iscreamdesign

Design

First Impressions Matter - Your site is judged within the first few seconds. My goal is always a clean and professional look.

Usability Matters - I adhere to the "Don't Make Me Think" principal. It should be readily apparent what your site is about. Navigation should be intuitive. To help me help you I regularly attend seminars to stay up to date with the latest usability techniques. Most recently An Event Apart hosted by CSS and Usability guru Jeffery Zeldman and Design principals by Edward Tufte.

Mark Up Matters - Things like semantic markup may mean nothing to you, but it means everything to me and the search engines.

You only notice standards based markup if you're a search engine, someone that's visually impaired, a cell phone user or when it comes time to redesign your site.

Standards based markup makes your site available to those with disabilities and protects you from Section 508 issues (lawsuits). Don't let what happened to Target happen to you. In addition it helps future proof your site and makes it easier to find when doing Google search.

The Fancy Stuff - Design in Flash, Audio & Video. Need an original soundtrack for your Flash animation that sounds professional and doesn't suck? You've come to the right place! Need professional photography? I have access to one of the best photographers in the area.

Development

Development is what makes things happen on your website. Shopping carts, content management, image uploads, password protection, ecommerce, searches all fall under development.

I use a variety of web technologies to make things happen. PHP, ColdFusion, Ruby on Rails, actionscript, Javascript, AJAX . I have a great deal of experience modifying Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress and Expression Engine to meet your needs.

For Flash development I offer actionscripting, Flash Remoting, Flex as well as video services.

Examples (click on image to enlarge)

The following are a few examples of my work. Call or email to view my complete portfolio and a list of references.

Cost

Domain Registration - Typically domain registration costs $9.00 per year. You can save some money by registering the domain for longer periods however as a rule registering a domain has cost less every year.

Hosting You should plan on spending $15 - $25 per year for reliable email and web hosting. There are thousands of hosting companies and choosing one can be confusing. Over the years I have used several different hosting companies. I can recommend companies that I have an established relationship and who's reliability is proven. All have redundant connections, generator backup, server fail over, and 24/7 support. In other words, your website and email will just work... period. Like anything else, in hosting you get what you pay for.

Digital Certificate - If you plan on authorizing credit card purchases or accepting sensitive information on your site you should consider a digital certificate. Annual fees range from $18 - $250 per year depending on the level of security your site requires. If you plan on using PayPal or Google Checkout as your payment processor oftentimes purchase of a ssl cert can be avoided.

Design and Development - This is where it gets tricky. I'm sure you'd love for me to present "Package A will run X amount, Package B will be X amount, but that wouldn't be fair to either of us and it's not realistic, chances are you'd be paying to much.

I offer a free phone/email consultation and if it looks like we will be a good match we can meet in person and talk it over. After I find out what you want your website to accomplish for you I'll provide you with an estimate. Zero obligation on your part and zero sales pitch on my part. Just the facts. If you decide to go someplace else we'll still be friends :)

I have rarely gone over an estimate and often times I'm under. Virtually all of my advertising is word of mouth from satisfied clients.

Ethically I will not take on a client if they are in direct competition with an existing client. I don't do porn sites or sites that are racially or ethnically offensive.

How long will it take - Typically I am booked up a month in advance. If you have an existing web site that needs a quick fix, chances are I can help you out. If you want a website next week, you need to move along right away. Doing it right takes time.

It also depends on your involvement and how fast you can approve each step. I provide easy to use online project management in addition to face to face meetings, telephone and video conferenceing. so you and those involved in your project can stay on top of things and not let the project flounder.