Patrick Higgins came to us looking for a ‘bespoke’ design for TropicBird Ecotours, a sailing charter specializing in a personalized experience for visitors wanting to explore the rare beauty of the 10,000 Islands National Wildlife Refuge and Rookery National Estuarine Research Reserve under sail.

We took some inspiration from the original 2005 addesignconcepts.com design, nature photography from our own collection and other local sources. WordPress was used as a CMS and a custom theme was developed according to the design specifications. Fortunately TropicBird Ecotours had it’s own wealth of high quality photos and well written content that made the creation of this website a pleasurable and inspiring endeavor.

In a addition to the TropicBird Ecotours website we also set up and linked a Facebook fan page. Here is what Mr. Higgins testimonial following the launch of his site:

I choose Ross for my website design because it was clear from the outstart that he was completely up to date on electronic media, he understood the brief, would be sensitive to my message and would be able to guide me on appropriate content. He delivered my site on time and on cost with the minimum of revisions and was very responsive throughout the process. I have no hesitation in recommending him.

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When Dr. Becker asked us to have a look at his website for Minneapolis Orthopaedics, we were more than happy to provide detailed suggestions on how the existing website could be improved. Our suggestions covered content recommendations such as deeper and richer content as well as design and functionality requirements such as iPad and iPhone compatibility. The result is a website that exceeded the client’s expectations.

Dr. Becker provided the following recommendation on LinkedIN:

Ross performed a complete makeover of our site; www.mplsortho.com. The original site was a little bland and dated and used older coding. Ross, at www.websitedesignby.com not only updated it, he transformed it into a modern, interactive, aesthetically appealing, and informative site. He worked days, nights and weekends and kept incorporating any changes I wanted. He had fresh ideas that we implemented and he used the latest coding techniques known. He was even able to make our online video compatible with IPhone and IPad and streamed different resolutions of the video based on available bandwidth on the user end. He researched several topics and found additional sites that he linked and embedded seamlessly. He was always available and responded within 24 hours to every Email I sent. He works very fast and is incredibly detailed oriented. I am thoroughly pleased with the worked Ross did on our site and will be telling friends and other companies about his abilities. His pricing is very reasonable and he stays on budget. Our web site turned out better than I had even hoped for and in the few short days since its launch, I have gotten uniformly positive feedback….and new business

View the complete website at mplsortho.com.

When K is for Kids® Foundation approached us to assist with a redesign of their existing web site, we were more than happy to reorganize their content and develop a custom WordPress template that would allow them to continue to grow.

The template redesign was only the first part of an ongoing relationship that websitedesignby.com continues to provide support and maintenance as K is for Kids® Foundation continues to evolve and grow in its mission of helping promote reading for children everywhere.

Here is a letter from founder Karen Clawson:

Dear Ross,

Thank you for joining our Foundation’s “reservoir of bright minds” by serving as a member of our K is for Kids® Advisory Council and donating your valuable time and skills supporting our cause.

We also appreciate your role as webmaster, although that title certainly does not due you justice. Indeed, our organization feels fortunate to have found someone with your formidable talents: As a website designer in tune with current trends who easily combines the technical skills and know-how of a computer programmer, your ability to apply creative vision is only topped by your business skills to deliver results quickly and efficiently. We appreciate how you took our content and graphics and made them better; how you adeptly reconstructed our website then steered us through a seamless transition to a “new” launch; how you met and then surpassed our goals; and most of all, how you succeeded in building KisforKids.org into a powerful communicator of our cause as well as an engaging community for others to visit.

In short time, Ross, you have filled a critical role in the advancement of our goals to promote children’s literacy and leadership by creating a website that reflects the spirit of our philanthropy and volunteerism while focusing on those we benefit. On behalf of the thousands of children who have been given more books to read and more opportunities to lead, we give you our deepest gratitude.

Very truly yours,

Karen D. Clawson
Founder & Executive Director

Deazzle is a custom designed ‘Deal of the Day’ web site. Deal information is entered and scheduled using a content management system. This web site also features a business directory, coupons, WYSIWYG content editor and many other features that are continually being updated and developed.

Working with websitedesignby is a truly amazing experience. I had worked with 4 other website development groups previously for other websites or projects and I have never been as pleased with the high level and quality of service that I get from websitedesignby. Ross has design talents as well as being analytical. He not only listened and developed what we were looking for, but he presented ideas and solutions to make the website/project better. Working with websitedesignby is a pleasure and I would recommend them to all my business associates regardless of the size of project.

This site was custom developed for ‘A Girl From Jersey’ creations: unique coastal gifts available for wholesale to retailers.

