A web site is a must for any business—large or small—to keep its customers informed and in touch. If you advertise in the newspaper, a web address in your ad lets potential customers see what you’re all about without leaving their homes. You can tell them about products, sales, store hours, contact information, and company history. Adding your web site’s URL can turn a small print ad into a full-colour, interactive flyer for your business.
If you already have a web site, is it everything you want it to be? Is it beautiful? Is it fast? Is it user-friendly? Can you update it yourself? If you can’t answer “yes” to all of those questions, consider a redesign by Offtone.
Click the numbered buttons above to read on, or check the columns to the right for contact information and recent work.
The web presents a huge opportunity to businesses, but to take full advantage of it can be tricky. While customers can type a web address in seconds and be presented with everything your company has to offer, studies show that if a visitor isn’t happy within at most five seconds, they leave.
If your visitors are already customers, the design may not be a deciding factor, but if your web site appears in advertisements (and it should) then you’ll be receiving a lot of first-timer traffic, and a poor site design is a missed opportunity to wow them when it counts.
Form, then function. This is their order of importance on the web, however: once a customer has been impressed by the site’s design, they immediately begin to use it and function takes priority. Therefore, your site must be both attractive and usable in order to be fully successful. Menus must be clearly visible and easy to manoeuvre. Page content should be clear and simple, not overwhelmingly cluttered. Your site should also be quick, not held back by slow servers or inefficient source code.
I will make sure that your web site’s interface is easy to use and I host sites on a dual-processor Intel Xeon server with 8GB of memory. This all translates to a smooth experience for your web visitors.
The choice is yours. Your web site doesn’t have to be a massive shopping centre, and in many cases a smaller, simpler approach can be more effective. So, if you’re looking for something a little more modest, I’m all ears.
I put as much care into tiny projects as I do the big ones, so whether you dream big or dream small, your site will still look and feel like a million bucks.
Typically, clients are forced to contact their webmasters in the event something on their site needs changing, irrespective of the task’s simplicity; from fixing a typo to adding a photo, it all goes through the webmaster. And while not always billed to the client, this process creates unnecessary delays when updating content.
To solve this, I’ve developed what’s referred to as a “content management framework” which essentially lets you, the client, make basic changes on your own. Once you’ve logged in, you can effortlessly alter the text and photos displayed on your web site’s pages, right from within your browser. The edit icon (
) is drawn beside all editable content, and is clicked to launch the actions menu. The tool, which I call the “HotSpot CMF”, displays an intuitive editing panel unique to each type of content: text, photos, list items, etc.
An example of what you’d see if you chose the “Edit” action.
With HotSpot, you’ll get content flexibility and instant gratification.
While I make it easy for clients to handle simple editing tasks, I’m still available to help out whenever you need me. Whether you’re looking to add a page or reorganize an entire section, I won’t leave you high and dry.
I can also help out with marketing by submitting your new or newly-designed web site to popular search engines and designing ads, business cards, or anything else you might want.
Knowing what’s important, here’s what I can deliver:
And that’s the tour. My portfolio and contact information are to the right, so have a look and drop me a line or give me a call.
I was approached by Q2 Management to redesign their outdated web site based on their existing logo’s colours and style.
I began by brightening up the logo and re-creating it for use in high-resolution print media, and designed the site around that.
The final product is very clean and very simple. Complete with a ridiculously easy-to-use control panel, they’re able to make any content updates whenever they like, all from within the web browser and without any necessary programming knowledge.
A proposed revision to the existing design of ChicagoMosaicSchool.com, this design makes use of a much more modern and colourful style.
I started and finished this fun little project in, pretty much, a single sitting. The task: Design a clear and simple layout for use on a score-keeping site for golfers. Think Facebook, only completely catered to golfers and golfing communities. Stats, chatting, buddies, and more.
The site is still in the works, but a link to the live version will go up here as soon as it’s launched.
Offtone is my personal web page; a place for me to post writings, photos, and until recently, web work. With the launch of offtonedesign.com, I’ve since migrated the web portion of the site to this one, and replaced Offtone’s link to “web” with a link to Offtone Design.
Offtone’s design has received much praise in its two year (I think) lifetime. It’s easy to navigate and content is clearly separated and themed accordingly.
Recently, I upgraded the site to use my HotSpot content management framework, so I can make posts and upload photos within my browser, without having to load my FTP client or write any HTML. It’s very handy.
Built for a buddy of mine, this site’s backend was built upon Offtone.com’s old backend. It made a lot of improvements, some of which made it into the new Offtone.
The design is pretty simple on the eyes, but proved quite challenging given the semi-transparent parts along the edges of sidebar boxes, which also protrude from the main area (harder than it looks, when you’re aiming to get Internet Explorer to comply).
Now, it seems, Tyler’s posting a lot of photos. So, to accommodate the shift of content from mostly text to mostly photos, AwkwardBomb will be getting another redesign. I’ve also decided to use Offtone’s new CMS to build it. Easier for me to build, and easier for Tyler to manage.
Visit AwkwardBomb.
Despite having spent dozens of hours on this project, I somehow managed to forget it when updating my portfolio. So here it is, about a year late, www.faithfocus.org.
The engine for the site is borrowed mostly from that of ClassicalChicago.com and its sister sites, but some elements of the control panel are specific to the creation and maintenance of a church homepage. I was very proud of this design and its execution with CSS, as it was quite a feat to get it working in all of the demographic browsers.
A design for a friend of my brother’s. Quick and clean. I like the colours, and the subtle grungy stuff (first time playing with that).
I was asked to redesign this site (after offering to a long time ago) from the old, very outdated look the company had been using.
