TEDxGrandRapids needed a WordPress expert to build a website that conformed with the TED brand. In collaboration with the TEDxGrandRapids design team, lead by thinkxd, Swamp-Side Studio built a custom WordPress theme for TEDxGrandRapids. visit tedxgrandrapids.org
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 JavaScript 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
CQL builds e-commerce platforms, mobile applications and enterprise technology systems. They know software, so it’s no surprise they chose WordPress for their new website. Swamp-Side Studio worked with the CQL sales team and coders to build a site that enables CQL to easily change content and add blog posts. Favorite features are an employee Twitter feed on the home page and a work portfolio. visit cqlcorp.com
“Thanks to Swamp-Side for orchestrating so much more than just a CQL WordPress theme.”
Kurt Nahikian
Defender of the Big Idea
CQL
Witte Travel & Tours specializes in both vacation travel and group tours, so they needed a highly-customized website that presents the two sides of their business. The flexibility of WordPress enabled that, and WordPress also makes it easy for Witte Travel to maintain their website content and take advantage of search engine optimization features to bring targeted visitors to their site.
This new website was designed in collaboration with the Witte Travel & Tours webmaster. The site incorporates travel searches, access to travel brochures, a group travel calendar of tours, advertisements, newsletter signup, and online requests for proposals. visit wittetravel.com
“We presented Mike with the job of upgrading our website that had some unique challenges but they didn’t seem to phase Mike. He listened, understood and fulfilled our goals to create a new, exciting, dynamic digital storefront for Witte Travel & Tours in a very short period of time. Mike also offered many tips and ideas for SEO that we continue to integrate into our online marketing. Mike and our in-house designer worked as a team on many aspects of the project. Their shared knowledge and skills are another reason for the success of the project. Just as important, Mike was always prompt, friendly, and professional. Thank you!”
Lorna Elve
Marketing Manager
Witte Travel & Tours
The Men’s Resource Center of West Michigan needed a new website that they could easily update themselves. You guessed it, we built a WordPress site. Now the Men’s Center site includes a blog and helpful online self-assessments such as What Kind of Abusive Man am I? and Am I a Victim of Domestic Violence? By attracting targeted visitors with search engine optimization and by offering valuable and compelling content, the new website has dramatically increased visitors and average time on site. visit menscenter.org
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
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
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.
“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
Working with Ignition, Swamp-Side Studio created three sites for FloraCraft; a corporate site, MakeIt: Fun for Styrofoam crafts, and DesignIt: Flowers for floral arrangements in Styrofoam bases. These sites feature online catalogs, craft instruction pages, slideshows and video. With WordPres, FloraCraft can update and add to their online product catalog and craft pages on their own. visit floracraft.com
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.
“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
Therapist Outfitters helps counselors, therapists, psychologists, and social workers adapt and succeed in the changing world of mental health and substance abuse treatment. Therapist Outfitters is an online store where counselors can purchase books, manuals and white papers to help improve their therapy practice. Titles include Substance Abuse Worksheets and Worksheets for Facilitating Domestic Abuse Groups. visit therapist-outfitters.com
“Great! Thank you for all your attentivness, thought, enthusiasm, and patience. I can’t imagine how anybody could do a better job.”
Charlie Donaldson
Founder
Therapist Outfitters
Capgemini Business Information Management is an example of how flexible WordPress can be. This private corporate document library is designed around the familiar online store pattern. Sales pursuit team members can log in, browse the document library, add marketing assets to their shopping cart, then email their digital asset cart to anyone.
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
The Grand Rapids Child Discovery Center school strengthened communication with current and prospective parents by creating a new website containing news stories, press releases, enrollment forms, newsletters, school calendar, and other online resources. This site was designed in collaboration with r.o.i. Design.
Child Discovery Center staff are 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
(former) Principal
Grand Rapids Child Discovery Center
The Times and Titles sales team needed a website of just a few pages to showcase their product that provides telephone recordings of movie show times. This project had a tight schedule, so we chose to purchase and customize a premium WordPress theme to fit their needs. Now Times and Titles has a great online marketing tool showing the benefits of their movie hotline system. visit Times and Titles
“We brought Mike in from the very beginning to collaborate on a small website to showcase one of our product lines. His ideas on how to quickly and economically put together what we needed were invaluable. His work was on time and on budget. We’ve been getting rave reviews on the site from employees, investors, and customers.”
Brad Morrill
General Manager
BBTelsys
Swamp-Side Studio built this site to help the Evergreen Parent Association promote its unique, balanced-calendar school. With the WordPress 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
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 use WordPress to add and change the content. 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
