Mark Kuhn’s All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club needed a fresh new design and text write up to help plan for future sustainability of the court. The old website was designed for desktop computers and didn’t respond well on smaller devices. Mark has one of the greatest tennis stories around with many substories. He wanted to convey his multiple stories through powerful text and images. Also, he wanted pages dedicated to his son, Alex J. Kuhn, Wimbledon, and Madison Keys. Keys held her tennis event, ‘Madison Keys Court of Dreams Celebration of Tennis,’ at the All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club on July 15th, 2022. Feature tennis write ups Mark wanted on the new website included Jon Wertheim’s story as well as Nick Pachelli’s write up in his book, The Tennis Court: A Journey to Discover the World's Greatest Tennis Courts.
I did extensive research on all of Mark’s web articles and YouTube videos. A lot of information needed to be condensed down. I did a great deal of writing and editing as did Mark. The entire process was a real collaboration taking a little over 3 months from start to finish. I received design and color inspiration from Wimbledon’s website as Mark’s grass court is a replica of Centre Court. I edited and constructed different videos that appear on 3 web pages and filtered through hundreds of photographs from multiple photographers, resizing, organizing, and choosing the best ones. Each page has a unique Google SEO H1 Tag to boost search rankings. The Madison Keys and Wimbledon pages were very extensive and very time consuming. I suggested we add a testimonial section on the home page featuring articles and YouTube videos. With a new reservations page, questions page, and lodging page we achieved our goal of updating the All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club. The new website lists how to book Mark’s house for overnight stays and how to donate to the All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club. Mark was very satisfied and thrilled with the final product. The website has brought in more customers and has helped spread awareness.
To build the largest Christmas Pop-Up Bars website, vast amounts of research needed to be done; a website featuring Christmas Bars in over 20 U.S. Cities, 4 Canadian Cities, and Costa Rica was no small task. The goal was to create the largest centralized Christmas website in the world targeting Christmas Pop-Up Bars. This was one of the most time consuming and daunting web projects I have ever worked on.
I realized the homepage needed to feature all cities in a gridded fashion. The homepage lists the website's goals, followed by U.S. Cities, Canadian Cities, and finally, Worldwide Cities. For each city, I found a unique Christmas photo to capture the feel of the city. Once a user clicks on a city either through the web searcher tab or specific button, the featured Christmas Pop-Up Bars appear in a gridded fashion along with a title, photo, text description, and a button linking out to the event. The time and research that went into deciding which bars would appear for each city along with newly written text was extremely long and arduous. I also did extensive amounts of keyword research. The website launched in October of 2024 and for the month of December 2024, it brought in 43,000 new visitors. I tracked this through Google Analytics. Also, it ranks at the top of Google and Safari Search for most cities. My goal for the 2024 season was to build the website out and gain online web traction. This website is a living breathing organism and will morph and change every year.
Doris Paiz, owner of Parkside Massage & Skincare in Westminster, Colorado, wanted a complete web redesign. Her old website was outdated, didn’t register on smaller devices, had broken links and 404 Page Errors with misspelled text, and outdated blurry photos. She wanted her business story retold in a fresh new way along with compelling photos, business hours, and Google Maps. Doris wanted the website to rank higher on Google Search to try and bring in more customers.
A great deal of research was done on Doris’ business and I asked a lot of questions. I wrote all the text, Doris chose the photos to use, and I picked out her new logo, a Caduceus Medicine Rod. The clear, blue logo set the tone for the entire website. The website flows with a water like energy throughout through the use of blues, greens, and aquas. I made sure her top three services were located on the homepage along with high quality photos and text with colorful buttons linking out to her Vagaro page. Also, her business number appears on the top navigation on every page. Business hours are written in a clear and easy to read font. On the footer of every page, her number and email address are listed. There’s a testimonial section and within many section photos that take up space, I put compelling text within the images. I organized all of her services and products in a gridded fashion. There are 301 redirects. The website is very clean, easy to read, and clearly defines all of Parkside Massage and Skincare’s services. Doris is beyond satisfied with her new website and feels that the new website has given her a lot more credibility.
Scarpelli Plumbing reached out to me and wanted a compelling website for their new plumbing business. They wanted a concise design to match the color of their black, gray, and orange logo. They wanted me to write all the text to convey their story, find high quality photos, and include Google Maps for their two business locations. Also, Scarpelli Plumbing wanted an ongoing Blog to constantly rank within Google Search to bring in more business.
