Archive for the ‘CDS News’ Category

Posted on October 18, 2011 - by CDS

Corvus is Expanding!

We’re excited to announce we’ll be opening two new offices in San Francisco, California and Southern Utah/Las Vegas area. Can’t reveal too much more at the moment, but we’re very excited to start working with new clients in these areas within the next few months!

Posted on August 31, 2011 - by CDS

Digging into Wordpress, the Book

Digging into Wordpress is both a tutorial blog and recently released book, both by Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr. I’ve been the occasional fan of the site, and decided to give the book a try. I suppose it was mostly the sleek and beautiful design of the book itself that drew my attention, with its aqueous pages and spiral spine. This is definitely not your average reference book, and right away it’s obvious that a lot of time and thought went into the functionality and usability of this book.

The design and organization of the book makes it an easy-to-use reference that actually stays open on your desk (a nice touch). The chapters are well organized, and the color coding makes it super simple to find what you’re looking for. Another design bonus is the lovely typography.

I won’t give a whole synopsis of the book, as that can be found on the website (Digging into Wordpress). But I will give my brief opinion. I would say the book is definitely for web professionals wanting to dig deeper into the inner workings of Wordpress, and those who are interested in developing advanced Wordpress themes. Although the book starts off a little on the elementary side, describing what hosting and domain names are, it makes a sharp turn into the technical that would leave a novice developer clueless. I found that a little uneven, but was grateful for the shift. As a seasoned developer, I certainly don’t need a $75 brush up on the most fundamental aspects of websites. I understand including this basic information for completeness, but honestly I think it could do without it if the book were intended specifically for web professionals.

Aside from the somewhat slow start, the book speeds up and offers a ton of valuable information, from secure installation practices to creating Wordpress CMS applications. If you’ve ever looked at a Wordpress site and said to yourself, “I want to know how they did that”, it can probably be found in this book.

Overall, I highly recommend this book for anyone and everyone designing and developing with Wordpress. I am glad I shelled out the $75. Oh, and you can purchase the PDF version instead for just $27.

More info/purchase: Digging into Wordpress Book

Posted on August 28, 2011 - by CDS

Shopify No More

In light of the growing number of rip off reports and tales of peeved Shopify customers blazing across the internet, we’ve decided to cut all ties with Shopify, effective immediately. We started offering customized Shopify online stores as an alternative to Miva Merchant because of its appeal to highly non-techy shop owners. However, Shopify’s increasingly negative reputation has us very concerned.

Our PSD Design Shop was created with Shopify, but we decided to switch to Wordpress a few weeks ago. When I cancelled the Shopify web store, I was told it was successfully cancelled, but was subsequently charged the monthly fee after cancellation. When several inquiries requesting a refund went unanswered, I started looking around on the internet to see if this is some sort of scam. Unfortunately, I found several other accounts stating the exact same thing. I thought it was an honest mistake at first, until I read the other accounts. We simply cannot stand behind such questionable practices, and so cannot endorse their product or company any longer.

From this point on, we will be working only with WordPress and Miva Merchant for online shops. And if you’re missing our popular PSD Design Shop, no need to worry, we’re in the process of redeveloping and enhancing the shop with WordPress. We’ll have the shop back up very soon!

We will also continue to provide full support for the many clients who are already using Shopify.

Update: After publishing this post, I finally received an answer to the inquiries I sent requesting a refund. They apologized, said is was an honest mistake, and said to have refunded the unauthorized charge. I don’t know if it was this article that prompted them to finally reply to my communications, or if it’s just a timing coincidence. But it doesn’t matter, the damage has been done. The other reports of similar cases are still lingering out there in cyberspace, causing me to remain too suspicious of Shopify to work with them again. As such, we’re still disassociating completely with Shopify, effective immediately.

Posted on August 10, 2011 - by CDS

Rerun Productions Redesign

We just completed a revamp and upgrade of Rerun Productions, one of our very first clients. We’ve worked with Rerun for years and just adore their whole idea of functional art made from recycled items. Anyway, we upgraded their previous flash site to a simpler Wordpress site with more emphasis on search engine optimization, networking and traffic generation. This new site is also a complete CMS with video integration, Ajax features, automatic photo resizing, lightbox popup, built-in “simple forms”, and more. The idea was to create something minimal, simple, user-friendly that just shows the artwork, plain and simple. I’m a huge fan of the grid/masonry layout and was very excited to create this automatic-resizing masonry site. We’ll eventually be developing an integrated Wordpress online store, too.

Take a look at www.rerunproductions.com, and feel free to tell the folks at Rerun how much you love their creations via the comment forms!

