South Jersey Web Design

Client projects and tech blog posts about South Jersey

Elisabeth Olver, Artist & Painter

Elisabeth Olver ArtistElisabeth is a painter and artist who specializes in original acrylic paintings and giclee prints of nature and South Jersey beach scenes. Her existing site was attractive, but it didn't have online ordering and she wasn't able to update it herself.

We put together a features list and then went through a round of concept screenshots which I built in Adobe Fireworks and Photoshop (you can see our work here!). Design in hand, I built a customized Movable Type site. A specialized template allows her to enter information about the each piece: medium, theme, price and the URL to it's image (most of which are hosted on Flickr). Movable Type pulls these together into various category and individual art pages, with automatically-generated Paypal "Buy" buttons for available pieces. We stressed search-engine visibility so there are many categories and they all cross-link with each painting.

Visit: Elisabeth Olver
Categories: Client Sites , Custom Design , Journalists & Artists , Movable Type , Small Business
Tags: Acrylic, Art, Artists, Beach, Concept Screenshots, Customized Templates, Fireworks, Flickr, Giclee, Movable Type, Nature, Online Ordering, Paintings, Paypal, Photoshop, Search Engine Visibility, South Jersey | Edit

Quaker

Martin Profile Picture Many Friends will know me from my active involvement in the Quaker world. I've been dubbed the "Quaker Blogfather" for my Quaker Ranter (site) blog and my work in pulling together QuakerQuaker (site), an online magazine and blogging community with over five hundred members and 10,000 visitors a month. I am also a frequent Quaker workshop leader and published writer.

I started building websites in 1995 with an award-winning Nonviolence.org hub site and was a social media pioneer when I redesigned its homepage to a blog format three years later. Before going independent as MartinKelley.com in 2006, I served on the staff of Friends General Conference (site) for eight years, where I worked in the FGC Quaker bookstore and built the Quakerfinder, FGC Gathering and youth ministry sites. I also worked for Friends Journal (site) for two years, putting select articles from their Quaker magazine online every month. Since then I've been privileged to work with Quaker organizations such as Friends World Committee for Consultation (site), Friends Council on Education (site) and Haverford Friends Meeting (site). I've done some exciting media work with the Philadelphia Penn Charter School (site) and built personal sites for well known Friends. I bring our testimony of integrity to every business transaction and when I address topics such as search engine optimization or pricing philosophy, I try to do so from a Friends perspective.

Web Design Specialties:


Continue reading Quaker.
Categories: quaker | Edit

Alliance Cemetery

Alliance CemeteryI was hired to redesign the website of a cemetery that represents a fascinating slice of South Jersey history. In the 1880s, a group of Jews escaped Russian pogroms, came to America and started a "return to the soil" movement that led to the establishment of an agricultural colony in the small Salem County crossroads of Norma, New Jersey. Before long they established Alliance Cemetery.

The new Alliance website highlights the entrance gate. The cemetery has hired a surveying company to do a detailed map of the plots and we hope to add this in with a Google Maps mash-up when the data becomes available. A detailed history and photos are also in the works.

The design is hand-coded from scratch and is probably the most tasteful design of my portfolio. The pages themselves are editable by the client using CushyCMS and the Directions page has an integrated Google Map.

Visit: AllianceCemetery.com
Categories: Client Sites , Faith-Based , Local , Nonprofit
Tags: Cemetery, Design, Google Maps, History, Jewish, Norma, Photos, Salem County, South Jersey, Vineland | Edit

Organizations

Martin has worked with over two dozen nonprofit organizations, often serving as webmaster and internet evangelist:

A.J. Muste Memorial Institute
American Friends Service Committee
Center on Conscience and War
Cornerstone Fellowship, Galloway NJ
Council of Parishes of Southern New Jersey
Episcopal Peace Fellowship
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Friends Council on Education
Friends General Conference
Friends Institute
Friends Journal
Haverford (PA) Friends Meeting
Haddonfield Foundation
Global Network for Nonviolence
Indymedia.org
International Nanny Association
Jewish Peace Fellowship
Lutheran Peace Fellowship
National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund
Nepal Foundation
New Society Educational Foundation
New Society Publishers
Nonviolence.org
O'Reilly Media
Pax Christi USA
Pendle Hill Conference Center
Pennsylvania Ballet
Philadelphia Nanny Network
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Raphael Webscapes, LLC
QuakerQuaker.org
Salem County Special Services School District
Skipping Stones Magazine
Slim Goodbody Productions
Steady Footsteps
Syracuse Cultural Workers
Training for Change
United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO
Urban Land Institute / Philadelphia
Veterans for Peace
War Resisters League
William Penn Charter School
World Game Institute
Young Friends North America

Categories: Consulting
Tags: A.J. Muste, Council Of Parishes, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Fellowship Of Reconciliation, Indymedia, International Nanny Association, Jewish Peace Fellowship, Lutheran Peace Fellowship, New Society Publishers, Non-Profit, O'Reilly Media, Peace Tax Fund, Pendle Hill, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, United Farm Workers, Urban Land Institute, Veterans For Peace, World Game Institute, Young Friends North America | Edit

Web Design

I like websites that are clean and easy to use. I don't like designs that are so artsy and look-at-me cool that no one can figure out how to get around. A good design reflects the personality of the business or author and builds on their brand image.

