Web Designer and Developer

Thank you for taking the time to visit Websites by d’Zign. I am based in the Port Townsend, near Seattle, Port Angeles and Poulsbo, and am still active in Santa Cruz, serving all of the U.S. and Canada.

Irealize that you don’t know anything about us, and it’s hard to trust strangers through cyber space. There are plenty of great web designers and developers out there, and you need to find ones you feel you can trust and work well with. So we’ve included a little bio for you. You never know how well you will enjoy working with someone until you start the work, but we’ll try to take some of the mystery out of it before you choose. Get a little more info > >.

Recent Web Design and Website Redesign Projects

With the announcement of Beverly Donofrio’s new book, Astonished: A Story of Evil, Blessings, Grace, and Solace, Irefreshed her author website.

Google fonts and redesigned buttons to buy her books gave her website simple and elegant touches, for an air of newness, without doing a complete website redesign.

“Lynn gave me a beautiful, informative website, easy on the eyes and graceful to behold!”

– Beverly Donofrio, author, “Riding in Cars with Boys”

Sandi Jacobson is a Doula in Santa Cruz. Sandi is a doula in Santa Cruz who required a clean informational website for her clients looking for birth and labor support in Santa Cruz. She picked the colors and supplied professional photos of babies and pregnant women and moms.

David Casterson is a nature writer in Santa Cruz who has published a book on all that grows in the redwood forest. This book is a wonderful resource to learn about plants, both through the written word, as well as coloring in images of plants, which encourages you to pay close attention to more detail than one might ordinarily.

Santa Cruz Pilates studio, Body in Motion, moved to the WordPress platform to be able to update their pages directly. At the same time they wanted a fresh look, including a slideshow. Body in Motion Santa Cruz Pilates studio offers Basi Pilates Teacher Training, Xtend Barre, and more.

Redwood Coast Landscaping is a landscape construction company that has been serving the Santa Cruz area for 20 years. They upgraded their site from a corporate template to something more professional, with more attentive customer support. They got all that, and free hosting, too.

What You Get:

• You own your website
• You are the official Registrant of your domain name
• Free xml sitemap
• Inserting your content, upload to your web host, and test functionality
• Personalize one banner/main image of the design
• Read the full list and descriptions.

Santa Cruz & Port Townsend Web Developers

If you’re passionate about code and web design/development, whether for business or a hobby, you’re invited to meet with our Web Developers group.
The Santa Cruz group began the summer of 2008 and meet once a month to connect with other like–minded folks. Presenters speak on a variety of subjects such as HTML, CSS, typography, etc. Go to our Santa Cruz Web Developer MeetUp site to find out when and where we’re meeting. Our Port Townesend group is new and still in the stage of defining itself. Find out more on our Port Townsend Web Developer site. We invite web designers and developers from Sequim, Port Angeles, and the surrounding areas, if you are willing to travel.

Web & WordPress Resource List

This list of resources was put together for the wonderful people who showed up for the WordPress Workshop we held in Port Townsend with Nate Malmgren. It comes from years of research and experimentation. we will try to create more formal resource pages in the future, maybe with full reviews, but for now we hope this helps you.

WEBSITE HOSTING

iPage

They have the best introductory deals! And they have an easy–to–use interface. They suggest using their Akamai upgrade to speed up your site. Be sure to read the fine print.

Go to iPage website

BlueHost/HostMonster

I have had good customer support with them.
BlueHost website

DOMAIN REGISTRAR

NameCheap

You need a domain name in order to have a website. I find that NameCheap is the least expensive, especially for Privacy Protection (Privacy protects your address, phone number and email from scrapers and spammers)—usually under three bucks. You do not need to purchase your domain and hosting from the same company, in fact you may want to try iPage for hosting.
NameCheap website

STOCK PHOTOS, GRAPHICS, VIDEO, AND AUDIO

iStock Photo

www.istockphoto.com

WORDPRESS THEMES

Weaver II Pro

This is what I usually use to build WordPress websites and blogs.
Weaver II Pro website

StudioPress

This is another option for a WordPress theme. It costs more than Weaver II Pro, but they have prebuilt themes that are professional and slick, if you don’t want to take the time to design your own. I’m looking forward to using them one day. Suggestion: with this, as with most themes, if you choose a theme from here, be sure you like it the way it is. It may take more work and/or money to customize the basic structure.
StudioPress website

PLUGINS FOR WORDPRESS

Most plugins can be imported into Wordpress through the menu system on the left—this is the easiest way:
> Plugins
> Add New
Search using the titles below, and use the names below (when available) as reference to know that you’re getting the right plugin.

Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades

Chris Jean or chrisbliss18
This is required to update Weaver II Pro.
Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades website

Google XML Sitemaps

Arne Brachold
This is needed for google to find your website and pages more easily and quickly.
Google XML Sitemaps website

Fast Secure Contact Form

Mike Challis
Good product and a good guy. I use FSCF almost exclusively on both HTML and WordPress websites.
Fast Secure Contact Form website

Meteor Slides

Recommended by Weaver II Pro.
Meteor Slides website

NextGEN Gallery

NextGEN Gallery website

Portfolio Slideshow

Recommended by Weaver II Pro.
Portfolio Slideshow website

Login Security Solution

Daniel Convissor
Developer’s description: Requires very strong passwords, repels brute force login attacks, prevents login information disclosures, expires idle sessions, notifies admins of attacks and breaches, permits administrators to disable logins for maintenance or emergency reasons and reset all passwords.
Login Security Solution website

Spam Free WordPress

Free version to replace Akismet.
Spam Free WordPress website

Please keep in mind that plugins and other programs and products change. I have done my best to find quality, low–cost items. Please see my Privacy and terms page for more information.

Affordable Web Design, Website Redesign, and Website Maintenance for Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay, Port Townsend, Sequim, Poulsbo, Silverdale, Bainbridge Island, Seattle. Profiles: Thumbtack, WDD.

Not Ready to Hire a
Web Developer?

Need a Referral?

Need skills or a style different than what I offer? I’m more than happy to refer one of my colleagues. Email me for a customized list.

• graphic design
• IT and hosting engineering
• Software development
• Startup development
• Drupal, JS, JQuery
• Apps (Mac & Android)
• Marketing
• Social Networking
• Copywriting
• and more

Just pop me an email with what you are looking for, and I’ll send you a list of professionals who specialize in what you need. Email me.

Port Townsend Resources