The latest edition to my portfolio (and last one of 2009!) is Holy Shepherd Church. I was approached by designer Lena Mulenburg to convert her Photoshop design into a CMS friendly website. She provided me with a mind map and a single PSD and I set out to make it a fully functional WordPress driven website.

There were several main functions to this large site (50+ pages), the important ones being converting the graphically intense site into a web-friendly design, the ability to upload sermon podcasts, and make the entire site easy to update. Without delving too much into the technical details, I made sure each function of the site was scalable while still providing the visual enhancements Lena created. I mocked it up with a single webpage, and then converted that to a fairly in-depth WordPress theme. I created custom pages for calendars, news/blog, and the sermons. With the help of Podpress, Google Calendar, Nextgen Gallery, and several other plugins, I was able to create an easily updateable site for  the church that anyone involved can update.

A big challenge was organizing the information in such a way that was easy for their end users to navigate. With the mind map they provided and the use of drop down menus, a sitemap, and search, I think we made it pretty easy for users to find what they are looking for.

All-in-all, Holy Shepherd and I are very happy with the way the site came out. A lot of work went into it from the church, Lena, and myself, and I think it really shows!