Janvier Design Services

When Erica contacted me to help editing her  website, I was not only thrilled because it’s an amazing site in design, but also it challenged me to push the limits to make http://www.thepinkflamingo.info look better.

She wanted a wordpress based website and stakes couldn’t be any better. I love wordpress, especially that it is very standards compliant and comes with a swarm of plugins that can be customized to suit one’s needs. I used the revolution lifestyle templateby Brian gardner to make this site look newer and this what Erica had to say “Absolutely fantastic” !!

Popularity: 36% [?]

I have been working lately with Dale Mercer, owner and manager of http://www.thebeautyreview.com.au based in Gold Coast, Australia. His appreciation for the wordpress Revolution template made my life easy. I had set up a few other websites with the same template, and honestly, I have found just another handful template that could rival it such as the omni templates Click here to visit OmniTheme website!

This project was fairly fast and straightforward becuse Dale knew exactly what he wanted, a quality many Online providers lack!  Thanks  Dale

Another addition to my wordpress portfolio!

Popularity: 8% [?]

Many times I get surprised when someone asks me a question about owning a website, creating one or both. To most it seems like a complicated task or a chalenging investment. It probably was ten years ago when skilled web designers weren’t as numerous. Today it can take just a few minutes to set a professional website or blog up. Literally!

Take the example of janvierdesigns.com … I registered this domain with bluehost.com within a minute or two for $10/year. Using easyscripts in cpanel I set up a wordpress blog in the root directory of janvierdesigns.com  within less than five minutes. In total, it took me close to 6 minutes to set up janvierdesigns.com .  When I share this story, some people find it hard to take, and that is why I am sharing in this post how to do that and why it is the best way to approach website design.

1. You will start with a domain name. That is the somethingyouwant.com  part of the site. It adentifies your website among the billions of others on the Internet. Usually a domain name is under $10 a year. It can be registered with a different registrant than your hosting company. In my case I do both through  bluehost.
2. Once you have your domain registered, simply assign it to some hosting package. In most cases hosting packages come with “addon domains” option. This allows you to add extra domains to your main hosting account at no extra cost. For example, with bluehost you sign up for the main domain, let’s say mysiteof choice.com This costs  $6.95/month. Now, you would need to register another domain name and add it as an addon domain on the main account (mysiteofchoice.com) via the control panel.
3. In the addon directory, install wordpress. The easiest way to do this (which is what I use) is to use easyscripts. It takes a few seconds when you use a package installation software such as easyscripts or fantastico. These package installation softwares, with a simple click you create the necessary database, database username and assign necessary privileges as well as copying all basic files to show your website. At least in the default format. At this stage the website is already set up.
4. Customize your site/blog.
   This is the stage where you can install other templates/themes add plugins and many more cool features that don’t come with “traditional page after page” website creation.

There you have it. Once your site is up and running you can create pages and posts at simple clicks. There are many advantages that come with way of website design I discuss in “web design that rocks”. Get there and learn more. If you don’t understand the whole “addon domain” thing, please feel free to visit my post on that  topic here.

Popularity: 14% [?]

“If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it”.

I have had my share of absurd ideas from my early childhood, but the one to become my own boss as a web designer was probably the most profound. At least in the eyes of certain people. I decided to leave it all behind, to look  nowhere else but inside and unleash the designer in me. The truth is, I have fallen in love with php Programming since 2005 when I was trying to “automate”  my then static  website. I wanted to store information in a “table” of some kind instead of having to edit the page every time I need  to carry out a change. With a little search on google, almost accidentally I realized what I was trying to do was exactly what server-side programming is all about. PHP became  my language of choice and I haven’t looked  back ever since. In September 2006, I was “playing” in the CPANEL of  bluehost (my host)  and I realized they had a fantastico  icon. I followed the link and landed on a bunch of applications that could be installed on a mouse click. In the days that followed I targeted wordpress because it was  different from what I was used to. It turned out that wordpress is undoubtedly the best content management system  for publishing on the Internet  today! Since then, I have developed some skills  and a better understanding of programming generally and the Internet in particular.

I have a few  reasons I chose to be a designer and I will detail them shortly below.

1. A skill in demand.

   Today millions of websites and blogs are create every single day for various reasons. You will be surprised  how many people lack the skills to maintain their own websites and blogs and yet want an “Online presence”. That’s where designers like me come in. Designing  a  functionally professional website requires to create a database that stores the info, interactive scripts  that fetch the info from the database and populate the pages and/or the other way around, design the pages to give them an acceptably attractive look, optimize the site for Search engines, and collect relevant  information from visitors for analysis or other purposes.  These are skills I acquired over the years and that may be useful to someone.

2. I love it!

   Usually I refer to it as “web programming”. That is, designing and maintaining applications that interact to make websites more interesting. This may be in server-side languages such as PHP or ASP, or client side in Java, javascipt or any other. I almost don’t play with “basic html” anymore because I am more interested in generating it dynamically.

3. Flexibility.

   One other reason I am so sold to web design and web development  is the flexibility to do things as they make sense. So, in the morning if I am not pretty sure about a script A that requires a little more thinking I can do graphics or the other way around. I can work from 7Am to 7 pm or 2 Am to 11 Am. This enhances my creativity and relieves a lot of pressure and stress off my shoulders. I love web design as a job!

4. IT’S AN ART

   Of course it is! From my early childhood I loved drawing, singing and “making things”.  I have an artistically creative mind  I did not get to develop fully because I focused more on learning Science and mathematics.  When I am designing, I let my mind wonder, explore, experiment. I change things around, add, remove, join,.. It allows me to unleash the artist in me, not necessarily in the traditional sense of the word, and that’s what I love about it.

I have a few other reasons I choose to bring my web design skills out, but I will limit myself to letting you explore the site. If you have any question, use the contact me page and let me know. I will answer all the questions personally as accurately as possible.

Popularity: 12% [?]