Creativity and the Weather
I may be a little weird … weather affects my level of creativity.
The Chicago weather this morning was a toasty 60 deg, still and rather gray. Then the sky began to bruise and a small but sweet thunder storm rolled in. I couldn’t be happier, the more dynamic the weather the more creative I become. Give me rainy, windy, snowy or stormy days and what ever project I am working on … website, logo, brochure, branding, gets an extra boost. Looking forward to what the Windy City can inspire!
Anyone else influenced by the weather like this?
p.s I had an incredibly creative week here, the tree featured in this post unfortunately didn’t survive the lightening strike and withered and died over the summer. I had it removed last week.
© 2010 Chicago Web Designer
Chicago web designer jargon square
Every profession has its own lingo and jargon and web design is far from exempt. If you are in the market for a new web site the last thing you want is to be bombarded with is a lot of techno babble. It’s more than likely you don’t care about RSS, XML, CMS, meta tags, optimizing, browser compatibility, hosting… that’s why you are hiring a professional web designer, right? The important thing is you hire somewhere who understand and speaks the “language”.
2010 © Chicago web designer
A letter to Chicago from the Chicago Web Designer
Dear Chicago,
Hello! A week ago today I was packing up my St Louis web design business and today, here I am firmly planted in Chicago. It may be a while before I am fully unpacked but I am really looking forward to getting to know you, all your fabulous businesses and getting down to work as the Chicago web designer.
Here is what I do:
Web Design
- Custom Web Site Design
- Web Site redesign
- Banner ad Design
- Email templates
- Blog Design, wordpress, blogger
- Internet marketing ( SEO)
Graphic Design
- Logos and corporate branding
- Presentations
- Brochures
- Advertisements
- Traditional graphic design
I have been in the web and graphic design business for over 10 years and am truly passionate about what I do.
One question, as a city you have a lot of nick names. Which one do you prefer, Chi town, ChicagoLand or the Windy City?
Yours Sincerely
The Chicago Web Designer
2010 © Chicago Web Designer
in Chicago Branding, Chicago Graphic Design, Chicago Web Designer, Internet Marketing, Random Thoughts, Web Design Projects, Wordpress
Eye of the St Louis Web Designer: Bees
All work and no play is not conducive to creativity…ask any web or graphic designer. I took the morning off had an amazing experience with bees today.
2010 © St Louis Web Designer
in Design Snippets, Miscellaneous, Random Thoughts, St Louis Web Designer
Life of a web designer
I have been running my own business for 10 years now and can truly say I have found my career passion. Along the way I have experienced some fab and not so fab things, met some great people, listened to some bizarre business ideas and been exposed to a huge variety of businesses.
Here are a few things I have encountered
Exposed to
Industrial sized washing machines, a huge freezer warehouse, news helicopters, machines that make corrugated cardboard, building stripped down to the studs ready for rehab, luxury multi million dollar homes, engineering plants and an online TV station to name a few.
Met with
Doctors, lawyers, authors, wedding planners, photographers, entrepreneurs, realtors, software developers, IT professionals, constructors, publishers, fitness trainers, small business start ups and many more.
Most bizarre business idea
A guy who truly believed he could make a million bucks from selling an everyday office supply bent into a peculiar shape.
Most inappropriate prospect
It is never ok to undo you pants and proceed to “break wind” during a meeting!
The life of a web designer is never dull!
2010 © St Louis Web Designer
Keeping your website fresh
I have been working as a web and graphic designer for 10 wonderful years now (wow!) and in that time I have noticed a few trends in clients requests.
The start of any year always brings in an abundance of requests for web site overhauls, it must be that “New Year lets get things in order” kind of thing.The revamps can be anything from simply adding a few pages or swapping out photographs, to a completely new look and feel. It’s all about keeping the web sites fresh
2010 has been no exception to the trend.
This week we re-launched Stroco.com having given it a new look and feel and updated much of the copy.The site is built around a new color palette which is more in keeping with the products they manufacture and features a section of “product placement” photographs.
Here is what the client had to say
“We are so pleased with the website…it looks really sharp! Thanks again for all your help with getting this project complete!”
There is nothing better than hearing these sorts of words from my clients!
2010 © St Louis Web Designer
Zoe Feast Web and Graphic Designer
I have an usual name, Zoe Feast. That’s Zoe with a long “eeee” sound at the end and Feast pronounced Feast… as in Thanksgiving Feast. It really is that easy!
As a self marketing project I have made use of my name and launched ZoeFeast.com today. It follows the lines of a ” business card website”, inspired by this great blog post. A simple, one page portal to my networks and company.
I broke away from my Indigo Image corporate brand image for this project and enjoyed the creative freedom.
What unique aspect do you have with which to market your business?
2010 © St Louis Web Designer
in Random Thoughts, St Louis Web Designer, Web Design Projects
St Louis Web Designer’s question of the day: Do you provide web hosting?
Do you provide web hosting? This is one of my popular “Frequently Asked Questions”.
The short answer is no, but the long answer is yes.
We are a web design company not a web hosting company and are happy to leave the intricacies of web hosting to the experts. However we can work with any web host of our clients choosing (or recommend a hosting company). This is a seamless process for our clients and all the nuts and bolts of getting a site live are taken care of. Once their site is ready we will open a hosting account suitable for their needs, upload all the files, configure email addresses and make sure their domain names are pointing to the right place.
This one stop shop type service is what most clients are wondering when they ask “Do you provide web hosting”
2010 © St Louis Web Designer
A decade in Business for the St Louis Web Designer
Happy New Year! 2010 will see Indigo Image, home of the St Louis web designer, celebrate 10 years in business! It is a milestone we are extremely proud of, showing that we can not only survive but thrive in this highly competitive market.
We have had lots of really great clients over the last decade but have a particular soft spot for our very first client “Jacqueline’s Journeys”. The web site is no longer active but I will always be grateful to Jacqueline for putting her trust in us to build her online presence.
So we are looking forward to what the next 10 years will bring, the clients we will meet and the new technological tools in our “tool box”.
2010 © St Louis Web Designer
12 days of Christmas from your St Louis Web Designer
On the first day of Christmas my designer gave to me a
Hosting account for free
On the second day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Two Domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the third day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the forth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the fifth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the sixth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the seventh day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the eighth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the ninth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the tenth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Ten fine tuned JPEGS
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the eleventh day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Eleven copy changes
Ten fine tuned JPEG
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
On the twelfth day of Christmas my designer gave to me
Twelve keyword phrases
Eleven copy changes
Ten fine tuned JPEG
Nine Google Ads
Eight email addresses
Seven search engine listings
Six Twitter tips
Five logo concepts
Four design revisions
Three banner ads
Two domain names
and a hosting account for free
Now if I could sing I would have sung you this but alas no!
2009 © St Louis Web Designer