It's easy to put up a website where I put up all the content and nothing ever changes. But what excites me is when I can teach clients how to easily update and expand their site on their own. Do you know how easy it is to be able to email photos up to a website? Or to go to your website, hit "edit me" and add items to a calendar?


Many of my sites have an "Edit Me" button for super-easy editing.
Most of my clients aren't programmers and don't want to be. They have businesses to run, or articles to write, or conferences to organize. It's my job to install the software and do the background magic to make a website easy to use and update. If you can use email then you can update one of my websites. It's really that easy.

I can take your website from a dream to a finished reality in just a few weeks. I can help you register a domain, I can host it and I can load it with the design and features you want. The first consultation is free: if you're in South Jersey or the Philadelphia area we can meet in person, otherwise we can talk by phone. I pull together our conversation into a proposal with cost estimates and a list of options that you can choose. 

More

The Design Blog has lots of posts about my design philosophy and guesses as to where the social media are headed.

Categories: Web Design
Tags: Clean, Flickr, Movable Type, Philosophy, Web Design, Wordpress | Edit

About Martin

Martin Profile PictureMartin Kelley is a web designer in the Philadelphia area. Here's the story of his evolution from activist book editor to social media marketer to a magazine editor!

Continue reading About Martin.
Categories: Martin
Tags: Alternative Press, Book Editor, Economics, Editing, Email, History, Independent Bookstores, Journalism, Music, New Society Publishers, Peace Groups, Philadelphia, Pictures, Quaker, Small Business, Social Media, Typesetting, Web Design | Edit

Continue reading .
Categories: | Edit

Nick Watts, Piano Instructor

Nick Watts is a piano instructor in the Oaklyn/Collingswood area of Camden County, South Jersey and wanted to advertise his services online. Be sure to check out the Entertainment page for music samples. I used Box.net to allow Nick to upload his own songs any times he wants!

Visit Site: Nick Watts Piano.

Categories: Client Sites , Educational , Journalists & Artists , Local , Movable Type , Small Business
Tags: Camden County, Collingswood, Instructor, Music, Musician, Nick Watts, Oaklyn, Piano, Small Business, South Jersey | Edit

Publicizing your blog via Flickr

Integrating the Flickr photo sharing service with your blog is a wonderful way to easily add photos to your site. With a little extra effort you can get Flickr to work for you.

Flickr in your blog

When you want to embed a Flickr-hosted photograph into one of your blog entries, first start by going to the photo's page in Flickr. Click on the "All Sizes" button on top (with the magnifying glass icon), and then pick the size you want for your blog post--small and medium work well for blog entries.

Underneath the resized picture is a box with Flickr's coding (you have to be looking at your own account and be logged in to see this). Simply cut and paste this into your blog entry and the picture will appear there. If you want your text to wrap around the picture you'll want to add a little coding to what Flickr gives you. Somewhere inside the "img" text you need to add wrapping instructions. An easy place is between the text that reads:
height="180" alt="whatever it says"
...now reads:
height="180" align="left" alt="whatever it says"
Change left to right to have your photo align that way.

Your blog in Flickr

Many users don't realize that people sometimes find your Flickr photos and not your blog. Google indexes Flickr nicely and Flickr's own search is popular. In the description of your photos you should add a link back to your own blog. If you have a blog entry concerning that actual picture, link directly back to that entry.

You'll have to hand-write the HTML link for this (sorry, Flickr doesn't have a link button). It should look something like this:

Description of the photo. For more read, <a href="http://www.site.com/blogentry">What I know about Flickr</a>.

Here's a screen shot of the editing screen for this Flickr entry:

Results

That post about my trip to a legendary South Jersey locale is one of the most visited pages on my personal blog. A good bit of it comes from the links in Flickr!

Remember to put a lot of desired keywords into your Flickr title and all link text. Keywords are those phrases that you think people might be searching for.

Categories: Niche Marketing , Practical 2.0
Tags: Blog, Flickr, Img, Medium Work, Photo Sharing, Photograph, Photos | Edit

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Web 2.0 Mash-Ups & Niche Aggregators (O'Reilly Media, 2008, $9.95): Order here.

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