Tag: Web Designer

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New Website for Heinzen Smith Properties

Client Margaret Smith, of  Heinzen Smith Properties, has a 150 year family history of building homes just north of Chicago. Each house is custom designed and blends beautifully with existing homes in the Wilmette area.

Margaret contacted us with lots of ideas for her web site and we have been able to translate those ideas into a site that perfectly captures what she wanted to achieve.

Home builder wilmette IL Chicago

After developing a color palette inspired by a slate roof with weathered copper gutters, we designed a home page which gives site visitor a quick glimpse of some of their most eye catching homes and focuses attention to New Homes for Sale.  We were spoiled for choice when it came time to select  photographs as the client provided so many stunning homes to pick from. Not wanting waste an opportunity to showcase them further, we carried them through to the inner pages of the site and cropped them to center on doors as a “welcoming” gesture.

chicago home builder website

The site was also designed and coded as one that is fully responsive – see here for an explanation of responsive web design

Here it is on a desktop

responsive web design chicago
On an ipad in portrait and landscape orientations
reponsive web design chicago
And finally an iphone
responsive web design chicago

You can visit the site at heinzensmith.com

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Web Site re-design for Chicago Suburbs Business: AED Battery Exchange

Launch today is a freshly re-designed website for AED Battery Exchange aedbatteryexchange.com. Located in the far north suburbs of Chicago, they are leading the way in re- celling batteries for Automated external defibrillators and wanted a web site which truly matched their innovative product.

Also on their want list was a professional looking site which was easy to navigate and appealing to their target audience.

We created a very clean look and feel, the home page featuring an eye catching Call to Action banner to “Find your AED battery”.
AED battery exchange

They batteries were categorized in terms on manufacturer and featured images which can be enlarged so the user can clarify the correct battery.
aed website chicago

The site is definitely a step up from their old one

aed battery website chicago

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New Web Design for Authors Web Site

Last week saw the release of a new book by one of our clients, Edward Bison. His book, Mr Bison’s Journal,  is a very funny collection of stories and observations and is a laugh out loud read. I was commissioned to not only illustrate each of the stories but also design the book cover.  It was a fun project and fingers crossed it will become one of the top humor books of 2012/2013.  It would make a great Christmas gift -see it on Amazon as a paperback and Kindle ebook

As part of the launch we updated his website www.mrbison.com moving it from a blogger powered blog, to the  all singing and dancing WordPress platform and giving the site a mini design overhaul.

The home page now features a prominent call to action to buy the book and a video clip of a sample chapter. The site navigation was revised to include such as his Facebook fan Page

mr bison website chicago

We also took the opportunity to re-code it as responsive website – I’ll fill you in on the ins and outs of that tomorrow.

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Taking a St Louis Retirement Community Social

A good website is a “living” marketing tool that can evolve to accommodate different approaches to engage with it’s users.  Our long standing client, The Rockwood, a St Louis retirement community, understands this and recently asked us to revisit their site and make suggestions on how it could be improved.

The site has now been overhauled  so it performs better in the search engines and offers interactions with it’s users through social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.  We also built them a custom WordPress blog which was seamlessly integrated into the site.

 

Rockwood st louis retirement community

You can subscribe to their blog, become a Facebook Friend or Follow them on Twitter

© Chicago Web Designer

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QR codes : What how and why

Undoubtedly you have these strange pixeled squares popping up all over the place. What are they and what can you do with them?

What is a QR code

qr codeQR stands for Quick Response and they are  read by a QR reader app you can easily download to your cell phone. The app decodes the graphic and reveals the information they contain.

QR codes can point to a specific url, share phone numbers, text , send a text message (SMS),  share a vcard or vcalendar,  share social media profiles or  give Google maps location information,

This QR code points to my web site https://www.indigoimage.com

Creating a QR Code

Creating a QR code couldn’t be simpler. There are a number on free online generation site such as Kaywa which allows you to generate a URL, text, phone number or sms QR code, or QRstuff which gives you more options on which information you would like to share. QRstuff also offers a subscription service which give you access to high resolution QR codes suitable for printing.

Why use QR Codes

Simple reason because they make life easier, no more pen and paper to jot down information. With a quick scan the information you want to convey is electronically stored. QR codes offer another avenue with which to engage with your customers.

