client :: tranquil mind+body
A new mind+body studio offering yoga, pilates & massage services in Lenexa, KS.

tranquil mind+body was a unique project for me on many levels.

• First unique fact: tranquil mind+body is located in the Greater Kansas City Area, making it a local project.
• Second unique fact: Jason Duke, the owner of tranquil mind+body, already had a logo + a template for his website.
• Third unique fact: Jason knows some basic html/css, which meant he understood 99% of what I said, without needing an explanation.
• Fourth unique fact: My first site, in 2 years, that was straight up HTML/CSS.
• Fifth unique fact: My first project, ever, using HTML5.
• Sixth unique fact: Jason’s my first client, who is younger than me.

Wondering if Jason already had a logo, template & knows code – what did he need me for?

Well…

• I customized the site for him.
• Wrote some code.
• Moved stuff around.
• Added stuff.
• Created new page templates.
• Added social media links.
• Made the navigation a drop-down & styled it.
• Added some JavaScript accordions to some of his content.
• Made the contact form work. Made his HTML5/CSS template compatible with Internet Explorer (IE9, IE8 & IE7).
• Uploaded the site to the server (FTP).
• And some other little stuff here & there.

Overall, it was a fun project, and Jason was a blast to work with.

If you’re in the Kansas City area, especially Lenexa / Olathe / Overland Park / Shawnee, you definitely need to go get your yoga & pilates on at tranquil mind+body. And you also need to schedule yourself a pampering massage. The tranquil mind+body studio is gorgeous. After a hectic day at work, it is the perfect oasis for you to relax & rejuvenate.

If you haven’t been to tranquil mind+body before, you’ll want to sign-up for their fabulous intro offer: Unlimited yoga & pilates classes for 3 weeks, for only $29!!!

See the live site → TranquilKC.com

I love working with beauty companies, so I was super excited to work with Nickola Jones, of Natural World Essentials, Inc., in the design and development of a new e-commerce website. Nickola makes amazing bath & body products that are natural & nourishing to skin. She wanted a web design that conveyed a “natural” look, so I took her logo & ideas and integrated them to make her vision a reality. After the design phase, I converted the design into HTML/CSS with some JavaScript, and then integrated that into a template for Volusion – which sounds a lot easier than it really was [I'll save my review on Volusion for another post]. With the design in place, I added the categories, products, photos, and content [as Nickola had selected at the beginning of the project]. And then, it was time to go LIVE.

See the live site → naturalworldessentials.com

Doyle & Shaundrah Heck own Heck Graphics, LLC, a screen printing, embroidery, graffiti tattoo & face painting business out of Oklahoma City, OK. The owners wanted a website redesign to let their customers know that the 9 year business was still around, since their previous website design was last modified in 2006. Doyle & Shaundrah also wanted a design that would set them apart from their competition.

Since they are both graphic designers, and the business is graphics-oriented, I took a fun, illustrative approach to the design. I used WordPress for the Content Management System and inserted galleries to display Heck Graphics’ screen printing and embroidery artwork. Galleries were also added to display the Hecks’ graffiti tattoo & face painting art from the events they attend. You can check out the homepage screenshots both before & after the redesign below.

Before ::

After ::

See the live site → heckgraphics.com

Marlon Smith approached me with a new project for Success By Choice Seminars, a series of entrepreneurial seminars in the Charlotte, NC, area. [I'm late in adding this to my portfolio, as the original seminar series has now ended.] The business seminars were a joint effort of Success By Choice, Inc., and the Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Chamber of Commerce (CMBCC), with the support of some other entrepreneurs in the Charlotte area.

The website was an informational site, with registration for the upcoming seminars, and a couple products available for purchase. I built it on WordPress, using the Headway theme.

The black rectangle in the screenshot above is where a promo video for the seminar series plays.

See the live site → successbychoiceseminars.com

Donna Maria Coles Johnson needed a private community for members of the Indie Beauty Network, where they could connect with other members, and attend exclusive mastermind events. Privateindie.com was the solution. I merged WordPress & vBulletin, to create a customized solution for Donna Maria. The homepage features a JavaScript tabbed interface, where visitors can read information about the Indie Beauty Network (IBN). There is a login area for members on the homepage, and when members are logged in, this login area changes to a customized greeting that tells them they are already logged in to the forum.

