This is the previous home page:

And here is the new design, which was based on the Mystique theme by Digital Nature. I went with their theme because it offered a good choice of options, while giving a more code-minded designer like myself “under the hood” access to the template files.

I really liked their design framework for the dropdown menu at the top. I felt that the original site’s navigation didn’t include the right architecture and the user kept having to go back to the home page for links to Financial Advice and a few other items.

The original image theme of the site was lighthouses, which tied nicely into the logo and the concept of the company being a guide to financial safety. However, the photos I had originally taken now struck me as a little cold and distant; probably because I had first created the site during the winter of ’07 and I would have needed a boat to get close enough to get bigger images. So I decided to find images that seemed warmer and more engaging. I found this picture for the Long Term Care Insurance page on iStock.

The sidebar was another area that was ripe for improvement. While the old site had pages where potential clients could request a quote for whatever insurance type the page was about, Beacon decided that it would be easier all-around if they had one standard “Request a Quote” form in the sidebar where it was easy to find no matter where you are on the site. I used the CForms II plugin by Delicious Days here.

The other feature I wanted to upgrade was the location map. It’s become one of my pet peeves when a website has a static image of a map on a page when embedding a Google map of a business’s location is so damn easy. The list under “Insurance News” is a simple list of the site’s blog categories.

By converting the old site’s newsletter-style Insurance Updates pages into blog posts it killed two birds with one stone. The new site could be launched with a full blog already built in and, any new updates that a Beacon agent wanted to write would be easy to fit into the existing set of categories.

Last but not least was one feature that I really love to use on sites: the Subscribe via Email form provided by Feedburner.

A lot of clients want to have some way to contact their client base/readers without a lot of fuss. Unless they really have the resources to manage a full html newsletter service such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact, this is really an elegant solution. While some readers might understand what the orange rss icon means, there are so many still unconverted to the wonders of feed subscription that offering them a way to sign up to receive an email whenever a blog is updated with new content can be very handy.

It’s nice to come full circle with a client and re-visit an earlier job. I needed to come up with a fresh approach and I hope the new site will work well both for Beacon and their customers!

Last year Carrie Stack of the Say Yes Institute and a certified Life Coach, asked me about helping her to launch a s site for her new project entitled EO.  EO stands for Emotional Orgasm which is a term she and her business partner Michele Lazcano came up with to describe a moment when you connect with another person and the both of you realize that the connection has moved both of you forward to living your life fully.

I have to say I had a few EO’s of my own with this project.  In collaborating with Katharine Navins of Tallow Studio for the visual aspects of the site, I came to realize that the “splash page”, long considered a no-no among designers, can actually be a very effective tool in focusing the user’s attention on the site’s various sections before they dive right into the content.  Katharine’s use of the gentle blue and white gradient tile in the background and the clean look of the EO logo makes for a very soothing inital impression and prepares the viewer for a relaxing enjoyable time spent reading about Carrie and Michele’s vision of how we can all connect with each other and live our lives more fully.

One thing that was a fun challenge in developing the site was finding a way to display the beautiful navigational buttons Katharine designed without having to resort to javascript or tables.  I found that giving the unordered list that contained the navigation its own id and then using relative positioning to place it on the page, then allowed me to style all of the links with some universal styles, such as visibility, borders, margins, padding and line-height (to fool IE into expanding the clickable area to cover the entire button).  Then, giving each list item its own id gave me precise control over where the link was displayed via absolute positioning and also allowed me to display a different background (the various buttons) for each link.

Social networking, by its very nature, is also a big part of EOyourlife’s focus.  In addition to the text links to Twitter and Facebook at the bottom of each page, I also installed the Add-to-Any plugin so users can easily share the site with friends.  Also in use are the plugins; MailChimp/Analytics 360 to help maintain the newsletter email list and monitor site traffic, Cforms, for the site’s contact forms and All-in-One SEO pack to enhance the use of page titles and optimize the site’s content.

Check out EOyourlife.com and share the good vibes!

On January 20th, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama II was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States and many comparisons were made to Kennedy’s inauguration into the Oval Office. Beyond the superficial resemblances of vigorous youth and dynamic speaking skills, there is another striking resemblance to that era, President Obama’s call to Americans to work together to create a better world for all. This strongly echoes President Kennedy’s passionate support for one of his administration’s longest-lasting legacies, The Peace Corps.

Sargent Shriver, JFK and RFK’s brother-in-law, became a driving force in the creation of the Peace Corps based on his experience with The Experiment For International Living. In preparing to launch his new agency’s efforts in the area called East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Shriver decided to ask Robert Terry Jr., a journalist who had written about rural community development in South Asia, to lead the first team of Peace Corps Volunteers into East Pakistan. Terry accepted the job and began a long and distinguished career in the field of volunteer service.

After deciding to collect his stories of early life in the Peace Corps into a book entitled “And Everyone Should Try”, Robert Terry realized that he would need a web presence to attract publishing interest and so he contracted Jenn Mears Web Design to develop a site to showcase his experience under the name; rcterry.com

Recently launched, the site’s visual design is based on the colors of the national flag of Bangladesh, Terry’s area of service. In addition to the home page which introduces the user to the site’s purpose, the site also offers a brief biography, samples and reviews of Robert Terry’s writings over the years, and also a photo gallery which reveals fascinating glimpses into the early years of both the Peace Corps and the country now known as Bangladesh.

Milestones Unlimited, P. C.: This is a company that was looking to create a brand new site for their care management and consulting business based in Hopkinton, MA. They are licensed social workers who are dedicated to helping seniors and their families find the best care available in times of transition.
Design Objective: To create a site that will present the services offered by Milestones Unlimited in a way that is easily read and understood by the end user. After surveying a number of similar web sites, it was determined that a simple, easy to follow navigation would be most important, followed by easy to read content that could quickly be scanned by the reader.

Loynd Capital Management: There are several internet services that help users choose a Chartered Financial Analyst and these services often direct the user to the CFA’s website via a link. Wishing to capitalize on this service, Geoffrey Loynd, MBA contacted Jenn Mears Web Design about setting up an informational site for both prospective and current clients.
Design Objective: In order to present the company to prospective clients, a home page with a strong sense of the site’s purpose was needed. Loynd Capital Management’s logo is a nautical steering wheel and it flows smoothly into a theme of aiding navigation through today’s financial waters. The aim of the content is to guide the client through the services offered and help them to make informed decisions.

I’ll try to keep posting articles on things like advertising and search engine optimization, but from here on out it’s going to be ABC (always be coding) for a while!

At a Salem Chamber of Commerce coffee connection last summer, I had the opportunity to meet Jennifer Bell, the manager of the Salem Main Streets Initiative, a non-profit focused on revitalizing the downtown area. She had mentioned that they were looking to develop a web site on their URL, salemmainstreets.org, and now, that plan has come to fruition!

It was a lot of fun to work on something that would reach into so many aspects of our community and there is so much going on in Salem that at times the committee wasn’t sure what the main focus of the site should be. Was it for visitors looking to find out about all there is to do here? Was it for new and current business owners to tap into all the resources available to them? Was it for residents to follow local business news and find out what’s happening in their town? Luckily, the idea of a WordPress-driven site was approved and its flexibility and ease-of-use was a good fit for the task at hand. Welcome to the new Salem Main Streets site, where you can find information about local festivals, shopping, dining and new businesses. There is a section for local business owners and an interactive map, powered by Community Walk, to be your guide to everything this great community has to offer!