New website for Solon Gershman Inc

Launched today is a re-designed web site for Solon Gershman Inc, a St Louis commercial real estate company.

New web site for Solon Gershman

We completely reworked their old site, creating a fresh new professional look which is easier to use and consistent throughout. The home page features a slide show of properties with easy access to property search tools and the latest company news. The  site  integrates data from a 3rd party property listing service and offers the site visitors a seamless experience.

Solon Gershman website


Just in case you were wondering here is what the old site looked like.

©: 2011 Chicago web designer

A Teenage Chicago Penthouse, in my Basement!

Who doesn’t love a before and after comparison, I do them for web sites quite a lot, ( here here and here)  to showcase how a few design tweaks can make a huge impact on the appeal of a site. But today I am going to show you how I used my graphic design skills and tools to transform a very dingy, quite disgusting Chicago basement room into a light and airy teenage “penthouse” hang out.

basement penthouse

My canvas for this room was horrible wood paneling which has the texture of drift wood but nowhere near as pleasant. I primed then painted everything white, it took 3 coats before it looked good.

Then came the fun bit.

To be certain the skyline idea was going to work in terms of scale and look/ feel, and what colors looked best, I did a little Illustrator and Photoshop mockup.

First I designed the skyline in Illustrator. It was then imported  into Photoshop and superimposed  a photograph of the wall I intended to paint. ( I used the multipy function and distorted the illustrator graphic to fit the wall dimensions) After a bit of color tweaking, playing around with different shade of gray we settled on a simple black and  gray color palette.

painted skyline

Because of the rough nature of the paneling my initial plan to carefully tape off and paint the skyline failed so I ended up painting the whole thing free hand. If you look carefully I did not stick religiously to the illustrator design but it was enough to point me in the right direction. It turned out pretty well.

I have a bit more work to do on the furniture on the other side of the room… more painting which I will share soon!

© 2011 Chicago Web Designer

Top 5 Reasons for Redesigning a website.

We hear ” I need my web site redesigned” quite a bit these days.  While there are many reasons here are our top picks.

  1. I need my website to look more professional.
    Looks are everything and online you have just a few seconds to make that all important first impression. A well designed fast loading web site can do wonders to encapsulate your expertise and reach and engage your target audience.
  2. We need our content reorganized.
    If your site visitors are having click through page after page to get to the information they want, you are making then work too hard. A web site with intuitive navigation and well organized content = “a don’t make me think visitor”
  3. My web site is not doing what I want it to do.
    Whether you want your site to act as a lead generation tool,  a portal of information, or a selling platform, it is important to guide or funnel the site visitors exactly where you want them to go via “call to actions”
  4. I need to add some additional functionality
    Want to add a blog, additional pages, links to your social media networks? A well thought out web site will always be able to accommodate additional functionality without a complete redesign but sometimes there comes a point  when a redesign is the best options.
  5. I want my site to perform better in the search engines.
    The structure and design of a web site  bears a huge relation on how well a site performs in the search engines and a skilled web designer will know how to optimize all elements that make up a web site, for best search engine results.

Now lets take a look at these  in action with three before and after web redesign projects.

Peter Meder and Company

We addressed all 5 reasons in the redesign of a web site for Chicago headhunter, Peter Meder and Company.  The new site has a much more professional look/feel and immediately imparts the nature of the business.   Visitors have easy access to the current position searches which is a huge time saver for both client and job hunter.


Bear Essentials

Content reorganization was the main driver behind our redesign of the Bear Essentials web site. We produced a much more appealing user friendly site with clear call to actions.


Tiger Tables

A more professional look was the order of the day for our redesign of Tiger Tables with clear call to actions.

Do you have a web site that could do with a makeover? We’d love to have an opportunity to talk with you.

Call us at 847 607 8679

2010 © Chicago Web Designer