Virtue of the Small

Work Archive

What I am most proud of is the care, focus on people, and creative problem solving that goes into all my work. That approach is useful in many, many situations.

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BellaDomus.com

James Morgan decided to re-cast his business slightly. This newer site is now served under both his original domain name (JamesMorganDesigner.com) and his newer name, BellaDomus.com. He is a designer of houses, and works with houses in a range of sizes and including things like passive solar and green design.

BuildYourDream.com

James Morgan, a house designer based in Carrboro, NC, asked me to redesign a site of his that linked him with other housing professionals. I designed the main page at buildyourdream.com as well as his personal site, accessible through JamesMorganDesigner.com.

Center for Inspired Thinking

Chapel Hill Anti-Shakespeare Festival

For this alternative theatre company, I let myself go a bit and created some (I think) more interesting graphics. Result: longer than usual download times - but it looks cool!

Chapel Hill Chamber Music Workshop

Seemingly out of the blue, the Chamber Music Workshop based at UNC called me up. They had an existing site they didn't like much. This site features my first experiment with Google maps.

Chapel Hill Museum

This is a local museum here in Chapel Hill, NC. They have exhibits that change periodically, as well as a new program of craft classes. This site was developed using Zope, a content-management platform, and a Zope product I wrote to allow site owners to edit and add content themselves.

Coach Working Mom

Control Systems Group (perceptualcontroltheory.org)

This is a fairly loose group of psychologists, engineers, educators, and other scientists who are all proponents of something called "Perceptual Control Theory". Their site has a number of articles and links having to do with this new-ish theory of behavior.

Focusing this site was a bit of a challenge; I was working for a book publisher here in Chapel Hill as well as an engineer in California; both excellent resources. The group is so loosely organized, though, that defining the mission of the web site (as it fit within the mission of the overall group) was troubling for me.

Since the group mainly communicates through their very active e-mail list, it was tempting to focus on the technical topics that the list covers. However, the mission of the group has a lot to do with introducing new people to the theory, and this is a task for which a web site is well-suited. So the focus of the home page is on guiding interested newcomers into finding the right piece of information for educating themselves. Existing members can see links to recently added items in the "News" section; they will probably get basic information through the e-mail list, but this lets them quickly go through the web site to details like conference sign-up and so forth.

Cultural Arts Group

This is an interesting small group that meets monthly to discuss local arts issues. They also publish an article every month in The Chapel Hill News.

I made this site for them pro-bono. Unfortunately, the site's mission and audience were never quite clear for me, leading to a somewhat spartan and uninspired design, although I may redesign the site soon.

Derrick Ivey

Derrick Ivey wanted a brand new site to show his work to potential interior design clients.

Duane Day Designs

This site is about selling sweater knitting kits created by Barbara Duane Day McMullan.

Dr. Sara Rosenquist

Dr. Rosenquist is a local psychologist specializing in women's health issues. We worked together to create a warm and professional presentation of her articles and suggested reading lists.

Extraordinary Learning Foundation

This organization started with a dream, a very experienced expert in teaching low-achieving and exceptional children, and a handful of very cute kid photos. I made their startup web site, and was fortunate (though very nervous) to be at the grand unveiling to the Foundation's board and supporters. They applauded! For the web site! What a moment.

The directors have recently focused on a private venture (T & T Communication, below) in an effort to build up funds for the foundation.

Forests of the World

This is a wholesaler of fairly and sustainably-produced products from interesting places around the world. All products come from areas of high biodiversity which are somehow threatened. The idea is that if the people who live in these places can make a decent living without cutting down the forests, then the forests are much more likely to be preserved.

If you live in the NC Triangle area, they have an open warehouse sale every month. There's also a list of retailers on the site.

Howard A. Schroeder

Howard Schroeder is a sculptor in the rich medium of wood. I really enjoyed working on his site, and his work is certainly worth a look. The home page is OK, I think, but I really love his gallery pages.

IAACT.com

I redesigned this site for the International Association of Applied Control Theory. They are maintaining the site themselves (they have someone who knows HTML and will do it inexpensively - they don't have a content management system for now). I am somewhat pleased at my rendering of their Möbius strip logo.

JamesKelly Group

JamesKelly Group matches pharmaceutical research professionals with the companies that employ them. They wanted a basic 2-page site, and had already purchased rights to some photographs, one of which I used on the site.

Jason Arkles, Sculptor

I loved doing this site for sculptor Jason Arkles. He had very definite ideas about the kinds of information he wanted to present, and spent a lot of time writing very informative articles for the site. I helped him edit them, processed the images of his work, and just basically got out of the way of his art. This is a Zope site - Jason adds and edits his own content, including images of sculptures in his galleries.

Junction of O. T. Function

Kelly Wilk wanted to be the Martha Stewart of the learning-disabled population, so I helped her get started. Her site features colorful graphics, a monthly newsletter (to which people can automatically subscribe on-line), monthly craft or recipe activities, and resources and information for parents, teachers, and friends of children with all kinds of learning disabilities.

Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern

This is an independent theater company based in Durham, NC, founded by someone previously connected with the Somnambulist Project. I had some great help from graphic designer Erik Niemi, but what you see is a significant permutation of his work. This is one of the earliest sites to use my new self-administered CMS system.

NewViewPublications.com

This site is an example of what can happen when a client has access to wonderful art by a very nice cartoonist. I like this site very much, and I was very lucky to get access to the animal illustrations.

North Carolina Museum of History Educational Resources

This is a searchable database of the many educational resources offered by the museum. I did the user interface design, database and back end development, and some text.

Orange County Arts Commission

One of my first sites. The Arts Commission does several things, including giving grants and listing local artists on their site. In addition to the overall design, I made the searchable database software for them (they have an existing database in MS Access that they upload to the site periodically). Their current director does many edits and updates herself (including adding graphics and links on the home page), since she has a working knowledge of HTML.

The Arts Commission director knew HTML and updated the site, including the home page, herself. Here's the latest version of the site.

T & T Communication Services

I often get requests for "something basic". I try to accommodate when possible.

This site turned out just fine in a lot of ways. Since I did the original design, the owner's son has taken over maintenance of the site, but as of early 2007, my design and information structure is largely in place.

The Warehouse Apartments

One of my first sites was for a new apartment complex on Rosemary Street near the local University. The site focused on information for potential residents (who are mostly students), and an analysis of this group gave us the idea to include "Facts to Comfort Your Parents".

Triangle PC Depot

Triangle PC Depot already had a very straightforward, in-house web site when Mark Bero, the owner, asked us if we could create an instant price quote system for him. I tried to make the user interface straightforward and in line with the rest of his site (and easy for him to change on his own). He updates it himself every week. If you're interested in a new computer, and you're in the North Carolina Triangle, I recommend giving it a try. The latest version of this system has a web-based management system for changing individual component prices and various other parameters. There's also a very fancy in-store quote system, with tons of client-side JavaScript code and big pretty graphics for a dynamic user interface. If you'd like a demo of this product, please contact me; it is designed for use on a specific type web-browser system, rather than general use through the web. It can be adapted to give price quotes for any type of product which is composed of a definite set of user-selected components.

In March of 2001, I redesigned the Trangle PC Depot web site for Mark, so when you go there, you'll see my work all over the place. This new design is an experiment with a darker background, something I'd previously avoided because of usability concerns (white text on a dark background prints as white text on white paper); Here, the background is dark blue, and any text on it is light blue (so it will print out) or black on a light-colored table cell.