CMS: WordPress

Project Goals: Clearer navigation, both visually and in terms of content organisation; improved explanation of ASCC’s work for general site visitors: what is it, what does it do, what successes has it had, and why CCs matter; a more “active” visual design and appearance; and a unified back-end interface, with all administrative tasks under one login.

This was a massive revamp project undertaken with the full involvement of ASCC’s board and staff, who were keen to acquire a very robust, flexible system to accommodate the organisation’s unique needs.  Accessibility and usability were key, as was the ease of use.  Using the advanced features of Wordpress to their full effect ensures that the site will meet all of the organisation’s needs during the buildup to both their annual conference and the next round of Scottish Parliament elections.

CMS: WordPress

Project Goals: Web presence, interactivity

In my role as Director of Marketing for East Renfrewshire Community Enterprise Trust, the web site for the PowerDown project was created in June 2010, in spite of the radiant summer sunshine which subconsciously influenced the site’s design.

PowerDown is a free energy awareness and carbon reduction project working in the towns of Barrhead, Eaglesham, and Waterfoot.   The project, which aims to reduce nearly 10,000 tonnes of carbon emissions from the atmosphere, has been funded by the Climate Challenge Fund of the Scottish Government.

The web site includes a fun project blog and an interactive map which will chart the project’s progress on a street-by-street level.

CMS: WordPress

Project Goals: SEO, reskin

The crime thriller author Gordon Brown already had a Wordpress blog, but it needed to do more. A simple re-skin turned his site from an everyday blog into a powerful promotional tool which matches the cover art as well as the tone of his brilliant crime thriller novel, “Falling”.

You will be hard pressed to find a trickier SEO challenge than Gordon’s name, but we did our best!

CMS: Wordpress

Project Goals: Web presence

Work in progress; initial placeholder site launched March 2010.

CMS: None

Project Goals: Web presence

This was a flexible yet simple microsite for a community energy conference, done with no-frills pure HTML as a challenge to myself to remember the basics.

This is an adaptation of the Motion theme by Six Shooter Media, featuring Simple Accordions.

CMS: WordPress

Project Goals: Ecommerce, SEO

Glen Campbell is a passionate photographer who leads unique guided workshops and tours across the Scottish Highlands.  Like many photographers, he was using a Clicpic site which suited him at startup, but was now more constraining than helpful.  With a new partnership with a tour company on the cards, Glen needed to get his message across better – and fast.

We rebuilt his site on a flexible WP platform which allows him complete control over his business and his e-commerce.  We tagged all of his tours by keyword phrase for all types of visitors, ranging from casual novices to seasoned experts.  His four offerings – workshops, tours, tuition, and limited edition prints – are now arranged in clear categories.  We even included a fun applet showing the sunrise and sunset time in Inverness, which somehow makes site visitors feel intrigued enough to want to see it for themselves.

Glen’s photography is so astonishing on its own that we decided to let it speak for itself, with very little visual embellishment.  The site is designed to show off what you can do under his tutelage, and I hope that the site will encourage many visitors to take up the opportunity to “stalk the light” with him this year.

CMS: WordPress

Project Goals: Brochure site creation, SEO

John Hamilton is a professional quality management consultant who has over 35 years of experience in the field, but never needed a web site until these challenging economic times.  He asked for a basic brochure site, and having used John’s other business, Cafe le Ossa, as my “meeting room” for many a year, I was only too happy to oblige.

John will be the first to tell you that a BS EN ISO 14001:2004 audit is not the most exciting subject in the world, so the challenge for me was to present his services in plain English.  I took some time to study and understand his service offerings, and turned that research into actual pages on the web site.  In turn, I edited each of those pages for full SEO, ensuring that he will rank well for basic questions such as “What is HACCP?”

Visually, there was a clear need to differentiate John’s services from the stuffy, obtuse, and 8-point-type descriptions of his work which populate the web.  I realised that the common threads linking all of his services are safety – risk – danger – prevention, so I went with a Japanese-influenced design centred on red and black, with a smoke/fire image in the background.

