ambiquity design

About 10 years ago, Rick and I discovered that we enjoyed designing websites. In fact, we liked it so much that we began creating free sites for friends, family, and organizations: the Garden City Educational Secretaries Union, the St. Thomas Cemetery in Ontario, JMP Enterprises, and my own ancestry site, to name a few.

In 2002, we decided we’d try our hand at professional web design and formed Palmerworks. We began selling our services to small businesses in our then-current home town of Edgewater, Maryland: a local mechanic, a guitar shop, a realtor, a landscaper, and a karaoke/DJ service.

After relocating to the Detroit area, we began to branch out and started offering hosting services. In 2008, we partnered with photographer Lindsey Price and IT expert Brandon Billings to form Ambiquity Design, and added photography and IT services, as well.

Last year, Lindsey started her own company: Lovella Photography. Brandon assists her with clients, but will continue to provide contract services when we need his technical prowess for things like elearning system setup and backend server maintenance. However, the Palmers are now sole owners of the web design company, formerly known as Ambiquity Design.

As of June 1, 2010, we are reverting back to our old name: Palmerworks Design.

Our name has changed, but our services remain the same. Palmerworks will continue to provide web design and hosting services, plus design logos, business cards and other print media for small businesses. We’ve also added another new product: learning management systems.

The Palmerworks Design team will continue to offer affordable professional services. Palmerworks will work closely with each client when designing and writing new website content, and utilize a variety of marketing strategies to help establishing a viable internet identity.

Please be sure to check out some of our clients:

americancme.com

ostlundplumbing.com

marshawestfall.com

everlastasphalt.com

trotterstrategies.com

911setmedics.com

twtchurch.com

singbecauseyoucare.com

gracewayhope.com

A resume is more than just a list of your job qualifications on paper. It’s your opportunity to create a great first impression. In today’s tough economy, it’s important to utilize the various forms of social media available to promote yourself in the job market. Having your resume online is the first step to getting your qualifications out in the limelight, and showing potential employers that you’re comfortable with emerging technology.

Ambiquity Design offers a variety of networking strategies for self-promotion, including the online resume. You can link to your resume from Linkedin.com, Facebook, and major job placement sites. Putting your web address at the bottom of your resume and on emails to prospective employers, makes it easy for them to read far more about you than can be fit on a traditional one-page resume.

Take a look at the resume of Marsha R. Westfall. She’s a new graduate from U of M Dearborn, and she’s looking to begin her teaching career after years of hard work and academic success. In addition to the traditional information about her education and employment history, the online resume provides a link to her science education portfolio, and gives plenty of room for quotes about her teaching philosophy, a full list of references with contact info, and much more. Since it’s created in blog format, Marsha can continue to add more information any time, and she can use it as a personal or professional blog once she begins her teaching career.

Online resume, including domain name and hosting for one year – $175.

They wanted a purple logo and banner, and we aim to please. The Ostlund Plumbing company, located in Westland, Michigan, provides commercial and industrial “design/build” plumbing services. Rick now knows a lot about design/build services, because Ambiquity Design includes content writing in our 5-page web package ($375). Just give us a little information about what your company offers, and we’ll take it from there.

On a personal note, we also know more than we used to about, asphalt providers, lobbyists, set medics, Christian ministries, cemeteries, vintage dolls…

We’ve just finished a site for another new client: The Everlast Asphalt Corporation, owned and operated by Randy Bearden, provides residential and commercial asphalt services for the southeastern Michigan area.

The site creation process started out well when we were able to get everlastasphalt.com for their domain name. Finding the perfect name is a bit tricky nowadays, since so many good names have already been purchased by other companies.

Rick mapped out a site that has a clean, friendly design, highlighting the professionalism and workmanship that Randy Bearden’s company has provided for more than 20 years.

We always learn a lot about each client’s trade when we create a site. Rick researched and wrote quite a bit about the asphalt industry. When Randy told him that asphalt is recyclable, he incorporated a name plate that featured the green we all associate with environmentally friendly products and services.

Ambiquity Design’s goal is to provide highly personalized service for each of our clients. We tailor-made this site to include before and after pictures, all of their services, and a contact form for potential clients. Being MDOT certified and successfully staying in business for more than 20 years are both credentials that can reassure a potential client, so we added that information to the footer on every page. We also incorporated keywords that will attract visitors searching for an asphalt company throughout the site and in the html code, another important aspect of attracting potential clients.

We know most clients are excited to see how many hits their new sites receive, so we install Google Analytics on every site we build.

