Selected Projects

One current project is a site for Kir's sister, Kaile Burgess (BlackBurge Art). This will be a portfolio site for Kaile's work. We've been developing some design features that are geared towards a younger audience, and using this as a bit of an experimental playground, so far.

Kir designed and built a small website for the Vermont Yarn Company. It needed to extend and expand the look of their current marketing materials to the web, as well as provide a simple, solid web presence. She took digital photos within and outside the shop as needed, used some of their existing graphics, and coached the owner through domain registration and hosting. In future, we plan to add more dynamic updating of products, and an e-commerce shopping cart. This site was launched in July, 2005.

In cooperation with Debra Howard Communications, Kir works with Stone Environmental, Inc. to maintain and expand their site. We upgraded their site several years ago to improve its navigational useability and expand its content. In 2004, Kir and Deb began working with Stone to truly modernize the site, expanding the site to more completely reflect the variety of work Stone does. The look, structure, function, and content of the site were all improved (before on the left; after on the right).Their revised site was launched last November. This is a fairly extensive application of the Suckerfish Dropdown menu system (for which Kir is very grateful!).

After working with Merryn Rutledge on a templates project (see below), Merryn hired Kir back to redesign her website (before on the left; after on the right). They worked together to develop an entirely new look suitable to Merryn's known audience (primarily IE browsers) and compatible with ReVisions' existing materials, and launched this in October, 2004. The site is built to current web standards. Kir is especially pleased to have provided for this site some images (under a creative commons license), and stylesheets specifically for screen media and printing. Kir also provides some ongoing maintenance for Revisions: posting the PDF versions of Merryn's newsletter to the site as needed. She also developed an order form for visitors to request Merryn's book.

Kir helped the Burgess Edge with their second Internet incarnation, when they made the leap from a plain, informational site to an e-commerce site. She customized the host's templates to construct a look and feel consistent with Mike's practical view of carpentry and business. We got the site up and running with the basics of e-commerce, using the particular features of a large hosting company.

Since 2004, Kir has been helping Jim Andrews and crew keep the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas website up-to-date, gradually improving it as we go. We have, as time and budget permitted, cleaned up and modernized the code, added new sections including the development of species-specific info pages, and improved usability of the electronic forms for submitting observations and purchasing posters.

Beginning in 2005, Kir has been updating and maintaing the Field Farm's website. This has included exploring the quirks of maintaining a site built using Microsoft FrontPage, while not using FrontPage to actually maintain the site. For this client, we've reformatted the logo image files to make web-ready versions, updated images, upgrading the code within pages as their content needs updating, and creating some new graphics. She has also provided digital photography services for some new products.

Until 2005, when they expanded enough to bring it in-house, Kir maintained the web site for Capitol Grounds, a terrific coffee shop in Montpelier, Vermont. (She's a bit of a coffee junkie. Mmm, coffee.) On a monthly-ish/as-needed basis, she reviewed the site for currency and accuracy. She was also involved in some site redesign (which is why if you click that image, the site is slightly different than this screen shot), site graphics production for product sales, and software training for the shop owner.

Cambridge Engineering sought a way to consolidate and simplify its web hosting arrangements, which included Cambridge Engineering, ReVisions, and Cathedral Arts websites. Kir identified local web hosting packages, and worked with Marty Poppe to determine the best system of email mailboxes and aliases and to relocate the sites to the new server.

In 2003, Kir helped a local writer develop a broader understanding of HTML. We reviewed the capabilities of Namo WebEditor together, while adjusting and customizing his blog. We explored alternative blogging options, RSS subscriptons and embedding, and how to build a deeper site in his own domain; other topics covered included additional user skills on his PC and FTP.

ReVisions, a company specializing in organizational coaching, needed reliable templates for both email and print forms of her newsletters. In 2003, Kir crafted custom templates for each application, using software the client was already comfortable with and building on existing skills. In 2004, Kir ran a training session for Merryn so she could produce her newsletters in PDF format as well, using Adobe Acrobat 6 and 7.