CMS: WordPress

Project Goals: Site creation, web 2.0

For the past two years my husband has coordinated a charity football match which brings together ex-players from the ranks of Scottish Junior Football for the benefit of good causes.  I seem to be the default web services provider!  This year, credit crunch and all, getting corporate sponsorship is harder than ever, so we made an effort to make the site as professional as possible, while still retaining the fun spirit of the day.

WordPress’s original foundations as a blogging mechanism favour this kind of site particularly well.  As a budget-less project, I adapted a free template with a football themed design and SIFR font replacement.  Categories and tags lets him manage and update the site himself with ease.  I used a Flickr plugin to let him integrate all of last year’s match photos with no work at all.

If you are interested in being a corporate sponsor for the match, with opportunities starting at just £50, just get in touch.

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: Visual revamp, SEO, RSS news feed

In June 2009 Idea15 Web Design launched a new site for Eurotactics, a business development consultancy which brokers trade development between Scotland and the EU.

I met the managing director, Ian Traill, at a networking event last autumn.  His existing site was designed for 800×600 resolution, was heavily reliant on images for information and navigation, and had no CMS.  He had no SEO or site analytics either.  A full upgrade was well due, so we set to work revamping it onto WordPress.

Ian’s use of the very bright EU colours for his corporate branding meant that the colours almost act as the site’s design on their own, so we selected a few descriptive images from iStockphoto.  We found an absolutely perfect conceptual picture of business networking across Europe, which we used on his home page, and a few similar photos to use on inner pages.  For the page where he describes the political changes that have made his business possible, Ian had me to colour-code a map of Europe divided into the original EU countries, the “new Europe”, the likely accession countries, and the potential accession countries.

To position the site as a business resource, I used Feedwordpress to add an RSS feed of the latest EU-themed business news, as well as a facility for Ian to add events such as conferences and seminars which may be of interest to his business partners.   For SEO, we ran a keyword analysis on similar businesses and government agencies, with some amusing results (amusing in the sense that it proved that SEO is not hard nor is it brain surgery; it simply has to be done correctly, and done at all, which is more than can be said for some nationwide competitors.) Last but not least, we added translations of the home page in three target market languages.

Ian is now very comfortable updating and maintaining his web site on his own, and finds his weekly Google Analytics reports fascinating.  He’s learned that having a good business web site behind you boosts your confidence as you set yourself out to potential clients and customers, which is the main goal I set for all of my web site projects.

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: Site creation, SEO

This was a clean, sharp site for a new Dubai-based business development consultancy which presented the always entertaining challenge of designing across cultures.  Mike and I met up over the holidays to discuss his vision for the company and how to capture his 35 years of unique business experience in his web site, and his clear focus and presentation made the task very easy.

To keep the site from being too bland and corporate, I used deep tones of red and green, which are favoured colours in the Middle East.

SEO was relatively easy as there are very few businesses doing what Mike does.

Mike came up with the tagline “in a changing world”, which was a copywriting dream.

I added a simple widget which shows the local time in Dubai, lest Mike receive too many calls at odd hours!

CMS: Wordpress

Project goals: Site revamp, accessibility for cognitive disabilities, move to a CMS

This small but hardworking national charity had reached the end of the line with a homemade Front Page site and needed a professional upgrade.

The critical goal was to make the site accessible to service users with bipolar disorder.  In web accessibility terms, bipolar disorder falls under the category of cognitive/intellectual disabilities, one of the five needs that web accessibility aims to address.  We tend to think of web accessibility as ways to help blind or deaf users view the web, but people with cognitive disabilities can see and hear just fine.  Their issues involve memory, comprehension, attention span, and logic skills.  Creating a site for people with bipolar disorder, who may or may not be experiencing those issues on any given day, poses a particular challenge.  Fortunately I found some fantastic resources on ways to adapt web sites for cognitive disabilities, and even got some advice from a fellow web designer who has Asperger’s Syndrome.

One of the main problems with their old site was a glitchy PHPBB forum which attracted hideous spam by the thousands, which meant that staff were spending all their time purging spam and had no time to update the site as a result.  The forum was the first thing to go, and we simply added prominent links to the Fellowship’s page on Facebook to replace it.

