Taking Our Clients' Websites to the Next Level
RochesterCares
RochesterCares was really ready for the next level. It used to be that people registered for their projects by sending an email to a project coordinator, who spent a lot of time cutting and pasting names and emails into lists, and maybe managed to remind volunteers as the date approached. After the project another volunteer took the sign-up sheets and input the data into the access database which resided in that volunteer's home. Now, after we worked our magic, any volunteer can sign up online for a project, sign up their family members, or cancel a signup. The website makes it easy for the project coordinator to print off the list of those who are signed up, to send emails to the group, to record the impact of the project and thank those who helped. Volunteers can choose what areas they're interested in and receive emails about projects in that area. They can also track their volunteer hours online.
Friends of Educational Excellence
FREEPartnerships.org is a nonprofit with a vision for helping Rochester school children. We designed a site to help get their message out there. Lots of plans in the works for helping volunteers in the schools...
Richmond Memorial Library
The public library in Batavia, NY was ready for a facelift. We created a new logo for them, with a jazzy looking site, enriched by live feeds of book of the day and a huge set of email newsletters patrons can prove from. The library staff maintains the site themselves. Coming soon: animated banners on the homepage to highlight certain library offerings.
Genesee Construction
This local construction firm builds beautiful buildings and now they have a beautiful website to show them off.
North Coast Writers
These ladies had a beautiful website designed by a designer new to website work. Problem was, the graphics were very heavy, like a megabyte per page. We were able to cut that to 1/3 of the original level without sacrificing any of the luscious look. And it's more search-engine friendly and handicapped accessible than before.
Cool Rochester
What would happen if 40,000 households reduced their carbon footprint by 10,000 pounds in Rochester? That would be a billion pounds! What would it take for that to happen? A great organization of pro-active folks who believe that if we all work together to encourage each other to take steps, that together we can achieve something important. The website for CoolRochester.org makes it possible for people to calculate their carbon footprint, track their progress in reducing it and join teams for friendly "co-opetition".
Project Homeless Connect Rochester
Rochester is joining the movement begun in San Francisco to bring cities together to care for the homeless. The website for the Rochester chapter will permit volunteers to register and provides a backend database of service providers so the volunteers putting the project together can keep track of who's doing what and who's talking to whom. We're the new kids on the block, but we think we have the best logo (thanks to Melissa Boyack of Browncroft Creative) and the nicest looking website of all the Project Homeless Connects.
Bowling Distributor
The folks at Bowling Distributor wanted to offer every bowling product on the planet. That's a lot of products! Can you spell database? Their catalog is a large and ever-changing database. Customers can create accounts, choose their passwords and usernames. Staff can track orders through the backend and make changes to the catalog, put items on special, control how the specials are displayed. Still under development.
Lucinda's Wood Cake Boxes
Lucinda Ebersole is one of the world's best cooks, and she makes these insanely great cakes. What's her secret? Wood cake boxes. Is she willing to share? She is, on a gorgeous new site, all decked out with ecommerce. Send her one of your favorite recipes.
North Tonawanda Public Library
The North Tonawanda Public Library wanted an attractive website to reach out to their public. They've gotten lots and lots of compliments. They like the database driven calendar that their staff can maintain.
Wallguard
The Wallguard corporation was ready to start taking orders on the web, and we created a database driven catalog to keep track of their hundreds of different sizes, colors and shapes of Cornerguards. The orders just keep coming.
The 2000 Year Road to the Holocaust
We designed the website for this interfaith study course. Registration was accepted online. The large faculty for the class can peruse the database to learn about registrant’s backgrounds and experiences. Readings are available to logged in registrants, as is access to a blog where class members can share thoughts between classes. Class organizers can email either the faculty or the entire class, and emails carry the logo and design elements of the class, while preserving privacy of email addresses.
Henrietta Public Library
Henrietta hadn't maintained their website for two years before they contracted with us for webmaster services. Now each of the librarians updates her page monthly, telling patrons what's new.
Large parts of the local history collection has been put on line, in searchable databases. One part of the collection gives burial records from all of the cemeteries in Henrietta. Another part gives copies of obituaries collected for Henrietta residents since the fifties. Newspaper articles about Henrietta politics are also indexed. The oral history collection is online, with audio files and transcripts.
Registration for library programs is all online now, available 24/7. A monthly ezine bringing updates on programs and new materials to patrons in-boxes.
Mothers & More
This national organization of some 7,500 members runs with a very lean budget, and the website is a key part of their communications. We've made lots of improvements. We replaced the old site which was made with FrontPage and contained very dirty code with a streamlined system controlled by a stylesheet, so that they can make changes to the whole site (hundreds of pages) by changing the style sheet.
Much of the action on their site lies in the members' only section. We've been gradually introducing database-driven components, so that when something changes, like a new chapter, it only has to be changed in one place and is automatically reflected everywhere on the site.
We've developed a system of staff resources handbooks which are database driven--they provide a repository of information on how the organization works, and are accessible to volunteer staff working all over the country.
We've developed a volunteer database to track their large volunteer staff. It contains profiles on staff members and their work histories, comments on their interests and motivations, exit interviews when they leave positions, and comments from their managers. This is all part of their mission to provide a model virtual workplace and to ensure that staff can make use of their experience with Mothers & More as they transition to other jobs in the future.
Gargoyle Magazine
This literary magazine has been publishing poetry, fiction, art and interviews with writers for many years. We are gradually putting the archives online, with a new format which highlights some of the sensational artwork that has graced its covers over the years.
We've added ecommerce so that all the books and journals can be purchased directly from the website. And we've provided links to Amazon to help readers find out of print volumes.
Eve Botelho, fiber artist
Eve does gorgeous machine embroidered lanscapes. She had a website, but she wasn't happy with its look, so we redesigned it, added her recent works and are working with her to keep it updated.
Linear Programming
Retired Professor Doris Grosh had spent years teaching linear programming and had a great set of notes which people always encouraged her to turn into a text-book. She did and she's been selling it on the internet while she looks for a publisher. We designed the site for her.