Posted on December 6, 2010 - by CDS

Welcoming Sarah Bledsoe to CDS

We’re happy to announce that the talented Miss Sarah Bledsoe has accepted a design position with Corvus Design Studio. She will be temporarily heading up the design dept while I am away on personal leave. Sarah comes from a long line of artists, from many disciplines. She is the first to venture into graphic design, and her work can be found gracing the pages of websites of some very notable companies, including Rolling Stone, Sony, Apple, Interview, and Reebok, to name a few. We’re very happy to have her aboard. She tells it better, so here are a few words from Sarah:

“I’m so happy to have the opportunity to work with a design studio of Corvus’s prestige. Yeah, I know that sounds snooty, but when you land your dream job, you just feel so special. I am very excited to have joined Jessica as the two designers that make up Corvus’s creative and technical team. And I can’t wait to get to work landscaping the web, as I like to say!”

Posted on December 6, 2010 - by CDS

Latest Project: Midstate SWR

Midstate Solid Waste and Recycling is the third website at the same location (see previous two posts). Offering cargo containers, roll off boxes and bin rentals, Midstate Solid Waste and Recycling’s fleet of yellow and white trucks are a regular site in Paso and Templeton. The facility is shared with North County Compost and North County Recycling, where local green waste is turned into compost and woodchips, and collected recyclables are processed. This site is a standard XHTML/CSS, with Flash elements, a WordPress blog and a SimplePie blog feed on the homepage.

Posted on December 6, 2010 - by CDS

Latest Project: North County Recycling

North County Recycling is the second of three websites for the same location. NCR is a unique recycling center, specializing in demolition and construction recycling. Perfect for our many local real estate development, construction, and restoration companies. This site is standard XHTML/CSS, with some Flash elements and a matching WordPress blog.

Posted on October 21, 2010 - by CDS

Latest Project: North County Compost

North County Compost is one of a set of three related projects (owned by the same client). North County Compost is the first to launch, and one of my favorite designs thus far. Check out the site at www.northcountycompost.com. Being that the Central Coast is a tight knit community, keep in mind that NCC offers high quality soil/compost from local sources. And they’re right here in Paso Robles.

Posted on March 5, 2010 - by CDS

Latest Project: Healthy Harvest Hydro

One of my all time favorite projects, Healthy Harvest Hydroponics and Organics‘ new website officially launched a few days ago. Located in San Luis Obispo, H3O offer high quality hydroponics equipment and organic gardening supplies. The shop is the largest on the Central Coast, and stocked full of the essentials.

H3O is a brand new business, and we were lucky enough to be chosen to create their logo, website, WordPress blog, business cards and a 3′x8′ banner displayed on the outside of their building. This is one of my favorites because not only do I have a great appreciation for natural/organic/eco-friendly enterprises, I was able to be very creative and produce an award-winning website that I’m extremely proud of. And H3O’s owners were an absolute pleasure to work with.

I’m sure that you will find the shop and staff equally positive at Healthy Harvest Hydro. So if you have the need for hydroponic gardening supplies or would just like to learn more about how it all works, I highly recommend dropping by the shop (2958 S. Higuera Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401, (805) 596-0430. Check out the website for updates, hours, to request products and to read a little about hydroponic too

Posted on October 19, 2009 - by CDS

Ecommerce Just Got Easier

We’re happy to announce our new streamlined ecommerce solution, based on Miva Merchant. Now our clients can have all the benefits of our Enterprise Solution, for the price of our e-Lite solution. Because we feel that Miva Merchant is one of the most robust and versatile online store applications, we are now working solely with Miva.

Have Questions? Want to open an online store? Please contact us to get started or to find out more.

Options and pricing are as follows:

Custom Shopping Cart Design
starting at $2,000

Miva Merchant Hosting
$40/mo. No setup fees, includes Miva Merchant license (a $995 value). 1 year contract required

Authorize.net Payment Gateway*
Free setup, $15/mo.,  .05 per transaction, and  2.25% processing fee (Visa/Mastercard/AmEx fee)

We like to say that in general you’re monthly fees to operate your store will be around $75, excluding any fees charged by your bank, and transaction fees. Design, hosting and payment gateway setup can all be done through us, making the entire process a lot simpler.

Please feel free to drop us a line to talk a little about your ecommerce needs…

* Authorize.net is not a service provided directly by Corvus Design Studio, and it only required if you plan to accept credit cards through your website. If you plan to use only paypal, you do not need the Payment Gateway at all. And if you would prefer to use another payment gateway service, most all will work with our software. Other popular payment gateways are 2Checkout and Intuit. The prices listed above for Authorize.net are subject to change without notice.