I did the site on Wordpress with a heavily modified Arthemia magazine theme and a fantastic array of plugins and tweaks. The most challenging aspect was the tight integration between WPEcommerce, Paypal, and Cforms for their complex membership application process. Other features include an automated events plugin, an Amazon affiliates banner, and Google Analytics tracking, which has provided a critical goldmine of information to help the Fellowship steer their mission.

It’s always a great feeling to help a small charity punch above their weight.  I note with pride that every time Stacey Slater has a bipolar episode on Eastenders, hits on the site go way up, proving that you never quite know when you’ll need your web site to work for you.

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: News, streaming media, gigs, double entendres about organs

Steve Chaggaris is a jazz musician based in Boston, Massachusetts, whom I’ve known since the good old days.   He plays in several different bands, performs as a session drummer on recordings, and tours New England on a regular basis.  So he needed a web site to remember what he’s doing and where he is, basically.

This latest edition, done on WordPress with the Sliding Doors theme, is the fourth version of his site that I’ve done since the late 1990s for Steve.  After many years of manual updates, I moved him to WordPress to let him make his frequent site updates on his own, including gig listings and tour photos, without having to rely on me to do it for him.  I added a second sidebar and plugged in a GigPress feed so that his upcoming tour dates are always visible.  With this round, we also moved all of his gig photos to Flickr.  This allows his tour pictures to be searchable amongst the jazz community and helps us focus on how we present them rather than how we code them.

Site address:

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: Site revamp, simplify & clarify, move to CMS

This project saw a top-to-toe revamp for Oryx Solutions, a business and personal development consultancy based in Glasgow.  We took their online presence from a cluttered Front Page site with over eighty pages (!) to a clean, fresh, modern style built on Wordpress.

Oryx’s sleek new visual brand, created by graphic designer Sandra Neilson of Forty Design, made designing the site an absolute pleasure.  The colour scheme of red and purple gives the site an identity as unique as the business owners.

The greatly simplified content scheme allowed us to implement some good basic SEO for the project.

CMS: QNECMS, a bespoke CMS made specifically for WCAG accessibility

Project Goals: Site revamp, accessibility for people with impaired motor abilities, move to a CMS, online donations, rebranding

A labour of love over a year in the making, the new web site for the Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Assocation launched in 2008 on the QNECMS accessible content management system. It includes online registration and donations, e-commerce, news feeds, an improved contact facility, and meets recognised accessibility standards.  In January 2009 we re-skinned the site with the branding and style of their new name and visual identity, MND Scotland.

This was a personal project for me, and I am very proud of the fact that we accomplished much more than a facelift:

• We created the site as a best practice example from day one, combing both officially defined standards, practical usability concerns, and actual MND user feedback;
• We engaged one of the worldwide experts in web accessibility, Jim Byrne, who just happens to be local in Glasgow, to provide the unique CMS which helps to ensure adherence to accessibility standards (no vital funds were wasted on flying in experts from all over the place);
• We replaced a Dreamweaver site with the new site on a content management system which allows immediate updates to be made with the same ease of writing and formatting an email, thus lessening the personal dependence on the one staff member who knew Dreamweaver;
• We followed the rule of marketing for nonprofits and charities which decrees that the visual approach not be too slick and shiny – after all, you do not want funders thinking they are paying for gloss rather than mission;
• We modernised the site’s background design from table layout to CSS;
• We engaged and energised staff into taking personal ownership of their online presence, and every one of them embraced the process with such aplomb that they left me with very little to do before site launch;
• We reviewed, refreshed, and re-categorised the Association’s marketing messages;
• We created dedicated and clear sections for each of the Association’s main audiences, including patients, family members, carers, medical professionals, researchers, volunteers, funders, and press and media;
• In the spirit of accessibility being a journey and not a destination, we trained staff on basic and simple steps they can take every day to ensure the site meets accessibility best practice;
• We created the site with the “call to action” in mind and have encouraged personal interaction with the Association on every page; and finally and most importantly,
• We were able to put the four years I watched my mother suffer and ultimately die from MND/ALS to beneficial use, with me being able to understand what the Association needs technically as well as what people affected by MND need in terms of information and emotional support.

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: web presence

In October 2008 I launched a robust starter site for Critical Mass Consulting, a consultancy firm specialising in strategy and policy development.