It took a few different designs and layouts to get the color right for Scarpelli Plumbing. The orange top navigation section with their phone number listed and the dark blue navigation color really makes their logo pop. The hardest part was conveying their services within 7 pages. I had to learn all of the aspects of running a plumbing business to write the service pages. The home page conveys their main services listed with bullet points and high-resolution photos. I found unique photos for each service and page. Also, I created a main plumbing services page, a reviews page, a serviced area page, and a contact page. Their phone number, hours of operation, and address are listed on every page within the footer. Scarpelli Plumbing is very satisfied with the overall website and design.
Drew Dvorchak, a Colorado musician, reached out to me as he wanted a brand-new website showcasing his music, videos, live tour dates, bio, press, merchandise, and photos. Also, he wanted a contact page.
I kept the design very simple and clean so updating the website remains easy as Drew’s live tour schedule always changes and he’s constantly releasing new music. The home page features his latest album releases, tour dates, YouTube videos, and press articles. I recommended we put his social media icons on the header and footer of every page to link out to his social accounts. Drew’s media page includes all of his albums/singles linking out to his Spotify music page. His merchandise page includes a vinyl album and stickers. The tour page has extra functionality. Drew controls his live tour dates through Elfsight. Drew loves the website and we update it frequently. Drew does text updates on his own through Webflow’s easy to use editor.
The Great American Lobster Fest held at Chicago’s Iconic Navy Pier is Green Curtain Events' most detailed and complex website. They needed a new website design as the old website produced page errors, outdated plugins, and needed new brand coloring. The site needed to show customers the new festival location at Navy Pier near The Beer Garden. They were very specific on which photos to use, where to place ticket links and music/food banners, and they wanted it to mimic the design and feel I created for WingOut Chicago.
It took a few different designs and meetings to get the correct red color for the header and the footer sections. The same is true for main photos used. For the info page we kept some of the information from the prior website but ended up cutting twenty percent of the information. For the iPhone version, I tried cramming a lot of information onto the homepage so the viewer sees a lot of information in one take. Most of their clientele view their festival sites from a smartphone. I edited the website up until the day before the festival as Green Curtain Events had last second changes as vendors and menus changed. I made edits made in the following categories: text, food menu lineup, partner banners, and musical lineup. There are red ticket buttons on each page under an image before each email list sign-up section. Spam protection, hCaptcha, is used throughout the site to protect them from robot spam and unsolicited messages. Custom CSS was used throughout to make <a> tags colored red and hyperlink out. Also, the website showcases GA4 tracking analytics and Facebook Pixel custom code for marketing purposes. The creation of this website was all in the editing.
Al O’Connor of O’Connor Properties migrated to the U.S. in the eighties from Ireland. He runs a family owned and operated real-estate company offering apartments for rent in Chicago’s near North Side including Ukrainian Village, West Town, Logan Square, and Avondale. Al reached out wanting a website to increase business, have tenants easily reach out to him for maintenance, and have a one stop shop for customers to apply for rent.
This was a very challenging and rewarding project as Al didn’t have a logo, photos, or an online rental application form. When creating Al’s logo, I really thought about his Irish heritage and used a light green color for his company name backed by a gray slate blue color. I included the slate blue background in the navigation and footer. Also, I went to six different apartments and took photos with my high quality digital camera. The main opening photo expands the length of the computer screen so the viewer can get a close perspective of his building. The green flowing summer city trees really match the logo nicely. I created the downloadable PDF form making it easily fillable. The website has helped Al better manage his current tenants and he has seen an increase in sales due to the online personal rental application form.
Green Curtain Events, one of Chicago’s largest events companies needed a new clean sleek looking website for WingOut Chicago. Their prior WingOut website wasn’t spaced evenly, margins were off, and images weren’t sized proportionally. The new event at Gallagher Way next to Wrigley Field needed to be showcased. We had multiple meetings to discuss page layout, navigation, ticket layout, color, and photos to be used. The goal of the website is to get the user to click on the ticket link to purchase tickets for the event.
Since Green Curtain liked the prior design from the old website, I stayed true to the old design form but cleaned it up making it look professional on all device sizes. Over eighty percent of their customers view websites from a mobile device so it needed to look great on smart-phones. I cleaned up the margins, padding, and added a ticket link to every page. They love the WingOut Blue color and this is showcased in the navigation and footer. The event is sponsored by Gallagher Way and I made sure their logo is clickable to their website. I added custom CSS to make the text green inside the contact section of each page and used two sets of scrolling photos on the food page to showcase the unique wings offered. Also, there is a Google Map for festival location and the website has Facebook Meta code in the header section. Overall, the site is more consistent with more pages and opportunities for customers to purchase tickets.
