2014, January

When it comes to websites, my competency is in a site's structure and in the technical implementation of a design. I prefer simple visual designs (like this website), but am able to implement more complex visual designs using modern web technologies. In particular, I work best in

Below you'll find a portfolio of pages I've worked on, including screenshots.

Websites I have worked on

University of Guelph's Graduate Student Association

Current website: http://www.uoguelph.ca/gsa/
Old website: see screenshots below

The University of Guelph's website was formerly hosted by the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), which resulted in limited control and access to the underlying site, and the need to go through extra work to modify content. After consultation with the GSA Executive, it was determined that it would be best for the GSA to host their site themselves, allowing quick and timely control over content, presentation, and features.

This task involved setting up a new Drupal installation (7.x series) on webspace the GSA acquired through the University of Guelph's Computing and Communication Services group (CCS), and porting over existing content. It also involved developing a new theme (based on the existing Drupal Bartik theme). Drupal configuration included selecting and integrating modules to ensure easy content management for the GSA intern who would be responsible for updating content.

Also involved was creating a web manual for GSA members on how to update content within the site, as well as creating new sections, and modifying core elements of its visual identity (logo, colours, font, banner). It includes videos using HTML5 demonstrating how to make each change, as well as a dynamic table of contents using JavaScript making updating the manual a bit easier.

Finally, a technical manual was also created explaining to future website developers the design and structure of the site, and guidelines for maintenance and upgrading.

After (2012)
Current (2013)
Before
(it had a low res logo before, missing in screenshot)

Canadian Iaido and Jodo Fund

Current website: http://www.iaido-canada.com
Old website: old copy

The Canadian Iaido and Jodo Fund has had a functional website for a while. While doing other work on it, maintaining content, I requested permission to also update the style and layout. Here I used PHP to template the common, invariant sections of pages, and provide some neat effects, like a special wallpaper for members, a visual identity, embeded video in pages using HTML5, a custom error page that e-mails the administrator when someone encounters a 404, and so forth.

After Before
After Before

Guelph Queer Equality

Current website: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~gqe/

Guelph Queer Equality supports members of the University of Guelph LGBTQ+ community. For various reasons, when I happened upon them they no longer had a web presence so I offered to create one meeting their design idea.

The website is bright and welcoming. It uses HTML5's canvas to draw a rainbow bordering the content area, web fonts, embeds a Google Calendar, and manages updates through Blogger, making updating the blog easy and simple.

After Before

Global Newt Games

Current website: http://globalnewt.com
Old website: old copy

Global Newt Games is a provider of educational board games educating children in zoology. They were interested in updating their site before a trade show. The old site featured a scrolling box, a tiled logo background, lots of visibly HTML tables with bezel. Its information was also distributed over more pages and required more clicks to find content. The updated design flattened everything, provided more information organised neatly on the home page, and provided a consistent navigation structure through an invariant sidebar between pages.

After Before

South Grey Museum

Current website: http://www.southgreymuseum.ca
Old website: archive.org copy, http://www.greyhighlandsmuseum.com

The South Grey Museum is situated in my hometown of Flesherton, Ontario, and serves the municipality of Grey Highlands. I found out that the curator was having issues keeping it up to date, because they did not have an accessible way to modify content themselves. They typically sent changes to a web developer that could take months to appear on the site, could have errors, and cost money each time they had to do it.

Based on a conversation, it seemed that a small museum without IT or financial resources to spare needed something that was

Consequently, after reviewing a few different options, it was determined that Google Sites would be the best candiate. Google Sites has the unfortunate draw-back of having limited theming options.

After Before

Some fun things involved using SVG to re-vectorise their logo, whose original art was no longer available, and was previously a JPEG with visible noise. Some other nice features, in going with Google Sites, was free RSS syndication, mobile view, and the ability to embed Google Docs.

KosmoKaryote

Current website: http://www.kosmokaryote.org

This is the website you're currently at. I've had various websites over the years, but this has existed since 2009, perhaps.

After Before