Although I am a software engineer with experience in custom, standalone, and back end programming, my latest foray is in the area of website design and development.
My current portfolio includes the websites you see below, all of which were created for people or organizations that I am closely involved with. I designed, implemented, and deployed each of them myself, with only minor help; e.g., my Rails hosting company helped me to deploy my Rails apps to their servers.
The websites vary in complexity and style, because I've used them to explore different facets of web design. Creating each one has been an enjoyable journey of new ideas and designs for me. I still have a lot to learn, but these sites are evidence of how far I've come in my web design journey since I started many years ago with a little knowledge of HTML and a text editor.
- Our Personal Website:
http://rodneyandtina.com
Redesigned: 2007
Technologies: CSS, HTML, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, MySQL
Tools used: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Aptana
Link to CSS: redesign_style.css
Ruby on Rails Link: http://rodneyandtina.com/railscats/
Our personal website has seen a lot of changes through the years... With the redesign in 2007, this website is now almost pure CSS, though not 100%, as I decided not to maintain some of the older pages. The website serves double duty as a place to just talk about me and Rodney, and also a place for me to experiment as I learn new web technologies.
My latest upgrade to the site is our Foster Cats page, which is now a Ruby on Rails application that is integrated with a MySQL database.
- Vocal Express:
http://vocal-express.com
Designed: Spring 2008
Technologies: CSS, HTML, Javascript
Tools used: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Firebug
Link to CSS: main.css
Vocal Express is a show choir that I sing with, and I redesigned their existing website in early 2008. The site itself is not complex, and I didn't use any new (to me) technologies when I designed this website. While designing the site, I started reading "Pro CSS Techniques" (by Croft, Lloyd, and Rubin) so I started experimenting with more complicated selectors. Primarily, this website is one case where I produced the site because it was desired by the site owner, not for my own gratification (for a change).
- Cats Landing:
http:/catslanding.net
Designed: Fall 2006
Technologies: CSS, HTML, Javascript
Tools used: Dreamweaver, Photoshop
Cats Landing is a small business that I started a few years ago. I decided to create a website for the business myself, and it turned out to be my first really "professional" looking site. I started the design using a sample page from Dreamweaver, but the resulting website looks little like the original sample. This was the first site in which I incorporated dynamic (Javascript) menus, which I acquired from Dynamic Drive (www.dynamicdrive.com).
After creating this website, I was "hooked" on web design and that is when I decided to improve my skills and seriously look at web design as a career.
- Clara D'Souza:
http://rodneyandtina.com/rodney/nana
Designed: Fall 2007
Technologies: CSS, HTML, Javascript
Tools used: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Firebug
Link to CSS: main.css
Clara D'Souza is Rodney's paternal grandmother (we call her "Nana"). I created this website in honor of Nana's 100th birthday, which will be in August 2008.
This was the first site for which I tried using some new graphics tools. I used Adobe Flash to create the graphic on the home page behind Nana's photo, and I created the Family Tree (on the third menu from the left) using Adobe Illustrator. This is also the first site in which I used a Dreamweaver template and it is the first site I've created that is 100% pure CSS (that is, no tables).
- Dunn Loring Woods Civic Association:
http://dlwca.org
Redesigned: Spring 2007
Technologies: HTML, CSS
Tools used: Dreamweaver, Photoshop
Dunn Loring Woods is the community where I live, and I created this site a few years ago for the civic association. The site is quite simple and this is by design, as we have many older citizens of our community who are new to the internet and I wanted to make the site easy for them to navigate.
I redesigned the website in 2007 to use cascading stylesheets throughout. As a result, I was able to create two looks, one winter and one summer, which I can change by swapping out the stylesheet and photo in the upper left corner.
- Vienna Saturday Farmers' Market:
http://www.rodneyandtina.com/tina/farmers_market/www/index.html
Designed: Fall 2006
Technologies: HTML, some CSS
Tools used: Dreamweaver, Photoshop
I designed the Vienna Saturday Farmers' Market website for the Vienna Jaycees, of which I was a member until the organization disbanded in 2007. The link above is a snapshot of the site right before I handed it over to its new owner in early 2008.
My goals for this site were to create a fresh, "juicy" look, and a simple design that would be easy for others to maintain. I expected that someday I would hand over this site to someone with less web experience than myself, and thus, I wanted the individual(s) to be able to make changes easily.