Due to the forum being for members only, I’m only able to give you a glimpse as to what it looks like. The actual forum has a lot more topics and discussions than you see here:

Donna Maria wanted to be able to give members a direct link to an event. If members are logged in, they are taken directly to the linked page, otherwise they are intercepted by a page asking for login details and providing information on IBN & how to join for non-members.

See the live site → privateindie.com

Every now & then, I have the privilege of working with local {Kansas City} clientele. Although my KC clients are a fraction of my clientele, their projects are the most extensive. And Brady & Associates was my most extensive website project to date.

Brady & Associates has been providing staffing productivity benchmarking and variance resolution services to hospitals for more than 25 years. And {like me} the majority of their clients are not based here in Kansas City. With serving more than 600 hospitals across the U.S. and throughout Europe and the Middle East, Brady & Associates’ website is a fundamental representation of their business to current & prospective clients.

When Brady & Associates contacted me, they already had a website. Each page {of their previous site} contained various elements that were pieced together, and they desired a more consistent flow. Their flash-based navigation was not optimized for SEO. The homepage featured a continuously scrolling list of hospitals served, which was created in Flash {with no SEO juice added} and could be a distraction to visitors {since it did not give users the option to pause or slow the scrolling movement}. And one of the rudimentary elements for branding was completely missing from the site: the Brady & Associates logo. The site had no Content Management System, so a web developer was required to make any content changes. Needless to say, bradyinc.com was ready for a makeover {and a CMS}.

The brady & associates old homepage.

Our main objective was to create an overall professional design that flowed smoothly from page to page & could be updated by the client. After thoroughly examining several Content Management Systems, I concluded that SilverStripe was the best CMS for the Brady & Associates redesign. I was impressed with SilverStripe’s extensive list of built-in features and it could easily be customized to meet every objective and feature Brady & Associates wanted and needed.

The brady & associates logo has a retro-modern look.

The logo for Brady & Associates is a great retro-modern design and needed to be prominently displayed on the redesign. Brady & Associates still wanted animation on the homepage, but we did it smarter {with SEO juice} & more user-friendly. I dipped into Flash {for the first time} and created an animated presentation highlighting why Brady & Associates is the hospital benchmarking choice {with complimenting HTML}. In the sidebar, I added animated client testimonials, with fade transitions, using JavaScript {and the animation pauses when you hover over a testimonial}.

A members only area was created to capture leads and reward members {those who register} with insider information {a win-win for members & Brady & Associates}. HTML templates were created to mimic PDF resources for reading secure information within a web browser and to make them searchable within the site. A self-assessment questionnaire was created, which calculates the visitor’s answers and assesses their need for new benchmarks. A drop-down navigation was integrated that could dynamically be updated as content was added to or dropped from the site. And since the previous site had a lot of content in different places, redirects had to be created – so that search engines recognized the new content & visitors {using old links} would be directed to the new content.

As I mentioned earlier, there was a lot to the Brady & Associates website redesign, and those are just the highlights.

The redesigned brady & associates website.

See the live site → bradyinc.com

A look back in time: another WordPress design…

Tina wanted to refresh TinaMcAllister.com with a new header and modified layout. She wanted space for advertising, a new header, new navigation and some customized pages. Once again, for ease of modifying content, we went with WordPress.

See the live site at: www.tinamcallister.com

A look back in time: another custom WordPress design…

Tina came to us with a brand new project, Professional PLR. She wanted to launch a site where she could sell her private label rights articles. She wanted to be able to edit the content, add products & paypal buttons for purchasing. So going with WordPress, I came up with a custom design for her, similar to another site of hers, beyondthepen.com.

See the live site at: www.professionalplr.com

A look back in time: another ning site…

Donna Maria had a public community for her IBN [Indie Beauty Network] members and everyone else, but she also required a private community for only network members. I helped her with some customization of a ning site, where her members could access elite information and have private discussions.

You can’t see this site live unless you are an IBN member.

A look back in time: my first ning site…

Donna Maria wanted to launch a community where she could spotlight her Indie Beauty Network members’ companies, their products and give them a way to reach the
public and communicate with each other. I helped her with a custom ning site and adding some extra perks to it.

More recently, I gave indiebeauty.com a new header and even created seasonal headers at Donna Maria’s request.

See the live site at: www.indiebeauty.com