Dramatic Design

P.R. Builders

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Located in Hastings, Michigan, Paul and his team of builders are in the constuction and remodeling business.

The P.R. Builders website was built with a large, non-scrolling, non-repeating background, with the foreground being a semi-transparent base for the content of the site. The content scrolled, while the background (the house) remained still.

The photo gallery shown in this screenshot shows thumbnails of P.R. Builders’ work. What you can’t see in the screenshot is the dynamic slideshow that opens when you click on any of the thumbnails. It was a very nice effect.

This site also had a News blog, so the company could easily update viewers on projects, as well as advertise properties that were available to rent or purchase.

Testimonial:

I think that home page looks great! I think it goes along with a nice clean look. Not to fancy or anything but pretty simple and straight forward. Keep up the good work.

Thanksgiving Business Blessing

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Happy Thanksgiving! There is a business-related blessing that we can all take advantage of on our 2004 tax return, which is coming up all too soon.

Susan Foster of Thornapple Financial Center writes on her blog:

“The IRS has passed a new mileage rate to be used from September 1st thru the end of the 2005. The business mileage rate for 2005 was set at 40.5 cents per mile and has now been raised to 48.5 cents a mile for the last four months of the year. What this means to you is that you will need to bring in two mileage figures this year — one for the first 8 months of the year and a second for the last four months of the year. The IRS cautions that this is only a temporary mileage rate because they believe that gas prices will stabilize at a lower cost.”

Thanks for the great information, Susan–and kudos for updating your blog with some great information we can all use!

Do you have a blog on your website? Remember that updating it often with pertinent information will keep your visitors coming back!

New Clients and Redesigned Sites

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It has been an amazingly busy couple of months for Dramatic Design with new clients and redesigns. I’ll start by welcoming our new clients and telling a little about their businesses and sites.

Sarah and Warren Ulrich are the owners of Jessco Real Estate, located in Hastings, Michigan. They have just recently opened Jessco, but have been in the real estate business for quite some time. They really seem to love what they do and I can tell that they treat their clients with great care and respect. They would be a great choice if you’re looking to buy or sell a home, looking for an investment property or a cottage to rent. Sarah and Warren have also earned a free month of Hosting and Maintenance for the referral of our next client!


DOD Transport (Deal of the Day) is owned by Jon Kobe. This is a brand new business, but Jon has been in the business for many years. He has an entrepreuneral spirit and decided to launch out on his own. He seems to be doing great so far–he had 3 new clients on his first day of business! Way to go Jon! DOD Transport is a transportation broker. If you need something shipped, Jon will arrange for it to happen–whether by truck or rail–in the least expensive way for you.

Our next new site is Soggy Bottom Labs. Paul & Sandy Spittka breed, sell and show labrador retrievers. Their puppies are very friendly and learn early on to love children and other animals because they are in an environment from birth with lots of children and other animals. Soggy Bottom Labs sell AKC registered puppies for pets, as well as for show. Sandy will be updating frequently to tell about the puppies and show pictures of new litters as they are born.

Creagious Kids isn’t a new site, per se, but the owners, Dan and Jackie Thompson, have been so busy with a very successful business that they hadn’t had time to work on their website. So, Elizabeth Crowder, Creagious Kids Website Project Manager, has taken on this project with enthusiasm and skill. Thanks to Elizabeth, Creagious Kids now has a great website, filled with content and a regularly updated blog, which is great for the parents. Parents can see what activities the children are involved with, upcoming news and events, and soon, they will be able to view and order pictures of their children from the photo gallery.

Another site that has been with Dramatic Design for a while, but again, too busy with business to work on a website, is Thornapple Financial Center. (This is such a great thing, that these businesses are so successful!) Kris has played a big roll in helping get this site up and running for owner, Susan Foster. The site opens with a blog to keep clients and visitors updated with frequent updates. This will be especially important after January 1, when all the tax deadlines start coming up. You can email each person at Thornapple Financial Center right from their staff profile pages.

