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Below is a sampling of the sites I've worked on in the past few years, with brief descriptions of the needs and solutions I designed for each.

Tablas Creek Vineyard (http://www.tablascreek.com)

Tablas Creek is my family's winery. It is one of over 90 Paso Robles Wineries, and specializes in organically farmed grapes: estate-bottled Rhone Varietals, including Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Roussanne, Marsanne, and Viognier, as well as red and white Rhone blends and some obscure varietals like Tannat and Vermentino. When I moved out to California, the vineyard had extensive print marketing, a well-developed design ethic, and an attractive Web site design produced by an outside consultant. However, the site was heavy on graphics, slow to load, cumbersome to update, and difficult for search engines to spider and list.

My challenge has been to work within the existing design scheme to clarify the architecture of the site to allow for future updates, as well as producing templates for fast-loading, search engine friendly pages with relevant titles and effective META tags, keyword density, and link popularity for search engines.

Hoopla Traders (http://www.hooplatraders.com)

Hoopla Traders is a Washington, DC gift shop that has an amazing array of artisan products from faraway places. They had an existing Web site that was difficult to update, scored poorly in the search engines, and didn't have the flexibility that the owners needed to reflect the ever-changing selection of fair trade arts and crafts.

We decided to work with a content provider which allowed the owners to choose from Web-driven templated designs, and to update the site regularly and easily without needing to know any HTML coding. I built the navigation and the imagery to match one of the pre-existing templates, and put the store's commitment to eco-friendly, hand-crafted products front and center. We redesigned the pages with search engines in mind, and gave the project room to grow as the shop does.

Paso Robles Physical Therapy (http://www.pasoroblespt.com)

For Paso Robles Physical Therapy, the challenge was to build a Web presence with the blend of professionalism and friendliness that distinguishes the team of therapists who work there. The site is designed to be clean and attractive, but also to contain a sense of the spirit of the individual therapists, and detailed information that could help potential patients decide to trust their therapy to the group.

We decided to focus the site around ease of navigation, with testimonials, feature content, and more behind the scenes. Feature stories can be added, edited, and maintained by PRPT through a Web interface, and the content library will grow over time, and act as a resource to current and past patients.

Medical Practice Consulting (http://www.mpconsulting.org)

Betsy Nicoletti is a specialist in physician practice management. For the mpconsulting.org site, the challenges were to integrate existing marketing material into the new medium of the Web. The site is designed both to publicize the health care management services she offers, and to provide resources for existing clients. The design is bright and colorful, but traditional, for a business that caters to primarily old-economy clients.

In addition to the public components of the site, I designed and built a database-driven administrative back-end using Active Server Pages (ASP) that allows Betsy to add, edit, and administer the resources she makes available to her clients.

Capitol Hill Bikes (http://www.capitolhillbikes.com)

Capitol Hill Bikes is a Washington, DC bike shop who provide a hands-on bike buying experience that is tremendous, but difficult to translate onto the Web. They use a content provider for its wide range of bike-related products and accessories. The challenge was twofold: first, to update the look, feel, consistency, and usability of a site that had grown gradually over several months, and second, to improve the exposure of the site and increase page and site hits.

The first challenge involved editing content and producing new pictures and graphics for the site, while the second required research into relevant topic-specific sites for cross-linking, consistent application to vendors for referrals, and targeted submission to search engines and spiders.

Rebecca Haas Jewelry (http://www.rebeccahaas.com)

The rebeccahaas.com site is centered around a portfolio of photographs of the many works of hand-made gold and silver jewelry that Rebecca makes in Brooklyn, NY. In addition, the site required the basic contact information and convincing story that most small businesses need. For the design, I chose a bright, colorful, and playful solution using Flash, with a JavaScript-based order form. Nearly every page element is interactive, and the overall effect is lighthearted and playful.