February Week 5: Client Showcase

    wk1     wk2    wk3    wk4    wk5    wk6    wk7      wk8      wk9      

 
Here's a sneak peak at the next five weeks of topics for this blog.

5. Week 5: Client Showcase

   • Feature a client's website, sharing the success story and improvements made.

6. Week 6: Ethical Web Design Practices

   • Explore ways to make websites more ethically conscientious, discussing issues like accessibility and sustainability.

7. Week 7: Animation Festival Preview

   • Provide information on an upcoming animation festival and its significance in the online space.

8. Week 8: Tips for Effective Website Maintenance

   • Offer practical advice on maintaining a website to ensure its longevity and performance.

5. And now onto our blog.

   Client Showcase:

   I'll be commenting on the following websites and custom designs so far:

   LACCC

   Wildflowers' Movement

   TK (Spiritual Depth Life Coaching)
   

   & Laundronauts

   
   The reason I chose each of these clients and their sites is because the first two are sites I've helped develop from the beginning, and the second set of clients' sites are two sites that have done remarkably well largely without my support.  I'll come up with some general statements on why I think they did well and talk about the new SEO tips I learned last night from a quick webinar about use of Ai to improve SEO stats.

   1) LOGOS
   

   A) This Logo for LACCC was one of the easiest because I was asked to combine two pre-existing logos.  And later, that dissolved into just the one.  I did a google search to see if anyone else used the same or similar one since this is a public domain image.
   I saw this one from Chase & District Health Services Foundation. In fact I saw that there was yet another with a similar logo from Collin County Diversity Council. I don't consider this my design, but for many, I will do the work of looking for art like this that is public domain, and also do the research to make sure no one else is using the logo already, or at least not the exact same one.
   

   

   B) Wildflowers Movement was a combination of found art and hand drawing. I pulled in my hand drawing of the arrows into Illustrator, and the flower was not something I was accustomed to drawing so I pulled in the vector graphics that they had pre-installed in illustrator.  WfM was happy especially with the sunflower, and we tried it with the brush stroke around the vectors.  I've since made many alternate versions of this including ones with different colors, and different flowers in the center.  What could be better at this point?  Honestly I think there are too many gradients and colors in this logo.  It could be simpler in multiple ways including the line quality, and the font leaves much to be desired for me personally.  However I think the thing that made this logo worth it for me was the shape of the arrows and how organic they feel.
   

   C) TK's was a quick tour of the express.adobe.com logo creation website with TK's approval. While this logo app is not perfect, it is helpful for people who have no idea what they are looking for.  (Edit: there is a new logo on the site now that aligns more closely to his ideas, as he suggested sacred geometry and a background photo.  Again, with this logo like the logo I had for WFM, I'd say the biggest problem is way too many colors.  Also there are so many details that it doesn't read like a graphic, and it is basically a collage with a photograph instead of your typical well-designed simplistic logo.)
   

   D) Laundronauts- This one was also not my design, and I had the sense that the idea of a Logo was a little unclear because of how much was involved with pulling this together.  However, as usual, I saw this as a learning opportunity. My own understanding of Graphic design and Logos isn't as clear as I thought. While I'm open to new definitions, I find it difficult to talk about my ideas.  I'm thinking that I really need to dive deep to understand what I like with logos.  I don't need to convince my clients that they should have these logos. It's more for me to develop my own unique vision and sense of style and aesthetics for design.
   

   
   I will admit, graphic design and logo design isn't my forte; I'm more of a fine artist who forayed in website management because of my odd background in engineering and support groups because of my extraordinary lived experiences.
   

   
   

   2) Business cards (Including digital ones)

   A) I have not yet made business cards for LACCC, but we do have a store where I offer to make customized greeting cards. I was hoping to add a new feature where I could offer to make customized business cards as well, but as usual, I forgot to implement it when I thought of it.

   B)

   
   
   WfM was one I wanted to keep clean and simple, so it's mostly white with  just a streak showing the background the website.

   C) Still working on this one with the client, possibly with a new custom logo. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/17592254769788506/
   

   D) I don't think we ever successfully created one for this yet.
   
   

   3) Website design evolution (with the help of Wayback machine)

   
   A) With LACCC, I was able to create multiple versions of this site, and was successful with transferring the site from Wordpress to Carrd
   

   B) WfM Wordpress to Carrd- This one is still a work in progress because it has so much going on.  I think I could use a little more simplification of the design and way it flows.
   

   C) TK Adobe Express to Carrd- This one needs a couple of more steps to become fully fleshed out.
   
   D) Laundronauts - This was the client that got me thinking about using Carrd for all of my sites instead of wordpress and godaddy.  I'm still a little iffy about that decision after learning more about how much more automatically gets ranked better from SEO with blogs, but I will keep learning on the way.
   

   
   

   4) Personal notes about what was difficult and what came easy

   A) LACCC - Easy to stay on google my business (GMB) because of our relationship with CALIF and being able to list that as an office.
   
6. B) WfM - Very difficult to keep on google my business, although the beginning was easy.  I'm still working on how we might be able to get back online there.
   
7. C) TK - Getting this on Google my business was relatively easy with very little hiccups.  Eventually TK was able to get an office address which made GMB sign up much easier.
   
8. D) Laundronauts - There was an article from the NYtimes about this podcast which improved its stats immensely. We haven't tried to get on GMB mostly bc he doesn't have a public office space.  But it is possible to have a GMB without an office as long as you are willing to send them other things to verify yourself as a business.
   
   

   5) Summary

   Wow, this client showcase was a lot harder for me than I thought. I think next time, I'll just focus on one client instead of four at a time.  Maybe I'll weed this out later and focus on one instead.  I'll get this blog on the right track eventually.
   

    Ahead to Week 6

    

       wk1     wk2    wk3    wk4    wk5    wk6    wk7      wk8      wk9