Country Chic - Shabby Chic Vintage Boutique

This week I spent some time crafting a site for Country Chic - Shabby Chic Vintage Boutique, a lovely DIY/Vintage store located just outside of Bowmanville.

I took elements of her existing branding (charicature, colours) and utilized them to great a rustic/vintage shabby yet chic website/blog. I've been bugging Rhonda to break into blogging and recently she's done a great job of utilizing this content marketing tool to increase her community's engagement.

One of the main elements I wanted to focus on with the Country Chic site was maintaining a simple, clean design, highlighting it's social elements and integration, and enabling a lot more Pinterest activity.

There are still a few minor updates I want to make, but for the most part this site is signed, sealed and delivered!

Green Girl - Website Design & Branding

I started working with the Owner of Green Girl All Season Outdoor Maintenance after she came to me with her business idea. She needed help with the branding, website design and marketing initiatives and I was happy to oblige! 

card design concept v1

We ran through a bunch of ideas and ultimately came up with the "Green Girl" concept, which included a Logo, Colour Scheme, Service Packages and Pricing, Marketing Plan and Social Media Plan! I immediately wanted to pursue something with a youthful and fun and very "girly" but in a professional way, to highlight the best selling feature of her business - being a woman doing a "man's" job!

facebook ad @ 400 x 400px

The owner of the business did a ton of research regarding competitors, pricing and plans and determined that one of the best offers for her would be to offer a "rollover" package and as so we poised that as the main marketing vantage point. "You can Roll Over your purchase" to next season if it's a mild winter! -- This is ideal for a social media campaign as it's visual and people can share it very easily. 

One of the key aspects to remember for Social Marketing is utilizing the correct sizing for ads, cover photos, icons etc. as many people don't want to actually click on a photo and if they can't read all of the text or information in their feed they are less likely to share it or like it. 

Green Girl is a valued customer who uses CMM+D for Web Design, Web Management, Social Media & Branding. 

Harwood Arms Pub & Family Restaurant

Harwood Arms has been a client since last summer. I've helped re-organize their marketing campaigns, create a social media presence and developed a new website for their business. They previously had a website that was navigationally and visually ineffective, so I utilized their previous logo, added some "flare" and then re-tooled it to be something similar to their previous design but with much better navigation and style. 

This 8 Page Design incorporated copy writing, photography and design services. I went to the pub and took a lot of "atmosphere" shots to help complete the look. 

I am a big fan of building sites out on blog platforms as most small business owners have a hard time managing running a business and often don't have time to learn or re-learn a totally new CMS. By integrating their site into a blog they are able to change basic things as well as add/update posts without changing the presence of the site. Any major changes can be made (and are covered) in the small monthly management fee. 

I truly believe in the saying "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll never go hungry again!" -- When it comes to content management it's often much easier and more appealing for a business owner to do the small stuff themselves. It also creates a sense of trust when you're handing the finished product over for them to manage, and teaching them how to create custom content for their site so it is executed professionally and is visually appealing! 

Harwood Arms is an excellent client and fellow members of the cast of Million Dollar Neighborhood, which I appeared on along with my family in early 2013! It's great working with clients and even better working with friends!

Clarington Contracting Services

I recently completed this website design for Clarington Contracting Services. It was a simple design that utilized a logo they had previously created by another designer.

This is a 5 Page Site that highlights their outstanding landscaping & design services, community service and they wanted to keep it as simple as possible. They also wanted something that they could manage from the back end without a monthly service package, so I opted to place the site on a blogger platform so it was easy for them to cross-market in social media down the road as well as for them to create new posts regularly.

This was a very simple design but something that will last the client for a long time.