You can think of "Design" as the physical look and feel of your website, including colors, styles, fonts, graphical elements, object sizes, and content organization. We believe it's important to have a great looking, memorable website that really sticks in the minds of viewers. Experience has shown us the importance of the look of your website is more than just superficial; well designed sites actually give your viewers a reason to talk about your website, creating a little free word of mouth marketing for you. We don't skimp or cut corners where design is concerned.
As a client, we start with a unique and innovative graphic representation of your site, based on your input, your industry, and your needs. Our style encompasses everything from old fashioned to minimalist, from urban grunge to corporate clean, and everything in between. Being able to work with vastly different designs and styles is the best part of being a designer. We have a lot of fun designing our websites, and we love to experiment with new things. We can make your site as graphically rich as you'd like, or keep it clean and simple. Either way, we put a lot of emphasis on the look of your site down to each minute detail.
We work with a wide range of clientele, some of whom are new to the web, others that are seasoned webbies. Whether you have a specific design in mind, or want to leave the design process completely up to us, we're happy to provide as much or as little custom graphic design as you'd like.
"Development" refers to the actual coding and backend creation of the site, using web technologies such as XHTML, CSS, Flash, XML, Jquery, etc. At Corvus Design Studio, we are advocates of Web Standards. Web Standards set guidelines for developers to create websites that are functional across the many browsers and computers being used to view the web. A major part of our development process is checking cross-browser and platform compatibility so that your website appears correctly to all viewers. We base our development plan on current and future design standards, ensuring maximum viewer compatibility, and extending the life and validity of your website.
CSS, XHTML & Web Standards
Web standards are commonly agreed upon guidelines for HTML, XHTML, CSS, and other technologies used to develop websites. These universal rules are meant to ensure websites are more accessible across the wide range of browsers and platforms being used to view the web.
XHTML has replaced HTML as the standard markup language used to create web pages. We are proponents of the standardization of web design, and so utilize valid XHTML and CSS code to create our sites. This keeps your site "alive" longer, and accessible to more viewers.
Here's what you get with our Custom Websites
Includes color palette, graphic art, page layout, global navigation, content organization, and imagery. Can be based on corporate branding or identity, or completely custom and original.
If applicable, we'll integrate your corporate branding, including colors, logo, slogan, etc. If you do not have a logo, we use stylized fonts to display your name or company name. Or, you may be interested in having us design your logo as well.
Often times, royalty free photos and imagery can enhance your website by adding aesthetics and a professional appearance. Royalty-free photos work great for flash header images, and background images when professional photography is not available.
Our base price includes up to 8 informational pages. Informational pages can be considered "static", in that they are not interactive pages, such as form pages, gallery pages, etc. Examples would be "Home", "About", "Services" etc.
Email forms are a great way to gather important information from your viewers, and to provide a stable method of contacting you. Providing just an email address could result in viewer emails going into your spam folder, making it appear that you didn't respond to their needs. Messages sent from website forms are not likely to go to your spam, because they are sent from the same server. So long as your own website url is not in your spam folder, you will receive all viewer emails. This also prevents spammers from collecting your email address and adding to lists which are sold to marketers or other spammers.
Our email forms include optional CAPTCHA (anti-spam verification code), database storage, branded autoresponder, custom error page, and custom confirmation page.
Flash is a great way to liven up a standard CSS website. We recommend our Flash/XML headers and photo galleries for use with suitable sites. Flash/XML headers are an easy way to add a little interactivity and freshness to your site.
Your site will be developed using web standards and valid XHTML / CSS, ensuring a longer life, and a higher compatibility rate. We check out sites using code validation tools to ensure our standardized coding is correct, with no syntax errors. Search engines also prefer clean, well-structured, valid code that does not contain the useless "spaghetti code" generated by most content management systems and WYSIWYG editors. So this clean, valid approach actually increases your visibility to Google and other search engines.
We optimize every website for search engine recognition using all "organic" (or built-in methods). This includes effective meta tags, priority XHTML tags, valid XHTML code and more. We also offer a Comprehensive SEO & SEM service, for those looking for maximum search engine exposure.
Our base pricing includes up to four separate design concepts. Additional concepts are available at a cost dependent on the complexity of the project.
Well, they stem from our company name. Jessica Miller, our founder and lead designer, chose the name Corvus as an homage to her favorite types of birds (those of the genus Corvus). Jessica gets a lot of her inspiration from nature, particularly wildlife, and wanted to incorporate her love of nature into her business life. This often shows in her design style, which has been described as "organic" and "ethereal".
