Daily Bites
Hallie wanted to revamp her food blog to draw in new readers and build her reputation as a gluten-free blogger. She wanted a professional design with a touch of whimsy and we complied. Hallie’s new site also contains several unique features:
- Hallie can create print-friendly recipe pages by pasting content into a custom field.
- Recipes are also displayed in a custom style to resemble yellow note cards like your grandmother might have used.
- The theme has its own set of default icons which are displayed next to comments left by people without gravatars.
- Hallie can set a featured thumbnail for each post which is displayed in the archives and search results. Images like these help draw people in, particularly when they’re of tasty foods.
- We also helped Hallie move her site from her old domain to a new one and set up all the proper redirects so she wouldn’t lose any pageviews.
Erin Bried
In addition to the How to Build a Fire book site below, author Erin Bried needed a personal home page to direct visitors to her multiple projects. Erin liked the style of a stock photo that featured several fancy gold frames on green patterned wallpaper. We took this image as a starting point and created a repeating background that closely matched the original. Using stock images of photo frames, we also arranged a balanced layout that displayed Erin’s photo, contact information, bio, and links to her two book sites. Simple and elegant, the site turned out even better than Erin expected. We also setup up a multi-blog installation of WordPress so Erin can manage all three of her web sites with one hosting account.
How to Build a Fire
http://howtobuildafirebook.com/
Erin Bried, a senior writer at SELF magazine and author of How to Sew a Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew needed a web site for her follow-up book, How to Build a Fire: And Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew. We based the design of the new site on the old site to create a sense of continuity, but made some improvements.
- Added a button to the bottom right corner of the site which links to the other book site, encouraging sales of both books.
- The sometimes lengthy biographies can be hidden and shown with a collapsible toggle link.
- The “Buy” page includes logos of the bookstores where you can buy the book, which spices up the page visually.
- Updated the code of the old site to a table-less design, increasing loading speed.
- Used the “Theme Switcher” plugin and some coding ingenuity to display the same blog on both book sites, but using the template that matches the site you’re on.
We also setup up a multi-blog installation of WordPress so Erin can manage all three of her web sites with one hosting account, including her personal identity site featured above.
Stephanie O’Dea
Stephanie O’Dea is the New York Times Best-selling author of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking and the popular blogger behind A Year of Slow Cooking and Totally Together Journal. Stephanie needed an identity site to pull all her projects together, provide contact information, and keep her readers informed about future events. We designed a site that matched Stephanie’s sunny personality and also reflected the domestic theme of her projects.
Steph also wanted a forum where her readers could meet and chat like they often do in the comments section of her blog. We installed phpBB, styled the template to match the rest of her site, and helped her learn how to manage the system.
Roni Noone
Roni Noone is a web publisher, healthy living blogger and social media fanatic who was preparing to leave her day job to blog professionally fulltime. Although she’s a web developer herself, Roni was swamped with other work and didn’t have the time to design, code and launch her personal web page. Since this site would serve as a welcome mat for the rest of her online ventures, it was important that it be beautiful, professional and well built. She decided to entrust the site design to Make My Blog Pretty, because she knew we’d create a site that lived up to her high standards.
- We created a rotating tag line in the header that fades in and out between multiple statements that reflect Roni’s many interests.
- The latest headlines and images from other blogs in Roni’s network appear as visual buffers and promotional links between posts.
- Roni is active on several social media sites, so we created a compact, floating media bar on the left side of the page that scrolls along with the user.
- Roni loves to respond to visitor’s comments, so we created a custom style that highlights her responses in the comment thread, making it easy for visitors to hone in on her comments.
- We collaborated with Roni on her site logo, creating an image that is professional but also reflects her sunny disposition.
- Upon Roni’s request, we made it easy to add new items to the menu while still incorporating a yellow sun background in the rollover state.
Roni was so happy with the design, that she immediately installed the theme only hours after receiving the files. She then announced the redesign enthusiastically on her multiple sites and twitter feed.
J. Maureen Henderson
J. Maureen Henderson is a Generation Y expert, freelance writer and blogger who needed a home base for her professional identity. Maureen provided us with several hi-resolution images, which really jump-started the design process. We used a post-it note motif in the design to reference the same image in the logo for her blog, Generation Meh, thus creating some visual continuity between the sites. It also allowed Maureen to include informational and playful notes about her identity in the header. The site is built in WordPress, which gives Maureen the ability to add and update her latest projects with ease.
Lyon Publishing Services
http://lyonpublishingservices.com/
Rachel is a professional indexer who needed a professional web site. We designed a site that shows off Rachel’s experience and accomplishments with style, making her first point of contact with clients a positive one.
- The sidebar features random cover images of books Rachel has indexed. They are linked to Amazon using Rachel’s affiliate ID, giving her a commission off any items purchased through the links.
- The clients page features the logos of her customers, which helps break up the text, making the page more appealing and easy to read.
- A contact form makes it easy for new clients to email Rachel about job opportunities.
- A plug-in makes it easy for Rachel to add new titles as she completes them.
As Rachel says, “The site looks and works great! I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback. I’m so excited for potential clients to see it. It will knock their freaking socks off!”
John is Fit
John wanted a new theme for his weight-loss blog, hoping a new design would reinvigorate his journey to become fit. Working from an illustrated mascot designed by The NetMen Corp, we created a fun, bright design that reflects the spirit of John’s writing.
- John requested that it be easy to add new widgets in the right column, so we designed the stylesheet accordingly, creating a flexible background pattern that looks like a measuring tape.
- To save space and prevent the theme from becoming too cluttered, we created a tabbed box in the right rail that displays recent posts, popular posts, and John’s favorites.
- John requested stylistic touches be added to all elements of the design, from comment forms to navigation blocks, and we were happy to pay such attention to detail. Sports icons and quote boxes are peppered around the theme to add a spirit of fun.
Once we were done, we coded the site in HTML and CSS and handed it off to John, who works in IT and wanted to handle the WordPress theme coding himself. You can view full-sized screenshots of the home page and an individual entry.
Healthy Discoveries
http://healthydiscoveries.com/
Jolene Park runs Healthy Discoveries, a health-education company that offers inspirational, on-site corporate workshops which teach employees practical ways to take responsibility for their health, manage their stress and make better lifestyle choices. Jolene already had a web site, but it didn’t match the profressional tone of her business which targets Fortune 500 companies. We redesigned Jolene’s site and organized it in a sleek, simple, yet sophisticated style.
As Jolene said, “Jennette is the best web designer I have ever worked with! She is honest, thorough and incredibly efficient. She told me what she was going to do, she gave me numerous options, and then she turned around and did exactly what she said she could do in a very short amount of time. She is a total professional, she communicates clearly and directly yet she is also very patient. Jennette’s prices are incredibly reasonable and her work is far superior to any other design work I’ve had done in the past.”
TV Screener
Kim Potts is writer for AOL TV, among other publications, who wanted to start her own television blog. We designed Kim’s site from scratch, based on the energetic red color in her logo. In the right column of her blog, we added several callouts to emphasize giveaways, interviews and related products. To easily manage the numerous photos she uses in posts, we installed an image plug-in that resizes pictures to the correct size, making it easy to use and manage. Kim also asked for ways to add galleries and quizzes to her site and we were happy to oblige.
Kim said, “One of the first things people always tell me when they go to the site is how much they love the design. In fact, today a publicist thought the site was part of AOL, partly because I write for them, but partly, he said, because it looks like a professional site and not ‘some random blog.’”
