Date created: September 2011

Web Address: www.barnardos.ie

About the Project: I recently joined Barnardos as their Online Executive and one of the first projects I was asked to undertake was a refresh and update of their official website.

A review of the site showed that it was well designed and worked well from a usability point of view.  It did not require a major overhaul, but rather a minor cosmetic update and a reworking of the way certain information was presented.

The changes that I applied included:

• An updated colour scheme that adheres more closely to brand values
• Redesign of site homepage with new social network widgets
• New imagery on key section homepages
• A grid-based layout, using the 16 column, 960 pixel web grid.
• Promotional boxes for the right-hand menu
• A new structure for links on the section homepages
• Installation of social sharing for content with ShareThis
• Update of headers and menus for a clearer hierarchy

Sorry for shouting, but I can’t count the amount of project hours that I’ve lost dealing with hosters who have bad customer service, poor systems and the inadequate services for the job at hand.  It’s particularly frustrating because I know well which Irish hosting services are good, and a simple question before making the purchase can save so much time.

The temptation when you’re planning a website is to race out and buy the domain name straight away, in case someone else gets it. However, domain squatting is not the problem that it used to be, largely because you have to have proof that you own a business name when you’re buying an associated .ie domain.  Even if you’re very keen to nab a domain name, speak to a designer or developer first, even informally – booking a domain with the wrong company can cost you time and money.  I have personally paid double domain charges, and advised clients to do the same, in order to move a domain away from a poor hoster – the time it takes in dealing with shoddy customer service is simply not worth it.

It’s best to buy your domain and hosting from the same company – ask your designer for their recommendation, and for the following info:

• What kind of hosting plan will I need? How much webspace and bandwidth?
• Should I buy a Linux or Windows hosting plan? (Boring and techy but very important, as this choice can affect how your site performs in search engines)

My personal recommendation for a .ie domain name and hosting is Blacknight, and many other Irish designers feel the same way.  I use them for most of my .ie projects and always recommend them to clients.

This site is hosted with Tigertech, a US based hosting company, who I’ve been with for over ten years and who have been consistently reliable and affordable throughout all that time.  I absolutely recommend them for international or US-based .com sites

Date created: February 2011

Web Address: www.turnofftheredlight.ie

About the Project: Turn Off the Red Light is a campaign to end prostitution and sex trafficking in Ireland. The campaign was set up by an alliance of NGOs and was coordinated by the Immigrant Council of Ireland.

I designed the identity for the campaign, and built the website through WordPress so that the campaign could manage their own updates and post regularly to a blog. I worked on the project with Colin Murphy of Polity, who provides media services and production.

Date created: January 2011

Web Address: www.petermatthews.ie

About the Project: I built this website for the very talented Peter Matthews, a Bray-based photographer.  The brief was to keep the site quite clean and minimalist, in order to make Peter’s beautiful photography the main focus.  The site was built through WordPress, and contains a slideshow gallery on the homepage.

Peter has an extremely impressive portfolio and cv – his work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, USA Today and Newsweek.  He is also a personable and lovely individual, and would be a pleasure to have around at a wedding – I would very much recommend getting in touch with him if you are looking for a wedding photographer.

Date created: November 2010

Web Address: www.mamanpoulet.com

About the Project: I recently created a custom WordPress theme for Maman Poulet, one of Ireland’s most popular and highly-regarded political blogs.  The site had previously been using a standard WordPress template, and Suzy of Maman Poulet wanted a new, cleaner and personalised look.

The chicken illustration is by minimil at iStockphoto.

Click the image for some large screengrabs of the new website.

Date created: May 2010

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org

About the Project: In the spring of 2010, I redesigned and rebuilt Oxfam Ireland’s main organisational website, www.oxfamireland.org. The objectives of the redesign were to:

• Improve and modernise the look of the site
• Install a CMS for updating content
• Add tags and categories to cross-link content
• Clean up the homepage, make Oxfam’s organisational priorities clear
• Simplify the content
• Encourage the users to explore the site with interesting content snippets
• Improve search engine optimisation with fresh content

I researched a number of CMS options, and in the end came back to good old WordPress.  The excellent WordPress MU system allowed me to set up a WordPress installation with multiple blogs (a feature that is now available in WordPress 3.0).