The Problem

When Joanne initially approached me, she had a basic site that a friend had created using WordPress. She did not feel the site was a true representation of the quality of her work and did not have the level of professionalism she wanted to portray her business. It was also difficult for her to maintain as she only had a few pages of content but needed the ability to upload multiple photos into various categories and themes. The way the site was set up was not optimized for the photo gallery type setup she needed. I figured I could give her WordPress template a makeover and install a photo gallery plug-in. After researching plug-ins for galleries I did not find the perfect one I was looking for. Specifically we to be able to upload products and associate multiple categories and themes to each photo. On the front end we wanted visitors to be able to browse a category and have the photos separated and sorted by theme and when browsing a theme, separated and sorted by category. Seemed simple enough, however I never found what we were looking for.

The Solution

In thinking about the design and needing to move forward with the project I decided to build the content management system myself.

The Result

Dear Ross,

Thank you so much for all of your efforts on my new website. The process has been enjoyable from start to finish. I’ve been able to express my present and future needs to you, which you have taken and turned into a beautiful website that meets my current needs and can expand as my business does. I don’t know which I appreciate more: the website that is visible to all visitors or the part that only I see. As an artist/manufacturer, I get paid for the produts I sell, not for the number of hours I put into maintaining my website. So the easier it is for me to upload photos of new work, the sooner I can get back to painting. And the behind-the-scenes tools you have given me to maintain my site do just that. They are wonderful!!! I didn’t need to take classes, buy special software or enter into a 2-yr commitment; you’ve made updating my site as easy as sending an email with an attachment!! I look forward to using your services in the future as my business grows and will gladly recommend you. It has been a pleasure! Thank you!

Joanne Murphy

This was a re-design of an existing web site for the Big Boy Show. In addition to a new look and feel, we selected a better domain name for branding built the site on drupal, a robust content management system for easy updates and future expansion.

Dear Ross,

Thank you for updating the Big Boy EXPO web site. I love the new layout and the ability to easily update the images and copy whenever necessary. My clients are excited about the new design for the fact that I can incorporate images of the latest exhibits featured at the show, and the Vimeo gives visitors the opportunity to view the many activities that we offer for their entertainment.

Marlene Rivello
President
Big Boy EXPOS, Inc.

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naturesong.net was redesigned in 2009 to address some issues with the shopping cart, integrate a reseller login so resellers can log in and purchase CDs at a discount and NET 30 payment terms and generally update the look and feel of the site.

The shopping cart and content management system is completely custom. I decided to create a custom system for this site because I had a clear vision of how it should work. The owner, Bill Leverick, wanted to be able to easily update the CDs available for sale. I knew there were off-the-shelf shopping carts and content management systems I could probably have used or customized. Because these products had an ‘audio sample’ component to them that we needed to attach and be able to associate audio files with multiple products, I decided to build it myself. The site integrates PayPal Website Payments Pro for it’s merchant service provider and the UPS API to get shipping information from UPS in real-time for orders with quantities above 2 CDs. The AJAX overlay for each product uses the jQuery framework to handle the JavaScript effects.

In retrospect I am happy with my decision to go completely custom with this site. It allowed me to develop exactly what the client was looking for without excess functionality that he didn’t want or need and might have confused the process. It also allowed me to address his fine-tuning requests quickly and not have to compromise because of an off-the-shelf software limitation.

Here is a quote from the owner:

Ross,
I just logged on to check out the new NatureSong site that you activated today. I am very pleased not only with the graphics, but with the built in ability for me to make necessary changes to the products. You have done a great job and I would heartily recommend you to anyone. Please feel free to use this site and my other web site, Cape Cod & New England Gift Show as examples of your work.
Thanks,
Bill Leverick

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The original site I developed in 1998 can be seen here.

New Flash interface design for Koast2Koast / D-Town Records. Design was done in Photoshop then brought into Flash for animation and interactivity. This is a concept to be used on the artist CD. These guys are great to work with. Fun project!

Here is the clients response:

“Ross is an amazing talent, I first discovered his work when he was with 4What. Just looking at how he focuses on detail made me believe this was the web designer for me. Since then, I hired Ross to create a web design for one of my artist 3riple Threat. We were on a tight deadline trying to close a deal with Universal, and not only did Ross get right on the job, his work left everyone on my team speechless. His work displayed to Universal that our company is committed to working with only the best. I would recommend Ross work to anyone looking to enhance their companies image through viral marketing.”

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kspalding.com is the website of Naples, Florida artist Katherine Spalding. This site was redesigned in 2006 using PHP, CSS and Flash.

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This version of my company website was developed in 2005. Ad Design Concepts is a website design company in Naples, Florida.