Grand Rapids Child Discovery Center

• Visit: Grand Rapids Child Discovery Center

The Grand Rapids Child Discovery Center strengthened communication with current and prospective parents by creating a new website containing slide shows, an enrollment form, newsletters, news stories, lunch menu, multiple calendars, and other online resources.

Child Discovery Center staff is now able to change and add to the website content using a familiar toolset. visit childdiscoverycenter.org

“Working with Swamp Side Studio was a great experience. Mike was very organized and kept the process moving forward. Mike was able to take our ideas and turn them into reality. He sought to understand what makes our school unique and then highlight those qualities of the school through the website. These are only a few of the many positive comments that could be made about our experience with Mike at Swamp Side Studio. Thank you so much.”

Rachel Harth
Administrative Assistant
Grand Rapids Child Discovery Center

“Our Website Committee conducted a thorough search for a vendor who could deliver the task of upgrading our antiquated school website with more meaningful and up-to-date material, as well as bells and whistles (a running slide show, etc), that would communicate the unique qualities of our school’s mission and contribution to the greater community of Grand Rapids, while keeping the cost as low as possible. Mike Devarenne and Swamp-Side Studio were chosen for the project and Mike delivered bigtime for us! He was a pleasure to work with and I’m very happy that he was chosen for the project. I have received many wonderful compliments about our new and improved website. I’m very pleased with the new, professional look of the website. Thanks a bunch, Mike!”

David R Hill
Principal
Grand Rapids Child Discovery Center

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The Fountain Hill Center

• Visit: The Fountain Hill Center

Swamp-Side Studio developed this new website for the Fountain Hill Center which enables the staff to add and revise pages, post articles, and list a schedule of events – updates they were unable to do with their previous website. Visitors are able to learn about the Center and select a therapist by their specialty.

The Fountain Hill Center is in a beautiful home in the historic Heritage Hill district of Grand Rapids. Photographs of this building became a foundation for the design of the website. visit fountainhillcenter.org

“To say that Swamp-Side Studio did an awesome job on our new website would be an understatement! It was wonderful to work with Mike. He put things in terms that those of us not versed in website lingo could understand – which can be very hard to find in this area of expertise.

We met with Mike on multiple occasions and shared our vision for our new website. He understood our ideas and then took them one step further. Not only has he designed and implemented a fabulous website but he has given us the tools to continue the work. Since launching our new site, our visits have gone up and we get more contacts from people visiting the site.

I would refer anyone looking to do some website work to Mike as he is very professional and a wonderful person to work with on a project. Thank you!!”

Rebecca Plantinga
Executive Assistant
The Fountain Hill Center

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Crisis Response Communications

• Visit: Crisis Response Communications

The Crisis Response Communications website provides a book and articles for public relations professionals and students. The website promotes the book and the author while offering valuable information on preparing and delivering effective messages and creating a crisis response plan. visit CrisisResponseCommunications.com

“On the advice of a colleague, I contacted Mike Devarenne at Swamp-Side Studio to create a website for my book, When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator’s Guide to Crisis Response.

I found Mike to be not only a talented website technician but an insightful designer who made my initial ideas standout from the competition’s.

He also suggested several ways to drive traffic to the website, including on-line press releases and professional document-sharing websites. At the end of the project Mike conducted a thorough training session so I could make most changes and upgrades to the site myself.

Mike’s a true professional; his work was reasonably priced, completed on-time, on-budget and the finished product completely surpassed my expectations.

I highly recommend Mike Devarenne for your next website project.”

Bob Roemer
HiSport Communications

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Poverty Simulation Registration

• Visit: ACCESS Poverty Simulation Registration

The ACCESS Poverty Education Coordinator was seeking a cost-effective way to move away from paper mailings toward online registration for workshop staff. Within a few days, a private blog was ready for staffers to sign up for open positions in future workshops, to leave comments, and to view a location map.

“You are a genius! This is so much easier for me than trying to remember to mail or fax things back.”

From a subscriber to the blog owner

“Yea! Yippee! You are a genius! And a little technically geeky… Woooo hooooo! and Rah! for communication. Will you organize my life, too?”

From another subscriber to the blog owner

“I didn’t do the creating! I came up with the idea, but someone else put it all together! It would have taken me ages to get it up and going on my own! I am so glad you guys like it! I am so excited about this!”

Response from the blog owner to subscribers

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Avantgarde Salon & Spa

• Visit: Avantgarde Salon & Spa

Taking design cues from the salon’s striking interior and marketing materials, this site was developed to help clients find the site and visit the salon. visit avantgarde-salon.com

“Swamp-Side Studio recently created websites for my businesses. The Avantgarde Salon & Spa website project was handled with the utmost of professionalism, concern for budget constraints, and many recommendations to further enhance our web presence. It has been my pleasure to work with Mike and watch as our site was developed.”