WordPress MU is good deal more challenging than WordPress, as there is less online support available, and I found that I had to hack, slash and burn my way through templates, code and plugins in order to get everything working.  I’ve done lots of WordPress customisation before, but this was the most complex one yet. It was very satisfying -  I learned a lot and ended up with a really nice CMS that has lots of excellent features. Updating is so much quicker than it was before, and best of all, content is output in a really useful, flexible way.  Our feeds are going to other sites and social networks without any duplication of work.

Some of the plugins that I used and found invaluable were:

• Sitewide feed – creates a feed of all posts from the multiple blogs. Tricky to get working as the plugin is no longer supported – there’s probably a better solution in WordPress 3.
• WP Menu Manager – creates custom menus without coding, handy if you need other people to be able to add pages
• WordPress Mobile Edition – creates a very well designed mobile version of your site
• Redirection – sets up and manages really quick 301 redirects. Crucial if you are redesigning an existing site and are changing page addresses
• Latest Posts by Category Archive – this plugin enables you to show latest posts in a single category on a page.  Really handy for a site such as Oxfamireland.org – I can now automatically feed the climate change news to the climate change campaigns page, for example.
• Mass Page Maker – also a lifesaver.  WordPress is great for many things, but creating or duplicating lots of pages is not its strength. This plugin allowed me to create our 50+ shop pages all in one go, and much more.
• CMS – this plugin makes handy adjustments to the WordPress backend, allowing the administrator to drag-and-drop pages, and add multiple content blocks to pages.

Date created: January 2010

Web Address: www.maevehiggins.com

About the Project: A WordPress blog and site for the comedian Maeve Higgins. The brief was to make the site very clean and minimalist, with a few small feminine touches. Maeve is one of my favourite comedians of all time, if you haven’t seen her, go check her out.

Date created: Winter 2009

Web Address: www.sammcmahontrust.ie

About the Project: I built this website on a volunteer basis for the Sam McMahon Trust. Sam McMahon is an 8 year old boy from Dublin who suffers from Friedreich’s Ataxia, a degenerative neuro-muscular disorder.  Sam’s family set up the Sam McMahon Trust to raise awareness of the condition and raise funds for the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA).  Sam’s family are doing great work: it’s very inspiring to see how they are becoming advocates and reaching out to others with the condition.  The Trust runs frequent fundraising events, such as a cookery demonstration with Neven Maguire which is coming up in March.

The site is a simple WordPress customisation, which I based on the free theme by Dimox.  The background pattern, illustration of Sam and Sam McMahon logo were designed by Elizabeth Davis.

Date created: May 2009

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/clearurgear

About the Project: Brand new website for the ClearURGear project. The awesome posters were done by Hunter Design, I can’t get over what a great, fun, colourful redesign of the brand it is.

I put together this simple minisite to provide information about the campaign, and to promote its new look.

Oxfam shops are seeing a welcome increase in custom, but because of this, they are running low on donated stock to sell. If you have good quality homewares, books, music, clothes or accessories that you don’t use any longer, now’s a great time to do a clear-out and bring them to an Oxfam shop.

Date created: April 2009

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/drc

About the Project: Noted fashion and portrait photographer Rankin travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo with Oxfam in 2008, where he photographed residents of refugee camps in the northern Kivu province.

These photos can currently be viewed by the public in a unique outdoor exhibition in Wolfe Tone Park, beside the Jervis Centre in Dublin 1.  The exhibition will run until Friday 31st July 2009, and is part of a fundraising appeal for the people of the DR Congo.