Dr. Greg Randall and Hastings Family Dentqal have a great newly redesigned website. It is much more contemporary than their old site, with some JavaScript rollover buttons and a blog. That’s right, Dr. Randall is blogging! Check out the dental advice and new products that Dr. Randall will review on his blog.

Also redesigned, The Faith Journey takes on a travel theme look. We congratulate The Faith Journey on entering into its second year of ministry in the Howell, Michigan area. Pastor Stephen Cottle will also be blogging, and we will hopefully be getting some sermons online that anyone can download and listen to on their iPod, MP3 player, or computer. Those who want to, can also burn the sermons to CD to listen to in their car or give to a friend.

We would also like to mention that Wendy’s Angels has recently moved from wendysangels.info to wendysangels.com, which is a better fit for the site, since it is a commercial site. Best wishes to Wendy, as she supplies the rubber stamping needs of people in the Binghamton, New York area, as well as those of the WWW. Congrats on your new domain, Wendy!

Keep up the great work everyone!

Behind The Scenes

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Some “behind the scenes” things have been going on at Dramatic Design lately…things that only current clients have known about until now. The client base for Dramatic Design has grown to the point that monthly billing was becoming a huge ordeal. So, instead of doing that manually, we now have an accounting program that helps with the task. Clients received their first look at the new invoicing system during the last billing cycle. The new accounting program will help free up more time for the important stuff–like designing websites, getting newsletters out, and keeping in better contact with clients.

One of the things we are trying to do is to get to know each client a little better. In an effort to do this, we invited them to have “virtual coffee” with us! Going for coffee, for most people, isn’t really about the “coffee”. It’s really about the relationship…the conversation…getting to know each other. So, each client was sent a questionaire about things we would talk about over coffee. As an encouragement for response, Dramatic Design is doing a drawing among those clients that send the questionaires back. The prize is either a Starbucks Gift Card or a Dramatic Design Coffee Mug. There’s still time to send your responses back in–the drawing will be held by the next billing date. Update: Congratulations to Captain Bill Muirhead of Spider Sportfishing!

New stat counters have also been installed on client sites that give some great real-time statistics, as well as reports that can be emailed weekly and/or monthly. Clients will be able to see where visitors are coming from, their general location, and length of visit–just for starters. The counters are invisible and don’t interfere with the performance of the website in any way. Just another “special touch” from Dramatic Design to you…no extra charge!

We recently also attended a great marketing seminar geared toward small businesses. Tony Rubleski of Mind Capture Group was the speaker. He gave lots of great advice, but focused on marketing with “grabbers”–something that “hooks” your potential customer and gets them interested enough in your marketing piece to read the whole thing…instead of tossing it in the nearest garbage can. Thanks to the Barry County Chamber for offering this seminar to it’s members.

Several new client sites are in the works, but the clients are extremely busy, so things are going a little slower than everyone involved would like. There are also several other yet unsigned clients “in the hopper”, so to speak. They are also anxious to get moving, but have to work through some details first. More on those later…

Exciting month!

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It’s been a fun and exciting month for Dramatic Design. Lots of fun, new projects in the works. Wendy emailed, “I just have to tell you I am doing the happy dance. I was just contacted by a lady who saw my website, YEP you read that right, website (that YOU made), and asked for information about TAC and might be interested in signing up with TAC. WAHOO!!!!!! Look at all your hard work working for little old me. I thought you might like to hear about this. I will have to let you know what becomes of it.” This happened within only a week of posting “real” content on her site, which was a real encouragement for her.

I have been working with a couple of new clients on their blogs (web logs, in case you’re not familiar with the term). Lois has been blogging for a while, but has just taken a couple of big steps–her own domain and private hosting. She has purchased the domain SoCloseToReal.com (formerly “Ruminations of a Headless Horse[wo]man” hosted at the Blogger free hosting). We found a perfect picture to use on her blog. Special thanks to Dave Shields at Devilgas Photographic for the use of his artwork! Jeanette is a brand new blogger, but is very excited about keeping an online journal. We decorated her blog with yellow roses–one of her favorite things. Much of the site is still under construction.

Jenni also has some great new drawings posted. Be sure to check her What’s New blog to read all about the Featured Print for January.