David Van Os for Texas Attorney General
http://vanosfortexasag.com

Political campaign website. Responsible for all aspects of the website, including photography, graphic creation, GUI, copywriting, editorial, maintenance, promotion, installation and customization of Perl (backend).

Also responsible for internet communications, including database maintenance; newsletter writing, design, and maintenance; and steering committee communications.

Additional web-related duties include blogging, RSS and ATOM feeds, audio and video creation.

Decisively non-corporate but trustworthy design, as the candidate is.

Shown left my original concept (below) and redesign (above). Redesign was necessary once the site "outgrew its britches"; has far more entry points "above fold". See larger image.

Willow Branch Lofts
http://willowbranch.chezsnarko.com

Residential/lifestyle website pitch for a local real estate firm. Made site look and feel like a "kinder, gentler" place to live than the boxes that came before it, while keeping an Austin flair. Job killed, please compare to eventually chosen design.

Natural Ear Music School
http://naturalearmusic.com

"The Original School of Rock". Not fancy; client didn't want fancy. She wanted something she could update herself with little effort. Also responsible for online promotions, including maintenance of YouTube site.

I also regularly maintain sites on Blogger, MySpace, and Bolt, if it matters to ya.

Eco-Wise
http://www.ecowise.com

Environmentally-friendly you-name-it store. Responsible for all aspects of the website, including photography, graphic creation, GUI, copywriting, editorial, maintenance, promotion, installation and customization of Perl (backend).

Website sales jumped from zero to an average of $180/day when I took it over (good for a store of this size); currently earning over $4,000/month, not including phone orders nor in-person store sales initiated by a web visit.

Design slightly tacky on purpose; a mom-and-pop company with only five employees, I wanted to manage customer expectation (they’re not Amazon with hundreds of employees) while still looking professional enough to earn trust.

Largest e-commerce site I’ve taken on single-handedly to date.

Green Hotels Association
http://greenhotels.chezsnarko.com

Network of hotels and resources for the environmentally-conscious. Design pitch, in answer to current site: http://www.greenhotels.com. (Please compare!)

Maintained original look/feel of company while bringing website up to the 00's. Identified separate markets (owners versus travellers) and spoke directly to each. Cleaned up logo. Organized links via user expectation balanced by what would/would not make the parent company money.

Used mostly text (breaking previous graphic-only start page) for keyword purposes and better search engine placement. Editted/used copy normally linked to directly on homepage to identify website mission from the get-go.

While the code isn't optimized, meta tags not researched/ created, and this wasn't tested for browser failure (for you code monkeys out there!); this is an example of a GUI pitch I can do in under eight hours.

Maximum PC

NOTE: Current site no longer reflects any of my work; click screen or here for larger view.

Online counterpart to technology magazine. Worked closely with engineers to create this dynamically-driven site focused on daily news not able to be covered as effectively by a monthly magazine. The engineers enjoyed that despite the fact I was an art director, “I spoke their language”, and helped out with the html needed for my portions of the page.

Created the online version of the logo, all graphics, daily spot news graphics, effective banners for highest-paying advertisers (since I got our audience, click-through rates averaged 20%), roll-over infographics for how-tos and reviews, and directed the GUI and general hierarchy of information so readers could find what they were looking for as fast as possible.

The overall GUI, while not mine (I have a lot of issues with it), was tweaked by me as a segway to a relaunch that never happened, as I was “fired” three days before launch, and not for the quality of my work. I am more than happy to explain this situation; in fact, I’m proud of it.

Maximum CD

CD GUI counterpart to technology magazine (while not strictly web, related). Design of CD interface that gave readers more information on topics than could be covered in the magazine itself. Shown is a "spot the fraud" graphic, with rollover areas on a chip that signal consumer fraud.

Maximum Linux

NOTE: Site no longer exists due to economy bust, these screenshots are from work in progress (which is why things like the top area are grey/white—hadn't decided color yet—and the ad banners look screwy). Click screens or here for larger view.

Online counterpart to technology magazine. Responsible for concept, GUI, all graphics (except logo), and a great deal of the code.

PROBLEM: Say the word “Linux” and a lot of people run screaming. Needed to convey information in a decisively non-engineer way, as most sites on the topic are.

SOLUTION: Consumer-friendly GUI. Incredibly accessible signposts, such as the “tools” section. Top navigation, which also can’t be missed, includes humor (like the hand with the face drawn on it talks to you when rolled over). Heavily color-coded to let you know where you are at the moment.

One choice for getting through the site included selecting an everyday-personality matching your own (Mac user switching over, complete computer novice, Linux expert, etc.) and following him/her through their errors and successes, which proved highly popular. The people shown are not models; they are real Linux users.

Sidebar information on first and second screenshots contain easily digestable summaries of the stories at hand. The third is an “index” page for the section.

The site, which included at least five daily news items, was executed with only three people (including myself) working on it.

Elysium
http://www.elysiumonline.net

Austin gothic nightclub. No longer under my maintenance, but my original design is still mostly intact. Original GUI, graphics, installation and customization of Perl (backend; and hosted on my personal website’s server), and promotions mine.

This is what I call a “basic’ website, which I can conceive and execute in under a day.

DreamSickle
http://www.dreamsickle.net

IN PROGRESS: Austin-based dance-rock band. Interactive and fun environment. Responsible for all aspects, including GUI, graphics, installation and customization of Perl, editorial, copywriting, and more.

See also the band t-shirts, stickers, and such hosted on CafePress, as they are also of my design.

Another example of what I call a “basic” website.

chezsnarko! (Austin Edition)
http://www.chezsnarko.com

IN PROGRESS: Under redesign; vanity site and chica webzine. If ya wanna get to know me personally, this is your link. Besides that, caricature of myself (nice example of one of my illustration styles), all technical/creative aspects of the site, and all copy wholly mine.

I’ll be honest (my nature): I am an insanely outside-the-box thinking creative, loyal, big-picture seeker, loud-mouthed, politically-motivated Sicilian chica. If you can’t hang with that, I’m probably not your grrrl.