Matt Chandler founder of Blue Line Run Club, one of Chicago’s largest run clubs, reached out and wanted a website based on Blue Line’s mission statement: The Blue Line Run Club is a supportive and inclusive community that welcomes runners of all ages, abilities, and distances. Their goal is to build social connections that support both the individual as well as the community through running. Matt wanted a website to showcase running photos, include a calendar with running events, and have the site be a hub for local athletes to connect.
For website colors, I stayed true to Blue Line’s logo. I used different shades of blue throughout the website to mimic Chicago’s Blue Line train along with cool vibrant colors to mimic Lake Michigan. I went through hundreds of photos Matt sent me and picked the best ones that suited Blue Line Run Club and portrayed the energy of what his run club is all about. There were code embeds for his Instagram/Strava accounts and a whole page is dedicated to his Google Running Calendar. The navigation is sticky and remains throughout the down scroll. This was based off of ESPN’S website. Over ninety percent of the photos are located on the home page and I kept an even gridded number of two and four photos across. On smaller devices, it breaks down to one photo per column. Matt and I spent a lot of time figuring out how many pages he wanted and the names for each page. Also, there is a contact page and email list sign-up form throughout the website. In the future, he is looking to turn the website into a small e-commerce store where he sells products.
Chicago Taco Fest or Tacos Y Tamales Festival is Green Curtains Events largest festival. Like WingOut Chicago, the prior website needed help. The goal of the festival is to give back to Pilsen’s Arts & Community House. The prior website wasn’t spaced evenly, margins were off, and images weren’t sized proportionally. We had multiple meetings to discuss website layout, color, and design. Green Current Events also wanted Mailchimp integration within the email list sign-up form. They wanted to showcase old and new photos, clean up text, and have a contact page.
Since Modelo sponsors the event, Modelo based colors are used. The dark shaded blue defines the navigation and footer background. There is a bottle shaped golden hover color mimicking Modelo for each page on the navigation. WingOut Blue is used on this website right above the footer section. This blue color is from the WingOut Chicago logo. A lot of time and consideration went into choosing and ordering event photos. There is even a scrolling Modelo photo section. I chose a wavy, almost cursive looking font to mimic Spanish feel. There is spam protection and hCaptcha on the email sign-up form and contact page. The donation section for each page is colored green to mimic corn; the source of tacos and tamales. On the partners page there is an in-depth question form and partners logo section. Custom CSS is used to color phone numbers and make email addresses green. This matches Green Curtain Events. The website is responsive and looks great on all device sizes.
Chicago Bluesman Brian Lupo badly needed his website updated. His prior website was out of date, not secure, certain links didn’t work, his music calendar wasn’t up to date, and the site wasn’t responsive. He wanted a new biography written, a new music calendar, a way to showcase his musical roots through photos, an email list sign-up form, and a contact page. Also, he wanted to showcase his new album, Into the Sun. Brian has worked with and shared the stage with Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Johnson, Omar Coleman, Big James, Eddie Shaw, James Wheeler, Vance Kelly, Toronzo Cannon, Mike Wheeler, Willie Kent, Lindsey Alexander, Bob Stroger, and Joe Moss.
The first thing I did was rewrite Brian’s biography. This shaped and set the tone for the entire website. He really wanted to showcase his musical upbringing from his early 290 Sport & Juice Bar music days in Chicago. He sent over three hundred photos to me and this was a real undertaking. His opening website photo consists of a cool purple border color matching the purple light shine on his head during a live performance. The purple color is used throughout and is the hover color over the header and footer navigation. I chose a deep blue color for the header and footer background that matches his Blues sensibility. On the music page, I chose his best YouTube songs to go along with the album write up. Throughout the pages before the email list sign up section, there’s a scrolling collection of photos highlighting Brian’s biggest musical moments. The calendar plugin allows Brian to keep his musical calendar up to date. Also, there are links to his Spotify, Facebook, and Apple iTunes pages.
Famous Blues musician Jesse Graves (born October 31, 1949, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania) real name Michael Floyd, wanted a website to showcase his musical history through pictures, press, and video. Jesse played with and opened for Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Little Feat, and The J. Geils Band. Jesse released his debut record in 1972 on his own label, Gazebo Records.
Jesse’s scrapbook was very scattered and all over the place. What made this website difficult was finding the best photos to use from his old collection. He wanted a very basic website. The website consists of four pages; a home, pictures, press, and contact page. The main images on each page really needed to match Jesse and his unique style. Great time and consideration went into playing around with different images until I found the best one for each page. I chose a wavy, unique grave-like font to match his style. There is also a contact page.
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