Date created: February 2009

Web Address: www.resonatepr.com

About the Project: I recently built this site for Orlaith Finnegan, a freelance PR consultant.  Orlaith did some PR work for us on the website CheapEats.ie, and I can’t recommend her highly enough; she did a really great job in a very short amount of time.  If you’re looking for PR advice or services, Resonate PR is an excellent choice.

Date created: March 2009

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/oxfamvintage

About the Project:  This was one of those responsive jobs for Oxfam – I have a million billion other things to do, but Oxfamvintage is currently getting a lot of coverage and the shop page became one of the most visited pages on our site, so I thought it needed a bit more than just a very basic information page.  I did the design above based on a kind of mood board/scrapbook, and am really happy with how it turned out.

Date created: November 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamhome.org

About the Project: A simple minisite for the Oxfamhome furniture shops. I used WordPress to set this up so that the shop staff and volunteers can update it themselves.

Date created: December 2008

Web Address: www.cheapeats.ie

About the Project: This is my new baby, a food blog edited by myself and my good buddy Peter McGuire. CheapEats is all about eating well in Ireland while getting value for money, and we’re covering everything from shopping tips to restaurant reviews to recipes. Check out the site, leave your feedback and send us your tips on the best places to get good food in Ireland.

Date created: December 2008

Web Address: www.dealmanagementlimited.ie

About the Project: A simple corporate site for Deal Management Limited, a Dublin-based consultancy.

Date created: November 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/oxjam

About the Project: We’ve started a Heroes of Oxjam series on our Oxjam website, to thank all the great musicians and organisers who did such a fantastic job this year.  If you were involved in Oxjam, keep an eye on the site; you may be one of our prize winners.

The superhero illustration is adapted from an istock image.

Date created: October 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/christmas

About the Project: Each year I create a Christmas minisite for Oxfam Ireland; it brings all our Christmas products and content together, and shows shoppers that they can do all or most of their Christmas shopping with Oxfam.

Date created: October 2008

Web Address: www.quadcore.ie

About the Project: A brochure site for a new Dublin-based IT Consultancy firm.

NB: I just installed the Lightbox plugin for WordPress, so click the image above to see a larger version.

Date created: September 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org

About the Project: I’ve just redesigned the Oxfamireland.org homepage – I’d always felt that the original page was too cluttered, and usability research indicated that it needed less content and more clearly marked hierarchies.  I’ve changed it to a tabbed layout so that users can switch between categories of content, and have tried to use more colours and images.

I’ve also implemented other improvements across the site:

• wider layout
• larger font
• global header, linking to all of our main sites
• utilities menu on the footer
• seo-friendly filenames
• improved print stylesheet

Date created: Summer 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/oxjam

About the Project: I’ve just been working on a major redesign of our Oxjam site. I needed something a bit more dynamic than the flat html we used last year – our Oxjam Officer will be blogging and I also wanted to add some content-rich features like a gig calendar and a google map. So I set it up through lovely old trusty old WordPress. Having said that, WordPress did give me some rare trouble this time, but we won’t be falling out over such a small snafu.

I went plugin loopy for this installation, and found some really great addons out there. Big thanks to the geniuses who created the Event Calendar, the Contact Form 7 and MyPageOrder in particular; you’ve made my life a lot easier.

I learned two nifty new things this week- how to set up a Google Map, and how to install and customise a PHP calendar. I feel chuffed that I’ve crammed something useful into my poor tired brain, and both of these tools will come in very handy for lots of future projects.

Custom Google Maps are reasonably complicated, as they require a lot of javascript and the plotting of latitudes and longitudes. I created one on oxfamireland.org for our very popular Oxfambridal shop. But Google also have MyMap, a handy tool for more complex maps – and I used it for setting up a map showing the locations of all the Oxfam Ireland shops.

The first customised, editable calendar, also for Oxfambridal, was set up using Easy PHP Calendar. This is a nice little application that only costs $20 per domain, and which creates flexible and customisable calendars.

