his
web site began as a project for my Interface Design class
at The Corcoran College of
Art + Design in Washington, D.C., where I completed
a certificate program in Electronic Publishing/Web Design
in 2001. The assignment was to create a portfolio of our
school work, with an emphasis on a particular theme or skill
and to show photography and other graphic arts projects.
My site started out as a travel photo portfolio of one of
my trips to France, (the explanation for my url/domain name), along with some of my class projects.
Over time, it has since become a web design portfolio site showing
all of my current (and some past) website design projects which are
displayed on my
Portfolio
projects
page. I also have an interest in typography, and my Graphic design projects section shows some of my typography posters and other graphics that I have created, after taking a class in typography at The Corcoran. (Please see the graphic link in the right column of this page, called “What is Typography?” ) I am also a frequent visitor to other
typography and graphic design-related blogs on the Internet, some of which
are listed under my Web resources page, since typography and color are two of my favorite design topics!
One of my projects this past year included developing a WordPress blog for a friend/client who took a summer travel sabbatical, and blogged
about his visits to land trusts between Maine and Montana. The purpose of his blog was to write about how land trusts help to protect and preserve the undeveloped wild regions throughout our country, and at the same time, help to save the environment. Though the acquisition of landtrust easements and cooperation from individual landowners who would like to donate their lands for conservation, people can conserve the lands for future generations, to come. His blog, "Unity to Wisdom," (the name referring to the blogger’s beginning and ending destination towns), is located at: http://www.unitytowisdom.org. To do this project, I took a class to develop
my skills with WordPress, and learned how to set up a blog, as well as how to incorporate the blog posts with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. I then transferred management of the blog to the client, so he could update it himself. The blog also featured podcasts of his visits to the land trusts which he recorded and uploaded, making his travel stories more interesting and interactive. The blog development was a fun
learning project for me from a design aspect, and in terms of learning how to create a distinctive look using plug-ins, colors, added navigation and static pages. I recently set up a new blog for another one of my freelance association clients, and that one has been fun to maintain as well, this time myself. In the future, perhaps I will have time for my own design blog at some point—but for now, due to my job schedule and maintaining all of these other websites, my website will have to do as an improvisational “blog!”
My other website projects this year have included ongoing web
work for The Northern Virginia Chorale, as well as a new website for a mortgage broker/lender, Elite Mortgage Capital LLC, located at: www.elitemortgagecapital.com. The Northern Virginia Chorale’s website I frequently update with their seasonal performance information, as well as content for their Singers’ Only section, which serves as an internal practice resource for the chorale with musical mp3 links, and other voice and learning resources.
On my own website I like to use fun, colorful graphics and images, and spend time creating new headers based around the seasons, and holidays. I use the right-hand column of this page for links to other sites that are either design-related, or of some other interest to me. Being a nature-enthusiast, my resources page on the important topic of global warming is a page that has several links to various sites, articles, and videos about this urgent and timely environmental topic, and what we can be doing to try to solve it. I also have some pages devoted just to travel photos from some of my trips, although the France photos have been replaced with photos from California and Ireland, more recently.
You can read about all of my website projects from the icon links on
myPortfolio projects page.
Beyond my own freelance work, I have worked as a web content editor and developer
for a number of associations where I managed larger,
more complicated websites, and created things like e-newsletters,
flyers, and online registration processes. I have also worked with
other graphic design team members to prepare photos and graphics for
both print and web publications. Between my freelance work and the association work, I have experience
with everything from designing the site architecture, navigation,
and graphics; to writing, editing, taking photos, and developing
visual content. My work for the associations has involved creation of new content, within the larger framework of different content management systems.
There
is always something new and exciting happening on the Internet
in terms of technology, but I try to concentrate
my efforts on the things that I know how to do best for
now in web design, depending on how much time I have to learn new things, and using my programs like Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as Dreamweaver. I have gained inspiration from reading
other designers’ and bloggers’ websites like
Veerle
Pieters’ who has devoted a lot of time to tutorials and provided much insight
into both graphic and web design, for designers like me. I find the
web design work to be both fun and challenging, and enjoy
the creative, artistic, as well as the technical aspects
of it. I also like to write and edit, and find that web design
lends itself to all of these things. Before working
as a web designer, I was a paralegal, and have a degree
in political science. However, I have always maintained an avid
interest in things like art as well as graphic design, so
like other career-changers, decided to pursue something
that was more in keeping with my own individual passions
and interests!
Thank you for visiting my site. I appreciate all those visitors who continue to come back.
--
Jacquie Apel
ContaCt: To
contact me, please use my online
form.
My
website design experience includes working with
the following
graphic design and web programs:
PROGRAMS: I
am currently using Dreamweaver CS4, Illustrator
and Photoshop. have some experience with Flash, and InDesign CS2. I also have experience hand-coding both
HTML and CSS stylesheets, implementing Javascript,
coding forms to work with various kinds of scripts,
and an understanding of the basic principles of
interface architecture and design.
IN
THE PROCESS OF: Learning
more about current web trends in usability and design,
other web programming languages like ColdFusion
and XML, and I am striving to become more proficient
with CSS2, as well as valid HTML code, and Section
508 accessibility requirements as I have time.
Please
visit my web
resources page
for links to other websites and helpful information
for designers.
»
Travel
photos from some of my trips