I enjoyed the exercise of finding and using conceptual artwork to illustrate Michael’s vision for the company. As the site is aimed towards a public sector – third sector audience, we had to keep the site conservative and understated, as tempting as it was to go over the top with conceptual art at times.  The logo and colour scheme were created by graphic designer Sandra Neilson of Forty Design.

Michael is very comfortable with technology, so I gave him login access to let him edit his site content even while I was working on the technical and infrastructure side.  This probably saved us a week or two of project time.

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: document uploads, multilingual display

Corinne Durand, a French translator, wanted a new site to replace a homemade site which was not bringing in enough business. I built her new site in Wordpress, which allowed me to accomplish two tasks using WP plugins which previously would have required a university education in PHP. First, the cformsII plugin allows her clients to upload documents to her for translation. The form, which I was able to create in two languages, also has CAPTCHA to ward off junk mail. Second, the site is multilingual, just like the business. I used the XLanguage plugin to allow both the French and English copy to reside on the same pages.

Corinne wanted a clean, white, minimalist design, so I adapted the Modern template and added stock images in “stereotypes” of the languages she is able to translate.

Translation is a crowded field so I later added some good SEO to try to set her apart from the crowd, with good rankings as a result.

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: Site creation, SEO

Some projects just don’t feel like work.  Designer Waxing is a prime example of that.  The business opened its doors in September 2008 to become Scotland’s only dedicated waxing service.  I met Jennifer that month at a Women into Business networking event, and because she typifies the best enthusiasm of new startup businesses, we went from that initial hello to launching her site in just sixteen days.

It was fun to throw seriousness out the window to create an over the top girly pink site to promote Jennifer’s business. We later went back and added a second stylesheet to showcase her new male waxing service in gray, black, and white.  Those pages remain the naughtiest thing I’ve ever done in my own business.  We linked the site to Jen’s Facebook account, and also added a street map directly to her salon.

Her company has been such a success – with a little help from SEO – that she’s now taken on staff.  Jennifer said this of my work for her: “I’m getting SO MUCH business from the website and everyone thinks its brill – great feedback about it! And also, people are liking that it’s “blackberry friendly” so, credit where it’s due, a big thank you!”

No, thank you, Jennifer, for keeping Glasgow smooth and stubble-free.

CMS: WordPress

Project goals: Information, community presentation

If the squeaky wheel gets the grease, the Craigheads Community Web Site was a rewarding attempt to be very, very squeaky.  The community was in the process of making a dedicated effort to revitalise itself after years of poor funding and social decay, including an appalling lack of upkeep and maintenance for the basic community infrastructure.

The web site helped the community to convey to the Council the sheer scope of the issues at hand, and the willingness of its residents to do their bit to make change happen.  The community Tenants and Residents Association currently uses the site as a resource to update residents on future meetings, revitalisation plans, and other subjects of interest.  Because the site acts as a record for public communications from the Council, it has also been an unexpected way to work for accountability from both parties.

I completed this project as a service to the community free of charge using the Mimbo template for Wordpress.

CMS: None

Project goals: Site creation, e-commerce, SEO

Laurie Gallus is a gymnastics coach based in Vermont. I created this site to promote her new book, Flip Outside the Box, a guide filled with new creative and artistic elements for gymnasts and coaches. Like a gymnast, the site is small, but packs a lot of punch!  It has been designed both visually and in SEO to grab the attention of the people who will use it the most. I won’t be happy until I see one of Laurie’s moves on the beam in London.

CMS: Drupal

Project goals: Site revamp, marketing

Julia McVey is a fantastically talented and energetic professional corporate coach. So when she first came to me saddled with an ineffective web site that wasn’t getting her any business, it was nothing short of a tragedy.

Before we tackled her web site, we worked through a planner that helped Julia to clarify what she was selling, who she was selling to, and how she was selling it.  With her marketing channels now crystal clear, we set to work redesigning her web site from scratch.

I set her up on Drupal and gave her a very calm, corporate colour scheme and graphic design.  With the help of the new web site, the business went from whispering in a crowd to standing out front and centre – and the customers were quick to follow.

Julia has been my “star pupil” in using her web site to the full extent possible to market herself and her business.  We even added e-commerce to sell a personal development workbook through the site.