Examples of my work can be found at the following locations. Sites can be designed to display at a constant width as the first three examples or to adjust to varying screen widths as the other example sites do.

The purpose and audience of a website combined with the personal taste of the owner of the site will dictate the design of of the website. Depending on these ingredients, one commercial website can take on a very different look from another. Here is a sampling of some of the sites I have either created or updated for local businessmen. You may also wish to view my website design for small businesses and individuals.

 

Lone Star Self Storage, located near Temple, Texas, wanted a website that would highlight their storage facility. They felt that a single page site with rotating photos to show the highlights of their business was sufficient for their needs. They also requested the site be done using the colors of the Texas flag and, if possible, display the Texas flag in the background.

This single page, red, white, and blue site allows visitors to see the well-maintained, easy access storage units. Four photos were stitched together to give a wide agle view of the units. Although I usually prefer to not use background images, the limited amount of text made the background image of the flag work in this situation. Flash images display 6 views of the facility.

One page that contains all the necessary information for site visitors with enough text to give search engines content to index. No site is too small.

Spradley Property Management, was ready for a website to present their real estate listings to potential customers who are searching the web for a new home. They wanted a site that was clean, open, and used the colors of their company logo. They needed a password protected administration section that would allow them to add, edit, or delete properties.

The resulting site meets these criteria. The information about properties is stored in a database and displays on either the sales or lease page of the site. The layout of the property description is dependant upon the information entered into the database, allowing Spradley Property Management to use the same input form to add homes for sale, homes for rent and acreage. There is an optional photo album available for properties with multiple photos to view.

When the site design was complete, I created a document of instruction to assist Spradley Property Management when adding documents, images and property listings to their site.

The David Nix Agency, located in Temple, Texas, wanted a website that would attract potential clients and provide them with easy access to online insurance quote forms. The information must be handled over secure connections and protected from abuse. Email is not secure and was therefore not an option.

The solution was to create a site with quote forms using a secure connection. The information is stored in a secure database and an email is sent to The David Nix Agency to notify them that a quote has been requested. Password protected admin pages allow the agency to view, print, and delete the client information. This information is protected every step of the process.

The resulting site presents a website with a professional look with easy access for clients, gathering useful information for this company.

Wall Hanger Taxidermy, located in Gatesville, Texas, is owned by Quinc Pearcy. Quinc is also owner/operator of Wall Hanger Fishing Guide Service, one of my first design customers several years ago. When Quinc was ready for a website for his taxidermy business, he chose Meriage Design once again.

 

This site is designed using CSS layout styles with both one column and two column pages using natural colors. Quinc decided that he would not use a photo gallery of his work at this time. Instead we would use photos of his work to illustrate his site. The resulting look is professional, clean, and open with a color scheme that blends well with the quality mounts that Wall Hanger Taxidermy designs.

 

Griffith Fine Art Gallery, located in Salado, Texas, was ready for a website makeover. First and foremost, the site had to display the art images well. Secondly, the site navigation was to be simple and easy to follow. Finally, Kay Griffith wanted to be able to create and update the website using Contribute. The process was long and many phone hours were logged helping Kay learn computer basics and Contribute details. In the end she created over 300 large view pages, and over 50 thumbnail pages, cropping, resizing and optimizing all the art images. The end result can be summed up in the words of an artist who viewed the site. When asked how she liked the website, her response was, "I really can't say. I was too busy looking at all the art." Exactly the desired result!

An added bonus: Using the design tips that I gave her, Kay has designed pages that work well with search engines. When a potential viewer Goggles for one of her artists, her site often comes up on the first page of search results.

"You can use my name anywhere you want. I never could have done this site without you."

Kay Griffith

 

Barnes-Harwell, LLC, located in Gatesville, Texas, satisfies the need for an affordable and “user friendly” way for small to medium size businesses to provide Electronic Funds Transfer or EFT (also know as ACH) as a payment option to their clients. Their former site did not display well. The text bumped against the left column, there were gaps in places where they were not wanted and the look was somewhat outdated. However, the main problem was a costly, unresponsive management team. One of my clients suggested that Bill Barnes contact my design service.

The new design gives an open, clean, professional look and the colors have been adjusted to match the look of their recently redesigned business card. The layout and navigation is done using Style Sheets resulting in a flexible easily updated design and eliminating the need for special text navigation in the footer. A separate style sheet has been added for use when viewers select the print option.

 

Wall Hanger Fishing Guide Service, located in Gatesville, Texas, provides licensed, professional fishing guide service for Lakes Texoma, Belton and Proctor and the Texas Gulf Coast. Traffic to his website and a good first impression are essential to business. The old site displayed well in Explorer and at low resolutions but strange things happened at higher resolutions in other browsers. The new site design gives a clean professional look that expands to fill the screen in higher resolutions and in displays well in Explorer, Fire Fox and Navigator as well as others. The final design makes use of java script to load pages according to screen resolution of the viewer and uses and and updated contact form. The pages were optimized for search engine placement and submitted to major search engines and directories.

"I will leave the designing up to you, you always do a great job." Quinc Pearcy

The Charter Group, Commercial Real Estate, located in Temple, Texas, had a site that was 3 years old. It functioned well, but they wanted an updated, more professional, look that would highlight their rather impressive building. The new site design makes use of three templates: a home page in two sizes to adjust to varied screen resolutions and a third template to be used for content pages of the site. A frame set was added to accommodate The Charter Group's CCIM commercial property search. The residential portion of the site was updated to blend with the site's new look and a link to an online rental application was added to the site. The resulting look is indeed quite professional and updated while making The Charter Group more accessible to their clients.

More recently Charter asked for an application they could use to display employment opportunities on their site. We have added a set of pages using PHP to allow the staff to post or delete information about current employment openings along with a link to a downloadable application in protected Word template format.

Charter exercises ownership of their site by doing minor updates using a low-cost html editor. After setup of files on their office server and training of their staff, they have been able to make several updates with only minor glitches that need my assistance.

"Thanks for all you do for us, the latest change looks great," Rodney Deyoe.

 

 

Wright Builders, located in Temple, Texas, needed a site that would showcase the excellent construction for which their business is known. As well as several photo albums of new construction and remodeling, they wanted to allow visitors to the site a preview of their company's staff and note how they would work to make the construction process as pleasant as possible for clients. Photographs from the office collection make a visit to this site both enjoyable and enlightening.

This was one of my first sites, but after four years, updates were needed to reflect their new location. While in the process, the layout was changed to CSS (cascading style sheets) to make the site more search engine friendly and faster to display. A Google map was added to the site to help visitors locate their new offices.

North Shore Condos, is a real estate site owned by Marlene Bass, a Chicago, Illinois, realtor. Unlike my other sites this is not a site that I have designed. When the former website designer was no longer available to update her site, I was asked if I would work with the existing site. Many webmasters do not want to take over an existing site. It is just easier to start from scratch with their own design. Although it can be difficult to work with an unfamiliar site, especially one with code that is not well written, I am definitely available to give you a hand when you need help.

The majority of North Shore Condos remains the work of the previous designer. However, I have updated the listings page, adjusted the font to be more easily read, redesigned the newsletter page to display the full width of the newsletter in more narrow screen settings and completed other minor changes as requested.

When asked, "Will you work with the website I have," my answer is, "Yes, if I am able." However, I will give you and honest evaluation of the site you currently have. Then, as in all my work, the choice is yours. Keep what you have or redesign.