Thanks to Michele and Randy for choosing Ambiquity for their brand new company website.

We just completed a one-page “business card” site for a new client:

Trotter Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based firm headed by veteran lobbyist Tom Trotter, provides Congressional consulting, strategic advice, and issue advocacy. Whether it’s promoting a particular issue or trying to stop harmful legislation, Trotter’s years of experience and established relationships will help you navigate the process and achieve your legislative goals.

Our business card site package include hosting for one year. We offer customized extras that you can add to your site. In this case, we’ve linked to Trotter’s resume. We also designed his company logo and business cards.

Our newest client is American CME, a fledgling company that provides online training for health care professionals.

American CME offers continuing medical education through documentary-style classes that consist of a video and a short test. While viewing the videos, users can pause and rewind anytime, and they have 24 hours to complete the training. The company has a good business plan, some well-produced videos for the training, and it definitely looks like they’ll fulfill a void in online CME training industry that will lead to a successful venture.

The company founders, Jeff Latkowski and Geoff Lassers, hired us to create a website and logo, as well as to build, set up, and integrate their video training into an online learning management system through Moodle. The first requirement was to have a bare-bones website with video, quiz and chit ready by January 1st, so they could get their site listed in the Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) directory.

Rick created a professional-looking logo/banner, using their name, a subtle medical image and a tagline. I integrated the banner into a Moodle theme that I adapted and revamped into the colors, look, and layout we thought the company was aiming for. Brandon built the Moodle aspects, integrated the video, set up the quiz, passwording, and other technical elements.

We made the January 1st deadline, and here’s stage one of the website. We’re currently adding more pages, a blog, a full FAQ section, and other facets of the site, and I’ll update the Ambiquity blog when the site is complete. The MDCH directory accessed the site, went through the sample course, and American CME has been accepted into their 2010 directory.

Rick designed a new one-page site for Delta: http://singbecauseyoucare.com

The site, hosted by Ambiquity Design, is an ad for a four-day Karaoke fundraiser, “Sing Because You Care,” which raised $2655.25 for the local Wayne-Westland Corps of The Salvation Army. The event was organized and hosted by employees of Delta Air Lines and Wayne County Airport Authority.

The original art for the banner was provided by Gordie Roedeing.

The new site for the Set Medics is ready: http://911setmedics.com. We used the logo we designed, with a tagline that the guys wanted, and they worked out to be a great combo.

Good digital photos are an integral piece of the web design process. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get the crew together for some good shots to use on the site. They all work completely different shifts. Luckily, the medics had a firefighter buddy who is also a really good photographer, and they were able to coordinate schedules for a quick photo session.

The photos turned out well, and we used them as inspiration for the rest of the site development. I decided to make the navigation bar out of a film strip graphic, and coordinated the site background with the brown in the photos. Using a photo of the team that has a bit of red at the top — which matched the red in the banner — brought it all together into a cohesive look.

We also created a blog for the set medics. The next Ambiquity Design blog will discuss integrating a blog into your site, an especially important element of search engine optimization.

We created a site for a new local company. Geoff Lassers and three other West Bloomfield firefighters have created a service that protects local film production crews. They offer an important service and we’re happy to have the chance to work up a site and business cards for these young entrepreneurs.

Since the style and color of the new website are going to complement the company logo, we needed to create that first. The guys wanted something that utilized the staff of life and the EMS star, plus something that signified the film industry.

After playing around with some ideas, we came up with this:

The white background, grayscale, and stark red will work on small media, like a business card, and can also be used as a banner for the site, once we add a tagline. Here’s how the logo looks on the new business card:

The next blog will focus on the site.

The Word of Truth Church of God in Christ is a suburban Detroit outreach that needed a website. Rick worked together with church Minister Mandell Pressley, to create one that corresponded with the vision of the church and its founder, Dr. Robert E. Garner. The result: twtchurchandministries.com (also twtchurch.com — a shorter version that can be used on business cards or other space-limited media).

The six-page site fulfilled their unique requirements, including a prayer request form, a listing of the church’s weekly worship schedule, a blog about upcoming church events, and a blog written by Dr. Garner, the pastor and founder of the church. The two blogs each serve to keep the church members informed, and both pages needed to complement the look of the rest of the site.

Reconfiguring blog templates is a challenge, since a blog isn’t simple html code. Finding the element of the css code and which parts of the page they affect is a little piece of detective work. The blogs rarely look exactly like the html site, but they can incorporate the banner and colors of the main site.