Date created: April 2007

Web Address: eoxfam.ning.com (however, this is a private network and is only open to Oxfam staff)

About the Project: I set up this custom social network with two of my international Oxfam colleagues to create an online meeting and discussion space for Oxfam staff who work in multimedia and ecampaigning. Ning.com allows you to set up and customise your social network for free, and is one of the most user-friendly web apps I’ve ever used; it takes about five minutes to get set up.

Date created: April 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/oxfambridal

About the Project: I designed and built this new minisite for the Oxfambridal range. The Oxfambridal shop is located in the Oxfam shop in Georges St, Dublin 2, and sells donated wedding dresses, many of which are brand new and have been donated by designers.

Date created: February 2008

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/passthepresent

About the Project: I created this mini-site for the Pass the Present project – an extremely nifty initiative dreamed up by an Oxfam volunteer. See the site for full details on how the project works – it’s of particular interest if you’re a parent, or have friends and family with kids. I’ve also created a large number of print materials for this project.

Date created: February 2008

About the Project: Banner identity for Oxfam’s 2008 Fairtrade Woman – see also the Fairtrade Woman blog.  The lovely Eilis will be living off Fairtrade Food for the duration of Fairtrade Fortnight, and blogging about her adventures – including tips on where to find Fairtrade goods and how to incorporate more Fair Trade into your life.

Date created: October 2003

Web Address: Currently hosted at Critical Studies in Television

About the Project: This site is the official site for ‘Reading Sex and the City’, the first academic study of the HBO show, edited by Janet McCabe and Kim Akass.

Date created: 2005

Web Address: www.solas.ie, or click on the image to launch the Flash demo

About the Project: Solas is a project specifically designed for children in isolation wards in hospital. It uses the Flash Communications Server to enable video conferencing, chat and sms texting, and also contains tools for creativity. It was set up and is moderated by the Centre for Health Informatics in Trinity College Dublin, and is installed in a kiosk in the isolation ward in Crumlin Children’s Hospital. I was responsible for the interface designs, which you can see in the demo above.

Date created: September 2006

Web Address: www.tcd.ie/Education/ICT

About the Project: This site was created as a learning tool for students of the Trinity College School of Education. The site is written in valid XHTML and contains an interactive Flash tutorial.

Date created: August 2007

Web Address: www.galwaypm.com

About the Project: I designed this website for Galway Property Management – the templates that I designed and coded were then used in building an ASP powered searchable site.

Date created: March 2006

About the Project: This site (no longer online) was devised by Oxfam to raise awareness about background to the dire situation in Kenya. I designed the Flash movie for the entry page and the layout for the html pages.

Date created: July 2005

Web Address: lizmcmanus.blogspot.com

About the Project: I set up this weblog for the Labour Party TD Liz McManus. Liz McManus was one of the first TDs to write a weblog and it has received a lot of media attention, including a mention in the Irish Times.

Date created: August 2006

Web Address: www.criticalstudiesintelevision.com/conference2006/

About the Project:This site was set up as a microsite for the first annual Critical Studies in Television conference: “TV Fiction Exchange”

Date created: 2005

Web Address: www.juliewilsonworld.com

About the Project: A portfolio website and blog for the wickedly talented artist and illustrator Julie Wilson

Date created: Summer 2007

Web Address: www.oxfamirelandshop.com

About the Project: This site was set up through osCommerce in 2006, and I carried out an extensive redesign in 2007, hacking and slashing my way through the osCommerce templates. I’ve also installed numerous add-ons and contributions, so am now about a purple belt in the art of Making osCommerce Behave Itself.

Date created: November 2005, updated regularly

Web Address: www.oxfamireland.org/ecards

About the Project: This microsite was created as a free feature for Oxfam Ireland’s supporters. It allows users to send a friend one of four colourful ecards promoting Oxfam’s campaigns and services.

The programming of the ecard system was kindly done on a volunteer basis by Juan of Instinct.ie.

Date created: September 2006

Web Address: www.catholichousingaidsociety.com

About the Project: I designed and built this website for the voluntary organisation ‘Catholic Housing Aid Society’