SW-Originals: Portfolio of Websites

SW-Originals is a full-service, professional graphic design, web design, copywriting and pre-press production company. We recommend Agora Cart for your e-commerce needs.

		Argy's Collectibles: The most complex ecommerce site that I have developed, without hiring any outside programmers. Not only are there product categories, but there are subcategories as well, and the products themselves needed to be sorted alphabetically by name, rather than by SKU (stock keeping unit). This company is based in Canada, with customers spanning the globe, so taxes had to be configured to only charge taxes to those in Canada, and charge them correctly as some taxes are for products only, and some taxes are collected on products and services (meaning shipping and handling charges) Other challenges included incorporating real time inventory control, so that customers could not order something that was now out of stock. And, I added a live help feature, so that any online customer could contact the client instantly if they had any questions about products or services.

		Health Restoration International, Ltd.: Health Restoration International is a non-profit foundation dedicated to educating and providing resources for emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical health. The founder, Marilyn Murray, spends approximately 6 months of every year in Moscow, training others to help people recover from abuse and addictions. The challenge of designing and building this site was to make it informative, with the functionality of selling Ms. Murrays' books online as well as accepting donations online. For good measure, a blog was added so that Ms. Murray can easily communicate her progress while she is in Moscaw. A firm supporter of Agora Cart, due to it's robustness, flexibility and affordability (not one of my clients have ever complained about the cost...since as it is free), I again used that software for the ecommerce section of the website.

		Mirror Doodle: First of all, I was enamored of this unique product, and considered myself lucky to have been selected to create its debut website. While there are growing pains with any new company, my clients were very thorough and had truly thought things out. It was been a joy to work with them. The problems that occured in development were all with third-party vendors for the e-commerce end of the site. Vendors who have been around for a while, and who can not explain how everything went wrong from start to finish. There was so much ball-dropping occurring by these third-party vendors you could have sworn we were in the middle of a pee-wee Little League baseball game. But I digress... Once again, I used the Agora Shopping Cart...because of its robustness......and modularity...and affordability. And I thank all of the people on the Agora Bulletin Boards for their help with getting a slew of enhancements to work. Alas...the website is no longer an active entity.

		BMF Productions: A Flash intro was needed for this website. A short internet "commercial", if you will, to explain all of the services offered by this entertainment and production company. I offered several options to the viewers: the ability to start and stop the movie to read more throughly; the ability to click on any of the buttons at the left to see that segment of the movie again; and the ability to just skip the intro and enter the website.

		Speedway Racing Tours: The goal of this website redesign was to create a more dynamic, exciting website, while making it more sales oriented and friendly. A Flash "commercial" was created for the home page to elicit enthusiasm and excitement about attending races, while explaining the services that Speedway Racing Tours provides. Problems encountered and fixed along the way on the old site were java scripting errors and scripts that didn't function correctly. Click here to see what this page looked like before the redesign.

		www.thecarpetfrogsbiz.com: After working on the design and production of the printed collateral for their CD, the next step was to create a website emulating the CD, to list song lyrics, song clips and sell the CD, via an Agora Shopping Cart. This site augments the main Carpet Frogs website, but is linked to it. This was only my second time working on an Agora shopping cart, and much customization was needed, as the client is in Canada, and there are very different taxes charged in Canada vs. in the US. Also, I wanted to incorporate the Cascading Style Sheets from the other pages into the shopping cart, as visitors to websites like the feeling of continuity they get when the pages are the same...and they don't feel like they've been thrust off to another site which they may not feel comfortable with. While you're here, go listen to the song clips...I love the CD...and hope the Frogs are very successful selling it.

		www.patiodoorrepairs.com: This website was created for a company that specializes in the repair of sliding glass patio doors. This company didn't require a huge website, just a single page with a lot of information given via the Flash commercial, and meta content which does a fine job of driving people to this website (per the client).

		O & P Enterprises, Inc.: A very simple informational web page about this company, and their philosophies, established primarily so that interested parties can contact them easily. Included designing the logo.

		Healing Chi Therapeutic Bodyworks: The goals of this site redesign were: a) to create an ambiance more akin to the experience of having a massage; b) to break up the informative text via composition and the addition of photography; c) to promote sales and become more search-engine friendly; and d) to make the site easy to navigate. The project included re-creating the logo and all site photography. Click here to see what the home page looked like before the redesign. Note: The client decided to dabble in his own web design once I was finished, so the live website doesn't match exactly what I had designed.

		Shabby Chic Boutique, presented by Flying Dollar: This was an e-commerce website for a client who had only been selling via Ebay. I recommended Agora Cart for the shopping cart area, as it is a very robust program, and it's free to the client. I enjoy passing savings like this along to my clients. Everything is now functional, including the search, the discount coupon, "more information", a larger image when the main image is clicked on, and the client is busily populating the store now. Another instance where the client decided to have someone else make changes to the design after I was done, which altered the effectiveness of the design. In my design, the navigation was at the upper left of the page for ease of use for the customer. Now, navigation flows down the left side of the page, forcing customers to scroll, scroll, scroll for information. Oh well!

		Cats And Dogs: This website is for a Toronto-based pop/rock band, Cats And Dogs. Due to timeliness of information (upcoming concerts) as well as the length of time it takes to be listed on various search engines, I wanted to get pages out there even as they were being worked on. The page pictured is the photos page. An interesting challenge, using three separate Flash files to call images, and keep load times down for those on dial-up connections. When a page number is clicked, thumbnail images for that page are displayed. When a thumbnail is clicked, the large image appears. The song files are uploaded, the guest book and forum now work, and most of the site is functional. Alas, the band and the website are out of commission.

		www.matchupsingles.com: This website is still in development: pages have all been designed but are in programming now, as they are database driven. Update...the site received a new look after the programming was finally finished. So my designs are now history. That's the beauty of the internet...the ability to change so quickly, without incurring large print costs.

		Dance instruction video website The goal of this redesign was to create a more professional-looking, sales-oriented home page, while still tying in with the rest of the site. Flash was utilized, once again, to take advantage of the prime real estate of the home page, and give an overview of all products being sold. Click here to see what the home page looked like before the redesign. The headline was "Partner Dancing" and no where did it say that the thrust of the site was to sell learn-to-dance-videos. And click here to see what the site looks like now, after not paying me for 20 hours of my time, when I only billed for 6 hours, and they plagiarized my ideas/expertise, from changing the site title to match mine, to changing the headline to match mine, to putting all the links on the left as I had done, etc. In any case, this ex-client is the reason that I now request a 50% deposit up front...because what you are paying me for is my knowledge and expertise in selling products and services. I can't repossess that once I have utilized my precious time.

		www.castlesuperstores.com: I was employed by Castle Superstores from November, 1996 through December, 1998, to help create an ecommerce website for this company. The first stage was to have a static website online, with select products for sale, while the database-driven, MS Merchant Server website was in development, reaching a goal of having over 5,000 products online and available for sale.

		www.guesswhofans.com: A website that I run, and maintain, for fun. Pages include a php-based bulletin board that I configured for 300+ board members to converse on, concert listings, a complete discography, and many pages of concert photos, most of which I took.

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