New work from Sparklejet web design

I recently launched a few new website projects from the Sparklejet design studio:

For the Bayshore Sanitary District, a government agency in San Mateo County, I did the complete site development, including photography. The site features a pure CSS layout and a print style sheet that hides photos and other unnecessary page elements. Compared to many other government agency websites, this one may actually be a pleasure to use.

This large project for California Health Advocates, a Medicare-related non-profit, combined 2 existing  sites with over 550 pages of content into a new 300+ page site. The content-intensive website has a range of design features which facilitate the understanding of the somewhat complex content: Google Custom Search, a text size adjuster, carefully planned typography, a beautifully minimal pure CSS layout originating from Layout Gala, CSS print styles for paper-saving print-outs, a “skip navigation” link for screen readers, and my usual gawjus HTML markup! Pages load quickly and reliably across the spectrum of browsers and devices; the use of plain old semantic HTML optimizes usability.

My work on Just Art Pottery involved a somewhat quick-and-dirty redesign of an old site. While a full redesign was in order, it wasn’t possible given the budget, as well as constraints of an existing e-commerce system. Still, I was able to make big improvements in page speed by converting much of the site from deeply nested tables to modern CSS. I also improved the site navigation — removing duplicate links, reorganizing link location based on usage statistics, and improving legibility of links and content.

It’s going to be a busy year here at Sparklejet — keep an eye on my Web Design Projects page to see other new sites as they launch.