Client site launch: TheAtriumOnline.com

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Cynthia Closkey

Some years back, we designed a site for The Atrium, a unique wedding and banquet center in Butler, PA. That site served them well for a few years. Last year they decided they wanted to make greater use of the web in their marketing — blogs, more photo galleries, and so on.

We worked with them to design a new site that uses photos throughout, to give a terrific visual impression of what it’s like to attend a celebration at The Atrium. The new design allows for larger images, and includes several photo galleries of weddings, social events, and business events.

The design itself is simple and elegant, so the photos have great “pop.” And the blog is easy to update, so the site can always have fresh and fun content.

Client site launch: The Foxburg Inn

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

The Foxburg Inn is a lovely and comfortable hotel in Foxburg, PA, near the junction of Butler, Armstrong, and Clarion Counties. It’s perched on the Allegheny River; the views from the river rooms and the outdoor deck are beautiful.

We were invited to redo the inn’s website, to make it easy for staff to manage and more useful to guests. We wanted to include lots of pictures of the inn and its amenities, as well as the surrounding environs and quaint Foxburg.

Foxburg and the inn are charming and quirky, and innkeeper Mike Vereb asked us to try to convey the aspect of serendipity through the site. In addition to creating the tagline “Where charm and chance meet,” we sought out a series of quotations about nature, relaxation, and luck, and set these up to appear in random on each page.

We worked with Mike to list the site on a range of websites, including travel sites and directories. Within a day of the site launch, they were already receiving traffic and phone calls.

Shortly we’ll be adding online reservations to the site as well.

Client site launch: Hagan Business Machines of Butler

Posted on August 25, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

The business equipment experts of Hagan Business Machines of Butler offer excellent service and work hard to keep their clients satisfied. They’re friendly and professional, and they needed their website to convey that image.

We worked with Rick and Rose McDeavitt, the owners of Hagan of Butler, to create a site design that would appropriately represent the company’s style.

To showcase their expertise, and to provide a convenient resource for clients, we included a Tips section. Rick will use this to address frequently asked questions and to further build the firm’s reputation.

The Featured Equipment section includes a select group of copiers, faxes, and other office equipment, chosen by Rick from among the hundreds of solutions he can sell and service. These pieces are the ones he knows his clientele are most likely to need. Highlighting only the key solutions reduces confusion for site visitors.

The ultimate guide to bad web design

Posted on May 31, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

Funny and painfully true: twenty-eight tips for “How to Make the Worst Website“

Creating a terrible website seems to be a common goal on the
internet. I’ve seen it accomplished many times, so I thought I’d make
it easier for everyone and post the ultimate guide.

From the time a visitor enters your site to the time they exit,
there are plenty of effective techniques to annoy them. So in this
article, I will identify 28 points to remember during a website
development and how to execute them properly. Feel free to bookmark
this and use it as a reference when you’re in the mood to frustrate
visitors.

I can add a few tips:

29. Don’t provide any way for site visitors to contact you. Why should you bog yourself down with what they think?

30. List every page in the main menu. Long menus are exciting and give the site visitor many options — probably too many options to choose from. Give them the challenge of searching through everything you could think of! It’s like a word search puzzle on-screen.

(Link thanks to Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals.)

Client site launch: Jonlor Developments

Posted on May 28, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

Jonlor Developments is a custom builder and architectural firm based in the Pittsburgh area. The president, John Rizzi, wanted a website that would showcase the beautiful homes they’ve built through a photo gallery.

John had a clear idea of how the homepage of the site should look: a full-page photo of a Jonlor home that’s styled like a French chalet, with brief text overlaying it.

We were able to design the page so that the text all remains available to search engines, and to create a layout and look for the rest of the site that shows the gallery in its best light.

Client site launch: Christy Rippel

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

Last week we launched the website of Christy Rippel, a talented copywriter and PR specialist.

This was a fun site to build — and not only because Christy is a fun person to work with. The visual look was intended to reflect Christy’s friendly personality, but still convey her professionalism. She suggested a slightly retro look, inspired by 70s color schemes. The design we created contrasts vibrant colors against a warm, dark background. (We call the look “Chocolate Candy.”)

The portfolio and collection of published work are the showpieces of the site. And Christy will use the blog to keep the site fresh and further convey her personal and business styles to prospective clients and editors.

DevHouse Pittsburgh #4 — BBQ House Party

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

DevHouse Pittsburgh is "the premier Pittsburgh-area hackathon event that combines serious and not-so-serious productivity with a fun and exciting party atmosphere."

We’re about rapid development, ad-hoc collaboration, and cross pollination. Whether you’re a l33t hax0r, hardcore coder, or passionate designer, if you enjoy software and technology development, DevHouse Pittsburgh is for you.

DevHouse is not a marketing event. It’s a non-exclusive event intended for passionate and creative technical and design people that want to have some fun, learn new things, and meet new people.

When: Saturday, June 14, 2008, 2pm – 8pm

Where: Karl Schieneman’s house, 4685 Middle Road, Allison Park, PA 15101

Details of the BBQ are not yet resolved — one scenario is that each person might bring their own grillables, with beverages, sides, and fixings provided. Check the DevHouse Pittsburgh website for updated information, and to RSVP so they have a good guess at a headcount.

It’s sure to be an interesting and fun event. I hope to see you there!

Refresh Pittsburgh meeting

Posted on March 24, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

The next meeting of Refresh Pittsburgh will at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, April 1 at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue.

Refresh Pittsburgh is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of Internet developers in the Pittsburgh area.

To start the evening, Pat Collins will present “CakePHP: Rapid application development with PHP”.

Why learn a new programming language when you can use your existing PHP skills to become a better coder and increase your productivity? Let Pat show you how to build a blog application in no time, and how you can help!

Then, Val Head will be presenting “A, B, C, D-esign!”

Val’s presentation will be a discussion of the basic building blocks of design as they apply to designing fo the web. She’ll show examples of concepts like colour, typography and hierarchy and talk about how these fit in to a web page design.

As usual, if you would like to show off a recent project or pose a few questions to our group, please let us know and we’ll fit you in.

We’ll make sure to provide a good supply of coffee and cookies and other sweets to get you through the night.

Please RSVP to let us know if you will be joining us. We need to make sure we have enough seats and most importantly, coffee and cookies! And by all means, please forward this invitation to anyone you like.

Refresh Pittsburgh meeting

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Cynthia Closkey

The next meeting of Refresh Pittsburgh will at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, February 26 at the Creative Treehouse in Bellevue.

Refresh Pittsburgh is a community of designers and developers working to refresh the creative, technical, and professional culture of Internet developers in the Pittsburgh area.

Cynthia Closkey (that’s me!) from Big Big Design will present “Google-Friendly Blogging in Five Easy Steps.” I’ll talk about basic search engine optimization for WordPress, and by extension, for other blog tools as well. I’ll talk about misconceptions about SEO, and I’ll give some simple steps one can take to improve one’s search ranking.

Next, Jeff Hunter, organizer of Devhouse Pittsburgh will present an introduction to Ruby: what it is, why you may want to consider using it for your next project.

Full details are at the Refresh Pittsburgh website. Visit there and RSVP so we have a headcount.