Where to use QR Codes

  • Business cards
  • Marketing material such as brochures and flyers
  • T shirts
  • Real estate signs
  • Promotional freebies
  • Product labels
  • Store fronts

©: 2011 Chicago Web Designer

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Eye of the Chicago web designer: Creativity on my Desk

As a web and graphic designer it is my job to be creative, to come up with new a novel ways of presenting things, to create designs that are visually alluring and engaging.

Well the creative aspect of my job tumbles into my everyday life and there is nothing like this little pop of color on my desk to make me pick up one of these lovely home made pens and start sketching out logo ideas or architectural wire frame details.

Creativity on my desk

pens

© 2011 Chicago web designer

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Does your web designer do this?

Creating a great web site is only the start of an online presence for many business.

Does your web designer take care of:-

  • Domain name registration
  • Hosting
  • Email setup
  • Web Analytics – see how many hits your site is getting, where they are coming from, how long your visitors are staying etc.
  • Social Media Avenues – what is best for your business
  • Social Media Profiles, setting up Twitter, Facebook YouTube, Flikr …
  • Social Media Training
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Getting your site listed and ranked in the search engines
  • Getting your site listed on local directories e.g Yelp
  • Email campaigns

If not then you are using the wrong web design company.

We take care of all the nuts and bolts to make your web presence work for you.

©: 2011 Chicago Web Designer

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Have you been let down by your web designer?

Isn’t it funny how things come in threes.

In the last day and a half I have had three separate conversations with business owners who have been let down by their web design company. From failing to deliver promised work,  shoddy non functioning web elements, to hosting a site with a company who seems to have no concept of up-time guarantee.

It appears these web design companies do not value their clients, a strategy I find hard to comprehend.

Its not the first and certainly not the last time, I’ve heard stories like these. Over the years I have collected quite a few, for example

  • My web designer takes too long updating my site with the new content I send.
  • My emails and phone calls are never returned
  • Something is broken on my site and I need it fixed now
  • Google has black-listed my site and I am getting a “malicious” warning
  • I have paid a web designer to develop a web site and they have disappeared off the face of the earth
  • My web site is always down and I have just discovered my web designer is hosting it on a server in his basement
  • My web site looks different when viewed on a MAC or a PC, help!
  • I am getting bombarded by spam from my web site
  • …

There are a lot of  “cow boy companies” out there

If you are looking for a web design company who is with you every step of the way, who measures your success as their success  then give us a call: 847 607 8679.

We will not let you down.

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Our web and graphic design blog

We started our blog in June 2005 and nearly three years later are still going strong.

You may find this blog intresting if you are looking to hire a web or graphic designer, you are interested in web site usability and search engine optimization or are a web/graphic designer looking for some tips and tricks.

Today I am going to talk a little about the sort of subjects we cover here for any of our new readers. Each of our posts are given one or more label to categorize them so I thought it would make sense to talk about our categories:-

  • Design Snippets
    We cover subjects here that are useful to graphic and web designer. For example Meaning and associations of color, What is Ipsum Lorem and Favicons.
  • Eye of the St Louis Web Designer
    A picture speaks a thousand words and most of the photographs we feature in this section are of something that has given us inspiration, from a fabulous natural color palette to a great texture or pattern. As mentioned thoughtout these posts a designer’s eye never sleeps
  • FREE
    Who doesn’t like free stuff. We cover everything from free custom i google designs, the free definition phase or our projects to our much visited recipe for a garden deer repellant.
  • Graphic Design projects
    A showcase of graphic design projects, from brochures, letterheads, banners, menus, logos, newsletters, greeting cards and packaging.
  • Indigo Tips
    Tips to improve your productivity and internet experience
  • Internet marketing
    The ever changing world of  Search engine optimization.
  • Logos
    A showcase of our logo design
  • Project Progress
    We multi task big time and this section illustrates the current projects we are working on
  • Random Thoughts
    I think everyblog needs a section like this..a little bit of everything here..and as the title suggests …random
  • STL Marketing executive
    A category written by our guest writer. He shares perspectives drawn from his experience of branding, global business management and marketing in a B2B environment.
  • Web design Projects
    A showcase of our web design projects
  • Web Site Usability
    Considerations for giving your site visitors the experience you want them to have.