Websites

Your website is usually the first interaction you have with your audience. Make sure it’s not the last.

Your audience is busy. You only have their attention for a short period of time and it only takes a few seconds on your website before they’ve made a few crucial decisions about you. Should they take you seriously and are you wasting their time? You don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to make the right impression. You need a concise, easy to navigate, and well designed website that quickly tells your audience you mean business, and painlessly leads them to the answers to their questions.

Looking for something specific? I design and build websites for breweries and taprooms, websites for musicians and bands, and websites for New Hampshire businesses.

Website Design FAQ

What are these sites built on?

Whatever the job actually needs. Republic Brewing is a fast static site that maintains itself. Bear McCreary and Vermont Construction Academy are custom WordPress builds, because both have a lot of content their own people need to manage. What I avoid is picking the platform first and bending the project to fit it.

Can I update the site myself?

Yes, and that is usually the point. Anything that changes gets a proper place to live (course dates, tour dates, tap lists), so you fill in a field instead of rebuilding a page. Anything that changes constantly gets automated where it can be, like a tap list that reads itself from the system the taproom already uses.

Do you design the brand too, or just the website?

Both, often on the same project. For Republic Brewing Company I designed the logo and identity, the beer can artwork, and the printed taproom menus alongside the site, so the type, color, and voice carry from the shelf to the screen to the wall without a seam.

Do you only work with New Hampshire businesses?

I am in Manchester, so New Hampshire and New England clients get me in person. Plenty of the work is remote. The roster runs from a brewery down the street to composers in Los Angeles.

Where do you start?

With what the site has to do. Before anything gets designed, we work out who is coming to the site, the handful of questions they need answered, and what has to stay current after launch. That last one drives more of the build than people expect.

Three sites, three solutions

The first question I ask when starting a website design/build is who is the audience and what is the outcome you want from a visitor to the website. Here is what that has meant on three recent builds.

A site that maintains itself

Republic Brewing Company

Audience

Casual diners, large social groups, craft beer fans, out-of-town visitors looking for a brewery or restaurant to have lunch or dinner when in town, and local neighborhood residents.

Intended action

Come to the brewery for lunch or dinner.

Stack

Astro
Cloudflare Pages
Untappd API
GitHub Actions

When someone plans to visit a brewery they pull it up on a phone to find out what’s pouring, what’s on the menu and whether the kitchen is still open. How to get there and where to park. It needs a good mobile experience. In Republic’s case we also use the website as the in-house menu. Visitors can use a QR code that links to the beer and food menu. It’s important that the website is up to date. Most breweries use the Untappd app to keep track of the beer offerings. In Republic’s case I was able to use the Untappd API feed to present the latest beers on tap so there only needs to be one point of entry for that information.

How it’s built

A tap list that updates itself: the site reads the same system the taproom already uses to track what’s on, so a new keg reaches the website without anyone editing a page.
One list, three surfaces: the website, the board above the bar, and the printed menus all read the same data, so they can never disagree with each other.
Menus made to be printed: beer and kitchen menus download as finished, properly formatted files instead of fighting a browser’s print settings.

See the full project republicbrewingcompany.com

A site the client runs themselves

Vermont Construction Academy

Audience

Potential students. Parents and friends of potential students. Potential donors.

Intended action

Sign up for a class. Donate to the academy. Rent the space.

Stack

WordPress
Bricks Builder
Automatic.css
Advanced Custom Fields
WooCommerce
EventPrime

The Academy trains people in the building trades, and its website has to keep a moving target straight: which courses are running, when certification windows open, and how somebody signs up and pays. The website was built to reflect the craftsmanship at the core of their mission, and the site had to be something staff could run without calling me.

How it’s built

Course details and program requirements are entered once and populate across every template, so staff update one place instead of ten pages.
Applications are handled on the site: enrollments and fees processed as digital transactions rather than paper and phone calls.
An integrated calendar gives real-time visibility into upcoming trades training and certification windows.

See the full project vermontconstructionacademy.org

A catalog that keeps growing

Bear McCreary

Audience

Directors and agencies looking for a composer. Music fans.

Intended action

Contract Bear for work. Create fans.

Stack

WordPress
Bricks Builder
Automatic.css
Advanced Custom Fields

Bear McCreary has scored The Walking Dead, Outlander, and Godzilla, a multi-decade body of work across film, television, and video games. The site is the gallery for all of it, which makes the real problem organizational: a library that large has to stay findable, stay fast, and stay easy to add to.

How it’s built

Events, projects, and blog entries each get their own data structure, so a new score or tour date drops into place instead of being laid out by hand.
A custom WordPress architecture built with Bricks Builder and Advanced Custom Fields rather than an off-the-shelf theme, so the structure matches the catalog.
Pages assembled from dynamic queries, which keeps a very large site quick on any device.

See the full project bearmccreary.com

Tell me what your website has to do.

What you are building, who needs to find it, and what has to stay current after launch. I will tell you what it takes.

Start the Project

Websites

Your website is usually the first interaction you have with your audience. Make sure it’s not the last.

Website Design FAQ

Three sites, three solutions

Republic Brewing Company

Vermont Construction Academy

Bear McCreary

Tell me what your website has to do.

Let’s Get Started

Let’s Get Started