It went pretty well, I think. I’ve built them a very extensive control panel for simple management of their hosting plans, image galleries, and other site content.
A very small design job for a site that provides marketers with accurate information about their demographic through a geographical search engine.
This site is for a real estate company in Illinois. The design’s simple and effective. Complete with a control panel for easy updating.
JazzChicago.com is the jazz-centric version of ClassicalChicago.com. The site is a demonstration of CC’s backend being used to power another site. Other sites on the “network” include classicaltoronto.com, classicalnyc.com, and about 16 others.
Obviously the shared backend will save me huge amounts of time when making any small (or large) changes to the sites. It’s glorious!
Before the original ClassicalChicago.com could fully take off, they decided to change their focus to those searching for artists rather than artists searching for an online presence.
There is now a splash page which describes what the site is for and a giant link to the pre-booking form.
The artist pages are now categorized by instrument and feature a dramatic new design with the addition of photo galleries and an event calendar.
The artists’ control panel was split into multiple parts and iconified on the control panel’s index page for easier navigation.
And finally, the site’s backend is actually powering about 20 other similar Classical* and Jazz* sites. This was accomplished by pointing all domains (hosted on the same server) to the ClassicalChicago root directory and using a combination of mod_rewrite and various environment variables to decide which site’s content to pull from the database tables. I decided this sort of setup was necessary to manage 20 (and counting) sites that are structurally the same.
Each site can have its own image set, but for consistancy purposes the classical* sites look like ClassicalChicago and the Jazz* sites look like JazzChicago.com, the logo being the only unique portion of the design.
Some work is still being done on the site, as always, but it’s ready to accept traffic and new accounts. I’m still confident it’ll take off.
This site was rather a treat to work on. I had a lot of freedom and got a chance to play around with some 3D.
The site is built using modern techniques (XHTML styled with CSS) and has a smidge of Flash to add that animated look that so many love.
This is actually the hosting company that has taken on the task of hosting offtone (and the sites I host). They have been very kind in providing PHP5 and MySQL 4.1 running parallel with PHP4. The goal is to provide reliable hosting that is sure to relieve those who have experienced anything less. I can vouche for their competency.
It was fun to work on, and I’m quite pleased with the results. I’m sure it’ll take off quickly.
Jessye is a young opera star in Chicago who came to us at ClassicalChicago.com looking for a personal Web presence. I provided her with an updatable photo gallery and event calendar and editable content for her About and Biography pages. The design fully utilizes Web standards such as CSS and XHTML.
Jessye was (thankfully) very patient despite the occasional setback during the process, but is (even more thankfully) very pleased with the result.
PS: For those wondering, I’ve no relation to Jessye, though she does have a brother named Aaron. Spooky.
The client approached me with the request that I design a Canadian version of WebHosting.net for use on their Canada-specific sub domain, Canada.WebHosting.net. Working off their original design, I had the whole thing redesigned in just two days. I also rewrote/restructured the majority of the source code.
After the folks at simplyaudiobooks.com implemented my redesign concept (delivered in Photoshop Document format, and a single HTML page of the design), their sales increased a whopping 75%. Goes to show that a good design can make a good product great.
Update: This business, like SharpWeb, has grown considerably and they’ve undergone about four complete redesigns since this one to accommodate the evolution of their products and services. I’m glad I could help build the momentum!
The Jazz equivalent of ClassicalChicago.com. Runs off the same backend code I wrote for ClassicalChicago, but caters specifically to the Jazz community.
I designed and wrote the backend for this entire site. Took me the better part of two weekends to get it complete. I’m very happy with the way it turned out. Should be very successful.
Update: While the site is taking longer than expected to get off the ground, it still holds a lot of its potential. A redesign and restructuring is in the works for version two which will focus more on attracting the common folk looking for musicians, rather than aiming at musicians.
I did the design for this site. Programming was taken care of by someone else.
This has always been one of my favourites, and it was great to work on. No snags. Just snip, snap, done. Flawless.
Unfortunately they’ve gone offline recently, so I can’t link to the site. The photo on the right will have to suffice.
KWEP, an acronym for “Kids Who Eat Paint” is a site designed to allow anyone to contribute articles regarding anything they feel the need to address.
The site is the brainchild of Josh and Nathan (friends of mine). They were constantly ranting, and figured it’d be a good idea to publicly display their thoughts. So, they “hired” me. I designed it and constructed its beautiful innards… And now it’s ready to be tested before finalising its URL and whatnot.
The site includes a few things that this site has, but nothing was directly copied from AW.com to KWEP, no sir. I re-wrote all the doowackies and made them far superior to the ones showcased here. Mainly the statistics (and even more specifically, the “users online” thing). Others include:
The business changed a bit and quickly outgrew my first layout, so here’s the new and much improved SharpWeb Innovations site.
I created a very simple flash movie to dress up the front page. The only animated portion of it is the shoreline, but it made a world of difference.
The site’s offline now, as Sean (SharpWeb’s founder) moved on to start a very successful tech support company, touchsupport.com (the logo for which I had a hand in!)
This site is more of a practice site. It allowed me to incorporate all my skills as of this summer to create the whole system. It was fun to make, and I might still launch it someday.
Update: Actually, it’s done. Well, as done as it can be for now. I’ll need some moderators and some advertising to get it popular.
Update 2: It’s just sort of sitting pretty right now. Nothing planned for it, either… Hmm. Suppose I might launch it fully one day.
This site is my personal site. It’s 100% skinable (meaning the look can be manipulated in any way I choose while still displaying the same content in an easy-to-view manner) and relies almost entirely on PHP.
This site alone has given me the experience I need to start my own web design business. I’ve put many hours into this site and I’ve learned a lot from designing its many fun features.
