work examples
ReadyToLEAP.org
LEAP is an organization created by employees of Alabama Power to encourage young people to pursue engineering careers.
The website needed to be attractive, exciting, and easy to use by parents, teachers, and students alike. It was important that the information be displayed in a straight-forward and easy-to-find manner.
We wanted to meet the kids where they were, so we included social media (facebook wall posts), video (embedded youtube videos) and links to other sites on the web to encourage their own search for information.
Just like our other sites, this one has a template structure for the 'look and feel' of the pages, and fills the template in with text that we've saved in a database. This makes the content and the design of the website separate, and keeps the website easy to update.
iCanEngineer.com
iCan is a similar program to LEAP, created by Alabama Power employees, to specifically encourage girls to consider careers in engineering.
By comparing the iCan and LEAP websites, you can see how different a website can look just by changing the colors and a few design elements. The websites were obviously modeled after one another, but were targeted to different audiences.
The iCan team was concerned about social media use among their younger audience, so they chose to include a self-published blog that is operated via an admin page. The admin page controls who can edit what content via a role-based login system. Editing the blog is a breeze for busy professionals.
iCan blog Editor
TheCapitolSchool.com
The Capitol School is a unique learning environment for children aged 2 and a half through high school seniors. We wanted to convey the unique nature of the school, and provide information for potential school parents as well as for parents of current students.
Different sections of the website are color-coded to let the user know where they are in the website. The website also has an easy-to-use admin area.
color coding
site admin area
Lawnmower-Parts.com
Design & Programming: Katie Dewees
Lawnmower-Parts.com is an e-commerce site with an extensive inventory of small engine parts. The owner of this website specifically did not want 'bells and whistles', as his clientelle are guys that just want to get the job done. The site is fast-loading, with the fewest amount of images possible, and the color-scheme accomplished through CSS (cascading style sheets) technology.
The website owner can add and change product categories, upload products, change product pricing and product specials, and add pages to the website all from the admin area displayed below. No HTML, PHP, CSS, or voodoo knowledge is necessary.
website admin area
OccupyWhy.com
Design: Collaboration
Programming: Katie Dewees
OccupyWhy.com was a joint venture with a husband and wife team of film producers who live on the other side of the country. Their vision was to show a solid wall of videos from occupy supporters from all over the country, and to have them explain why they supported the occupy movement. They wanted to show that normal, everyday people had varied and valid reasons for protesting financial inequalities.
This project allowed me to try my hand at integrating the youtube API with a website. The design was a collaboration between myself, the film producers, and several other graphic designers from across the country.
What is amazing about this project, besides the wall of faces, is the example it sets for collaboration on projects across the Internet. The team used a mix of e-mail, Skype video chats, text chats, and file sharing to move ideas over 2,000 miles, and look at what we accomplished!