Jeff Bridgforth :: Webcraftsman

Let’s talk about me

An expe­ri­enced WordPress designer

I have 10 years of expe­ri­ence as a Web designer in a large non-profit orga­ni­za­tion. I have been work­ing with Word­Press for the past 5 years. My cur­rent employer sees the value of this open source solu­tion and I have begun to design and develop sites exclu­sively in Word­Press. I have used it as a blog solu­tion and a con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem for other tra­di­tional Web sites.

I am a Web strategist

A project can never be just about a Web site. Whether it is using Twit­ter, Face­book, other social media, or going mobile, the client needs a cus­tomized Web strat­egy that will lever­age the numer­ous ways that their con­tent can be accessed beyond their Web site.

For the past 10 years, I have given lead­er­ship to the Web strat­egy for the U.S. Cam­pus Min­istry of Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ which serves over 800 cam­puses, with a desire to expand to more. I con­sis­tently chal­lenge those I work with to think beyond just build­ing a Web site to devel­op­ing a Web strat­egy that meets their min­istry objectives.

I am a CSS and HTML expert

I am an expert CSS coder that pushes CSS to its lim­its in all my projects. I have been incor­po­rat­ing CSS3 in recent projects to enhance the user expe­ri­ence in the browsers that sup­port it. I am also very well versed in HTML and pre­fer to hand code. I have advanced knowl­edge of Pho­to­shop and Fire­works. Illus­tra­tor is becom­ing one of my favorite tools. I have pro­gram­ming expe­ri­ence with PHP and MySQL and have been devel­op­ing those skills of late in WordPress.

I spe­cial­ize in clean, elegant interfaces

Don­ald Nor­man has said that “attrac­tive things work bet­ter.” Beau­ti­ful design improves com­mu­ni­ca­tion through visual orga­ni­za­tion and an attrac­tive aes­thetic. A brand’s suc­cess is all about its per­cep­tion. I believe a clean and ele­gant inter­face increases the value of a brand by help­ing com­mu­ni­cate func­tion, increase usabil­ity, cre­ate an attrac­tive per­son­al­ity, and build trust with between the brand and the end user.

I am a cat­a­lyst for resource release

I have an unquench­able thirst for learn­ing. I have a pas­sion for the Web and love to keep up on the lat­est trends and tech­niques. I have taken advan­tage of con­fer­ences like User Inter­face, Refresh ’06, and Pho­to­shop World to improve my skills and learn from the industry’s best.

I also love to pass along what I have learned to oth­ers. Whether it is men­tion­ing a book or blog post to a col­legue, shar­ing a link on Twit­ter, or writ­ing a post on my per­sonal blog, I love to empower oth­ers with the knowl­edge I have gained.

Let’s talk about you

You want to empower clients to lever­age social media and word of mouth marketing

You are vision­ar­ies who empower your clients by teach­ing them how to blog, lever­age social media, and become great at word of mouth mar­ket­ing. You rec­og­nize that com­pa­nies are more suc­cess­ful when they make peo­ple happy.

You are a cat­a­lyst for resource release

Through con­fer­ences, com­mu­ni­ties, and con­sult­ing, you are empow­er­ing your clients with the knowl­edge they need to be more effec­tive in engag­ing their audi­ence in a conversation.

Who you need

You need a Word­Press and Web designer who can improve your blogs, sites, and social media pages. You need some­one with the tech­ni­cal and cre­ative skills that can get your con­tent online and out the door so that it can edu­cate and empower your clients.

Pick me

I have the skills you are look­ing for. I have an under­stand­ing of social media and the impor­tance of lever­ag­ing it to meet strate­gic objectives.

I want to work with a cre­ative team that lever­ages tech­nol­ogy to change the world. You are a cre­ative team that is doing that. I am attracted to the inno­v­a­tive envi­ron­ment that you describe in your job list­ing. I would look for­ward to work­ing with vision­ar­ies and meet­ing the chal­lenges that each day would bring.

Mak­ing GasPedal Better

You asked to show you how to make your sites bet­ter. I have pre­pared a mockup of an improved design of the home­page of gaspedal.com and insight into my improved design.