Website Highlight: Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com

One of the best things you can do when meeting with a graphic designer or website design is bring in samples.  Look at other businesses marketing products and websites that you like and also designs that you don't like.  Look for:

• Design
• Layout 
• Content
• Colors
• Pictures

This gets you thinking about what you specifically want and it gives your designer a visual idea of where their client eventually wants to end up.  

Ed from Your Neighbors' New Kitchen.com did just that when he came to me.  He brought me a copy of an HGTV magazine and said he wanted his new website to be like that - focus on the kitchen design, big beautiful pictures, small before photos, something fun, colorful, bright, interesting, and informative about kitchen re-facing.  That is what we designed him.   A colorful website that focuses on the kitchens.  Check out his website online - www.YourNeighborsNewKitchen.com 

Below are samples from his website we designed last month.  Enjoy.

I love working with my clients on a variety of projects from logo design, advertisements, brochures, educational materials, exhibits, flyers, posters, identity packages, business cards, mailers, or websites.  Mainly if you need it printed or put online Susan Searway Art & Design can help you get it there.  

Recent Logo Designs by Susan Searway Art & Design

Logo Design - Branding for a company is a vital and important process in developing your company.  You have to visually articulate what you want your company to represent to your future clients.  You want to be professional, unique, and stand out from others in your field.  Your logo can be as simple as a font that represents your company or it can be more complex with an icon that is designed as vector art or it can be an image that goes along with the name of your company.  Whatever direction you decide to take your company brand in make sire you like it and that it represents you and your company well.  A strong brand will last for years.  A weak brand you will have to update in a few years.  Below are some recent logo designs I have created for my clients this year.  Enjoy.

I love working with my clients on a variety of projects from logo design, advertisements, brochures, educational materials, exhibits, flyers, posters, identity packages, business cards, mailers, or websites.  Mainly if you need it printed or put online Susan Searway Art & Design can help you get it there.

New Clients - Website Highlights

Having a web presence is one of the most important marketing tools for any company these days.  So designing and creating a website is a big part of what Susan Searway Art & Design does.  By knowing both the print and website world Susan creates effective marketing and branding for your company that works best for you.  Whether you need a website built from scratch, support for a current site, or a complete website redesign Susan Searway Art & Design can produce a modern, user-friendly site that will give you a professional online presence to be proud of.  She is an expert in creating custom websites or she can work with template website programs (WordPress, Joomla, WebSite tonight, etc) depending on what the client desires are for maintenance and additions for the future.

Below are some of my newest website designs for my clients.

Engel Geist is a new company created by Daniel Geist offering Psychic Readings Energetic Healing.  I had a wonderful time working for him to create and develop his company brand, logo design, business cards and website.

For his brand I created by hand these beautiful bitmap angel wings that when together form the shape of a heart in the negative space.  Developing the correct shape of these angel wings took time but came with a strong impact.  We decided to then take one of my photographs, from my travels around the country, to incorporate it into his brand which allowed us to convert the angel wings into white to appear more mystical.

Once his brand and logo were established we created business cards and developed his website in WordPress template to allow Daniel the ability to blog in the future.  More of my photographs were used throughout the site. Daniel hired a copywriter to provide the content and we integrated some basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) throughout the site.  Daniel and Engel Geist is ready to launch into the world.  To view Engel Geist website: http://engelgeist.com

Cindy Mack 
Personal Trainer

I had the wonderful pleasure of working with another start up company - Cindy Mack Personal Trainer over the past couple of months.  Cindy Mackenzie is one of the most outgoing individuals I have met with. She has a passion to help people get into better health and fitness programs.  She is an ACE Personal Trainer who specialized with customized senior services.

For her brand we developed a logo that was a fun, loose, and colorful. I created a custom watercolor that acts as the main background and banner for her business cards, marketing materials, and her website.  Her website is another WordPress site that allows for her to update photos of her clients as her company grows.  To view Cindy Mack Personal Trainer website: http://cindymackpersonaltrainer.com

PRO Knee Institute  For this company I actually developed two different websites.  The first seen on the left is http://prokneeinstitute.com  It is a custom based website created in Dreamweaver and is intended for partnering with hospitals.

The second website that I developed for them is http://myproknee.com  It is another WordPress website and is intended for providing potential patients with important information about this new medical procedure - Partial Knee Resurfacing.

Both websites have the same look and feels for the branding but function entirely differently from a coding point of view.

  

Silver Sexy & Strong owned by Jill Williams is an example of being hired not to do the actual website work but I was hired as a Marketing and Website Consultant.  Jill already had a website created and felt comfortable for making adjustments herself.  So we met and then I went through her website with a fine tooth comb to see how visually we could make the content flow better.  We ended up doing a rebrand of her company logo and created a couple of fun little icons for each of her services she offers.  To learn more about Silver Sexy & Strong visit her website:

http://www.silversexynstrong.com

Graphic & Website Design Highlight

Young At Hearts Communications, LLC

For the past two months I have had the honor of working Diane Castro from Young at Hearts Communications, LLC.  We did a rebrand of her company look and feel including redesigning her business cards, creating a Facebook Cover Image for her business page, and completely redesigning her website in WordPress so that she can continue her blogging with the public.  

