Projects like these are why I started designing websites in the first place. This project had its challenges and definitely it’s treats.

James Harder was born and raised in a rural farming community just outside of Edmonton, Alberta (Canada). At an early age he would follow his grandfather around on the family ranch and learn the sense of pride and satisfaction that comes with working the land in a family farming business. Later in life James and his wife Colleen would purchased a 11-acre property on Silverado Trail in the Napa Valley of California. James has become a highly-regarded, well-respected vintner in the Napa Valley and is now working even harder to share his hard work with everyone else.

James asked for a website that portrayed his plentiful vineyard along with his deep seeded family values and love for them both. We put together a CMS that aloud him to blog to the world about wine, his philosophy, and his passion.

For more information about James Cole Winery: http://www.jamescolewinery.com

Oh, I forgot I said challenges and treats. The challenge was making a CMS that doesn’t have the ugly browser scroll-bar; not really a challenge, but it took a couple tries to get it right. The treat was I had the pleasure of visiting their winery for on site training. WOW is all I can say! And the wine was even better then the awesome scenery. If and when you visit Napa Valley in California, make sure you visit James Cole Winery!

Roger Nesh, owner of US Auto Glass Depot, Inc; one of largest auto glass suppliers in northern California; came to us for a new website and to get rid of their ugly Yellow Pages website. Not only was he paying way to much, but it said very little about his business.

So we put together a very USA style website flags and all, along with some great information, and a bunch of coupons. We also designed a full page Hispanic ad that says it all (en español of course).

Check it out: http://www.usautoglassdepot.com

For more than 20 years, Mako has been the premier framing contractor in the Tahoe-Truckee region. Whether the project is a large lake front home, multi-unit project, or small residential home, their construction skills and experience provide them with an unparalleled ability to create the foundation for an on-time, on-budget project.

It was our responsibility to provide Mako with a website that would display their skills and abilities for their clients to see. We focused the entire design around photos of their past work and created a Gallery page with the use of jQuery and JavaScript that put their projects on center stage, in large print.

Check out their site: http://makobuilt.com

Put together by Dean Maslowski to help stimulate minds in the political sphere and to express yourself through powerful and political t-shirts. LoveThosePoliticians.com was born.

Wear your sentiments “on your sleeve” with our clever, poignant political statements from all parties. Whether you are Republican, Democrat, Independent, Green or just Pissed, we’ve got a message for you. We’re focused on providing high-quality service and customer satisfaction – we will do everything we can to meet your expectations.

-Put to you better, by Dean himself

2008 elections were coming and Audie Bock was after a seat on the board for H.A.R.D. (Hayward Area Recreation & Park District).

Audie Bock has been active in her communities and politics for almost forty years. You don’t have to look hard to find an article about Audie, just Google her and you’ll see what I mean. Audie Bock has dedicated all of her spare time to the community and her horses for many years, founder of The Rides Foundation / Ridesfund.org and passionate advocate of Hayward’s famous Rowell Ranch Rodeo.

Now with an open seat on the board and a chance to help; Audie was campaigning hard (no pun intended). She contacted use with a request to design a site that she can manage and maintain communication with her constitutes. We felt a CMS would be perfect, providing with commenting, article posting, polls, and a calender. We went with a scaled down version of Wordpress for it’s ease of use and ability to provide the support needed for such a debated campaign.

Check out the end results: http://audiebock.org

Rafael Carriedo, the owner and operator of Premier Tax & Accounting was opening another branch in Hayward and contacted us for a website. His other office had a website, but it catered mostly to the San Jose area and he wanted another that would connect the two, plus send traffic to his new Hayward offices.

The concept was to keep it simple, small, and loaded with free tools for his customers to use when calculating taxes and many things of that nature. Also he wanted to feature contact information and a contact form on every single page making it very simple to contact his office for questions.

I think the design we provided fit his expectations like a glove because I’ve never seen a client so excited over a site. Now every client loves their site and knows how great their designer is, but Rafael contacts me at least once a month; not just for business, but at times just to shoot the breeze. That’s how we know we have a truly satisfied client.

Check out the Premier Tax & Accounting website and if you are local, drop by their office! http://www.premier-tax-accounting.com

The Mustang “story” begins in 1967 when founder Ted Melsheimer began work with DuPont to develop a tool that could control the flow of gas through a pipe made of a revolutionary new material called polyethylene. Almost 40 years later, Mustang still leads the industry as the only company that designs and manufactures only squeeze tools. By not being distracted by other products, Mustang is able to focus all it’s resources on squeezing pipe in the most efficient and safest manner possible.

The complete Mustang line-up is presented on their website along with information that may prove helpful in making the correct choice of squeeze tool.

http://www.squeezetool.com

Demcon Stomping Company has over 20 years experience handling demolition in projects throughout Northern California. Larry Jurich came to us after having their website designed by another company, only one year earlier, that had gone out of business. Since the design company also hosted Demcon’s website, it was gone as well.

Demcon pretty much lost everything, all of the files, graphics, and any traffic that they might have been receiving. Most of the site copy was retrievable via Google page-cache and WayBackMachine (now known as http://www.archive.org), but that was about all we could salvage. They were frustrated (that’s putting it lightly)!

Since we had been designing sites for over ten years and host many of the site we design, they were happy to find a company that they could call stable and not have to worry if their site might evaporate over night.

After we jotted down their requirements, we put together a site that anyone would be proud of. The site uses a flash navigation along with a couple flash portfolios to feature their 20 years of demolition, with companies like Costco, Target, and Citibank.

We welcome you to check out their website and invite you to take a look at their past projects, and review all of their capabilities. Demcon has worked with some of the best General Contractors and Owners, managing soft and hard demolition work in projects of varying size, scope, and complexity in both the public and private sector.

http://www.demconstomping.com

February 2009 – Intuit, the makers of “QuickBooks” releases there 2009 product launch with specials for past product users and many new features.

“You asked for these improvements—and now you’ve got them. Our latest tools are built to help you manage your cash flow, work efficiently and build your business.”

For a fairly small project many persons had a hand in the work, from graphics designed by Wendy Hoag and converted to HTML by Damien Wright. The total project from concept to design took 1 week of work and three weeks of detailing. It’s true what they say… “It’s all in the details.”

March 2009 – Soozie Lewis, an author has a series of books releasing, one in March and another on the way. With the new books, she felt she needed a website to not only help promote her books, but to tell a small story about herself.

Soozie-l.com features several links to her new book with brief descriptions and a sneak peek into her soon to come book, EXCUSE MY BUFFALO. Also featured on the site, a JavaScript Photo Gallery full of pictures about Soozie and the surroundings that she is writing about, almost giving an interactive feel to the process.

“The world, with its evil despots, has problems enough for us, and good behaving or bad, we’re all in the same stew pot!” —Soozie Lewis