your Java from Javascript, though; you just need a partner who can walk you through the process in plain English while skillfully handling the technical aspects.
These are the necessary steps to guiding your project from vision to dot-com reality:
- Discuss
Getting a handle on your needs and the project focus early on means all the work that follows will better serve your goals. - Define
At this stage, we determine the scope of the project and begin to map out the site organization. - Design
I usually provide clients with 2-3 site mockups and, based on your feedback, begin the final site design, including typography, illustrations and stock photography. - Deliver
After coding and testing the site, your project goes “live.” I’m on hand for a set period of time to handle any troubleshooting or last-minute tweaks.
Background
My undergraduate journalism studies provided the opportunity to also explore web design and digital media, but too many of those courses focused on using software like FrontPage or, in one extreme case, PowerPoint, to design for the web, so I endeavored to learn to handcode HTML and later CSS, JavaScript, and PHP on my own. Something about the combination of the systems of coding and the aesthetics of design was really appealing to me and, beginning with a site hosted on Geocities to owning my own domains today, I’ve enjoyed exploring and growing with this technology.
