Archive Header
Design and Development
Email:TLittle@HeadWeightDesign.com
Phone:770.597.9121
About Me
I'm an artist by nature and a web designer by choice. The aspect of design that intrigues me most is the ability to grow something from the ground up. To go from a rough concept and mold and refine it into something that is not only visually stunning, but also communicates the concept is something few people have the ability to experience. I've only experienced this in one other situation, and that is when I create music. I play guitar, bass, and pretty much whatever else I can get my hands on. I am also no stranger to a recording console and have produced tracks for every band I've ever played in; some have even received air time. I think it's amazing how much the two disciplines have in common.
Skills
I am a designer and a front end developer. I usually create and revise in Photoshop and Illustrator, but also make use of GoLive, Fireworks, InDesign, and a multitude of audio editing programs when they are needed. For the most part, I use Dreamweaver to develop code. However, I want to be very clear, I do NOT use the design view, and the only significant advantage I see in using Dreamweaver at all is the auto-fill code function and integrated FTP. They are time savers. I am equally comfortable coding in a text editor, or in a server environment. The server I use for my personal projects is IIS. I would have no problems functioning in Apache, but IIS is where the bulk of my exposure lies.
I do not use tables unless it's for a calendar or a similar "table". I firmly believe the best approach for development is to keep everything separate. I use (X)HTML for content, CSS for style and display, DOM scripting for action and behaviors, and ASP for server side scripting, and I keep everything segregated. I've previously been required to make updates to sites that don't use this approach, and it requires exponentially more. Do it once, and do it right. Freelance client, or an employer, I have never worked with someone who wanted to pay me to do something more than once when it could have been done once correctly and permanently. Not all clients fully understand why the standards approach saves them money in the long run, but I don't mind explaining it to them.
I am also comfortable designing and developing for SEO and accessibility. If you follow the process I outlined in the previous paragraph, this job is already 50% done.
Portfolio
Windy Hill Chiropractic - www.ArtDocs.net
Windy Hill Chiropractic is my oldest client. They recently renewed their hosting service for another year. To thank them for their continued business I offered to spruce up their site a bit. They have always had excellent traffic to the site, but I was concerned that their quality and expertise was not reflected as strongly as we would like in the old design. I also wanted to place some of their special offers on the first page get them a better turnover ratio. They were thrilled with the new design, and so far the numbers have been rising steadily.
The Guarino Family - www.MatthewsBuddies.com
I heard about Matthew's case from a friend of a friend of the Guarino family. They were trying to get help with medical expenses as well as trying to bring light to Matthew's exceptionally rare case of brain cancer. I wanted to do something to help, and after a little follow up learned they had been trying to get a website built, but were not having much luck. I jumped at the chance to do a small site for them to allow them to collect donations as well as give people a window into Matthew's world. I designed the site very light and upbeat to communicate the optimism the family holds on too. I also wanted this to be a site Matthew himself could look at and feel better.
Chris Vennekamp - www.ChrisVennekamp.com
Chris Vennekamp is an artist at All or Nothing Tattoo. When I first met with him, he was doing mostly walk ins and did not have a site at all. I built two sites for him, the first was something that was thrown together pretty quickly. It served it's purpose by getting his URL crawled by spiders and getting his body of work noticed by people. When we saw that he was getting hits from all over the world and his average customer was now asking for a large custom tattoo rather than a small piece of Flash we knew it was time to expand his site. This is the current design. Chris still gets hits from all over the world, but now they are spending more time on the site and viewing more pages.
Sean Herman - www.SeanHerman.com
Sean Herman is also an artist at All or Nothing Tattoo. However, he was one of the most recognized artists in the industry. He approached me about redesigning his site. He wanted something that would load quickly and display properly in all browsers. I went with a simple design and starkly contrasting colors. He is getting exponentially more traffic now, and users are viewing far more pages than previously. We removed the pages that were not being used, and replaced them with redirecting links to community All or Nothing pages such as the forum and e-commerce site.
All or Nothing Tattoo - www.AtlantaTattooTV.com
All or Nothing Tattoo is a company that I have been doing a lot of work with. As a marketing tool, they produce a number of mini movies and full length DVDs. I suggested the idea of a site where people could go and be entertained regardless of whether or not they were looking for a tattoo in the immediate future. The idea was to offer them a little something extra continuously, and when it came time for them to get some work done, All or Nothing would be the first shop on their mind. This site also became an excellent promotion tool when All or Nothing released their first full length DVD.
All or Nothing Tattoo - www.TattooingAtlanta.com
This was the first site that was completed for All or Nothing Tattoo. The general consensus was that their primary site was not very strong, but an overhaul would take too long, and might shock some long time customers. So rather than redesign the original site, we built something fresh. This site ended up killing two birds with one stone. A new hub site helped to push up the search engine rankings as well as a place where we could promote as the one stop shop for All or Nothing related information.
Photo Color Correction
Before
After One of my close friends is a photographer, and was taking some pictures of my fiancee and I for us to give to our mothers for Mother's Day. In between shots, she snapped a really great picture of our dog. Unfortunately the light in that particular photo was pretty bad, so a little color and light correction needed to be done. These are the before and after shots of the photo.
Photo © 2007 Andrea Johnson.