Please take time to check out her amazing company:

http://youngatheartcommunications.com

Facebook Business Page:

 https://www.facebook.com/YoungAtHeartCommunications?fref=ts

Updated SusanSearway.com

At the beginning of the 2013 I decided to stop procrastinating and began the task of working on updating my own business website with updated client design work and also new artwork.  I knew it would be a big undertaking since it had been so long since my last major update.  So I started out with fresh new blank files and began the process of creating my updated look.  Though many will look at it and say it is the same I have updated a lot:

• I created new templates to make updates in the future go more smoothly
•  I have converted almost all text into HTML format to help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• I added a custom font onto my website - Zapfino
• I began to add Alt Tags to images along with Keywords and Titles to my pages
• I added in descriptions of projects & information about my clients.
• I updated my resumes
• I added in NEW Design Projects -  • Brochures • Logo Design • Identity Package • Business Cards • Advertisements • Fliers • Posters • Direct Mailers • Educational Materials • Exhibits • E-mailer Campaigns - ConstantContact, MailChimp • Website Design - Custom & Template Designs, WordPress, HTML  
• I added NEW Artwork - • Digital Art • Drawing • Painting • Photography • Watercolors

Please visit www.susansearway.com and see what all it new.  Below are some highlighted projects:

 Logo Design for True Colors Painting & Decorating, Inc.

Redesign Simply Inspired Business Cards - the main focus was to now to correspond to her website look and fee to give her company a more constant brand.

Continued maintenance of Continental Jewelers Website

Creation of landing webpage for Edie Chaska Designs with a rotating image gallery.

Marymount Greenhills Retirement Center Trifold Brochure

Redesign MPWN - Marin Professional Women's Network - Logo, Letterhead, Membership Nametags

Layout, design and creation of a new website banner design.

NEW ARTWORK

Watercolor - Figure Study

Oil Painting on Canvas

Watercolor

Photography - Destin, FL

Photography - New Orleans, LA

Fiery Soul - Digital Art

Figure Study - Colored Pencil on Paper

Happy 2013 from Susan Searway Art & Design!

I hope your year is off to a great start.

On January 1, 2013 Susan Searway Art & Design 

turned 7 years. 

Susan Searway Art & Design specializes in Graphic Design and Website Design services. Susan has years of experience working in the print world from designing and laying out advertisements, brochures, educational materials, exhibits, fliers, identity packages, logo design, posters, direct mailers, e-mailer campaigns, etc.

From there Susan can then convert anything into a web format for the World Wide Web. By knowing both the print and website world Susan creates effecting marketing and branding for your company that works best for you. 

It has been an honor to work this past year 

with the following companies and individuals: 

·      Bay Model Visitor Center

·      Beckerley Travel Consulting - Kathy Beckerley

·      Claire Up Your Books  - Claire Auslen

·      Continental Jewelers, Inc.

·      CSLP – Petaluma Wellbeing Center

·      Divorce Recovery Coaching

·      Dyslexia Think Tank  - Rose Kuntz

·      Edie Chaska Designs

·      Embellish - Designs By Jennie Barr

·      Fred Martin Events

·      Friends of the Bay Model

·      Giant Properties

·      Greenfire Strategies - Inka Traktman

·      Inner Destinations

·      Kristi Frlekin

·      Kristie Hansen-Kemp - Homeward Bound

·      Liberate Your Destiny - Judy Cameron

·      Marilyn Greenblat, Artist

·      Marin Professional Women's Network

·      Marymount Greenhills, LLC

·      Patti Anastasi

·      Ross Valley Wellness  - Connie Prodromou

·      Rotary International District 5150

·      San Geronimo Valley Stewards

·      Shabby Girl Furniture & Design Studio - Jessica Tevis

·      Sigma Theta Tau Int. Lamba Gamma Chapter

·      Simply Inspired - Susan Berke

·      S.L. Pemberton, Inc.

·      Sonoma State University

·      Terrie Burns – Spiritual Catalyst/Intuitive Clairvoyant

·      Triad of Health - Dr. Ilya Skolnikoff

·      True Colors Painting & Decorating, Inc.

·      US Army Corps of Engineers - Lake Sonoma

·      USACE San Francisco Div

·      Ute Scott-Smith

·      Youth Renewal Center

I love what I do and am always looking for new clients to work with.  Please keep Susan Searway Art & Design in mind for any graphic design or website design projects you or another business might have in the future. 

Thanks in advance for your referrals.

Always,

Susan Searway

Susan Searway Art & Design

www.susansearway.com

www.susansearway.blogspot.com

415-847-7064

Rotating Gallery Website Challenge

I have to say that I love at times having client projects that push me in a new direction and expand my comfort level as a designer with new skills.  I was taught to never say "no" to a client when they come up with a good idea but to be honest with them "I have never done that before but I will figure out how to do it".  This happened to me earlier this month once again and I am so pleased and happy with the end result.

I began working for a new client of mine Edie Chaska, Professional Interior Designer in Petaluma.  After our first round of designs for a landing page for her website she decided she wanted to incorporate a rotating gallery of images of her work.  Great idea but I have never had to create one of those in HTML format but sure let's do it.  After research, a bit of trial and error, and a lot of manipulation of JAV coding, I was able to create a rotating gallery on her website!!!  

We just got her website home landing page up and running last week and I thought you might want to check it out  http://echaskadesign.com  Below are some still shots of her webpage but it looks beautiful with her 8 slideshow images so view it live too.

I am think of incorporating this rotating gallery coding into some other websites for my clients that currently have Flash swf files in them.  The problem with Flash files are you can not get them to work on most mobile devices or your iPads.  So this rotating gallery code should be just the thing we need to get everyone up to date.  Enjoy the gallery.

Please keep Susan Searway Art & Design in mind for all your graphic and website design projects.  Referrals are always appreciated.  Thank you to Ed Roualdes, Contractor for this great referral to work with Edie.