Bonnie Moore
President and Founder
Avantgarde Salon & Spa

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ACCESS of West Michigan

• Visit: ACCESS of West Michigan

ACCESS links community resources to help eliminate poverty. ACCESS had an older website that needed a design upgrade and several new features. With this new site, ACCESS has enhanced its online presence to provide information to its clients and volunteers. ACCESS staff can now maintain and update content with ease using the WordPress administrative tools. visit accessofwestmichigan.org

“I found Mike very easy to work with. The knowledge and experience he brought to our web project was so helpful. He was very patient and thorough when teaching me how to use our new site. Most importantly, in just the first two weeks of our site being launched, we saw a dramatic increase in traffic to the site as well as on-line donations.”

Mandy Geemes
Media and Events Coordinator
ACCESS of West Michigan

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RAIN

• Visit: RAIN

Short for RApid INnovation, RAIN is a project management methodology developed by Capgemini and Intel for technology projects. This website was built for the RAIN marketing team.

Partnering with a creative director, videographers and a Flash animator, Swamp-Side Studio developed this sparse website and met the challenge of creating the innovative paging and video playback. visit rainnovation.com

“With each project Mike has developed for us he has brought a thoroughness and consistency to the effort that is refreshing. I feel completely comfortable turning over a web project brief to his studio knowing that he will come back to us with a solution that exceeds the brief both aesthetically and technically. Mike has a great eye and can take a general design and give the nuance it needs when applying it across a site. He has worked with us to systemically deliver each site on time and on budget with the lessons learned and best practices applied from the previous project.”

“For RAIN, we provided a rough design, some examples of navigation solutions and a description of how we wanted to present video, and Swamp-Side delivered exactly as I had imagined it. The simplicity of the site belies its technical complexity.”

Matthew Patulski
Creative Director for Digital Services
Capgemini

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Mesh Collaboration

• Mesh Collaboration

Mesh Collaboration is a promotional site for a book by the Global Chief Technology Officer of the Capgemini Group, and the leader for Cisco’s services business across Europe. The site includes media types such as video, iPaper and blogging. It also provides a secure, collaborative area for participants of exclusive teleconference events. (website no longer active)

“This project came up while we were very busy with other efforts and had little time to oversee execution. We provided art direction and a required feature set. Mike came back with a site that was about 95% what we expected and then addressed our minor revisions in a matter of days to meet our launch.”

Matthew Patulski
Creative Director for Digital Services
Capgemini

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Future Supply Chain

• Visit: Future Supply Chain

The Future Supply Chain 2016 website highlights the report published by the Global Commerce Initiative and Capgemini. The site includes video, blog, and a document-download area that requires user registration. visit futuresupplychain.com

“We had less than two weeks to execute. Once provided with a creative brief, Mike worked directly with the report author and delivered for its launch a site that clearly presented the look and feel as well as content of the report. This has been our most successful site to date.”

Matthew Patulski
Creative Director for Digital Services
Capgemini

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Evergreen

• Visit: Evergreen

Swamp-Side Studio built this site to help the Evergreen Parent Association promote its unique, balanced-calendar school. With the administration tools, the parent association can easily update the website content. visit evergreenchr.org

“I was amazed by Mike’s ability to take our vague and formless ideas and create with them a website design that exceeded our expectations. What seemed like an enormous undertaking became surprisingly easy thanks to Mike’s effective direction. Mike was so easy to work with, in part because he is a great communicator. He frequently requested our input during the process, and he was very accommodating to our responses. I especially appreciated how accessible Mike made himself to answer our questions as we were getting things off the ground.”

Pam Hoekwater
District Board President
Evergreen Christian School

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Megan Gunnell

• Visit: Megan Gunnell

The Megan Gunnell site was developed to help clients connect to her psychotherapy and music-therapy services. With her new website, the website owner is able to add and change the content on her website. visit megangunnell.com

“I continue to get great compliments on my website. People comment on the ease of use and professional design, as well as the balance of color, images and text. Whenever I had a question about my website or wanted to add a feature, Mike was efficient and experienced in his response. He’s the kind of designer who really understands what the client is looking for. I gave him a rough idea of what I wanted my site to represent and his initial design captured more than I could have ever imagined. I would highly recommend Mike’s work to anyone looking for professional, creative and innovative work. Thanks, Mike – your design has significantly contributed to the success of my business!”

Megan Gunnell
Psychotherapist

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