I was pregnant with Cathryn when I designed my first website. She turned 15 a couple of months ago, so that tells you how long I’ve been doing this. Actually, I’ve always had “Degree Envy” of my husband, who actually has a degree in Commercial & Graphic Art (and the accompanying student loans still outstanding, I might add.)

Design is subjective. Programming is not subjective, and I’m a pretty dang good hack at that, if I do say so myself. I taught myself C+ and Basic back in the 80′s and 90′s and now I program in PHP/mySQL, XML, SOAP and Javascript. I wrote scripts for Sabre and Apollo and PARS and most of those scripts would still work if those systems were still around. Programming makes more sense to me than design because compiling a script doesn’t rely on whether or not that color is on the opposite side of the color wheel, and makes people buy more things on the weekends. It either works – or it doesn’t.

Design, on the other hand is all squishy and emotional. Which I like… occasionally. Like today. I had to rewire the old virtual office again, making way for my new labor of love Imagine More (more on that next week, I promise.)

Keeping my Mastermind Goals as my level, I looked realistically at my many websites, services and products. Too many to be effective – but I already knew that. So – I took a deep breath and starting to slash, consolidate and shutter. And, like the Hydra that it had become, the more I battled, the more heads it grew.

I ended up with Orchard Bay Group – as the main business card website for the sites that were left which consisted of Marker9Design.com for all my non-travel business, Crossover Consulting as the main functional site for travel industry speaking and consulting, TravelWebMarketing for the training classes to teach travel pros to market their business, WP-TravelDesign.com for travel websites designed in WordPress and WP-TravelTheme.com for Premium and Free WordPress travel themes for sale.

And I shuttered three major sites. Port Aransas Web and Padre Island Web were both locally targeted niche sites and I loved them – but really, Marker9Design is a better portfolio of what I do in the non-travel realm. GemTravelSites was the main travel website brand for close to 9 years, but since all my design work is in WordPress it wasn’t practical to keep it out there. All support and legacy sites will be supported through WP-TravelDesign.com

And it’s my new favorite site of all time. Its the first site I’ve done just for me. Just because I loved the concept I had for it – a vintage travel theme, with old passport pages, and stamps, making me think of times when steam trains and gloves were the norm. I loved the photo I chose for the “about” page – it looks like me when I caught my travel bug. I love the look of the palm trees from the 60′s, reminding me of my Southern California in the 70′s. All my favorite travel eras captured. I remember when I loved to travel. I flew a lot. I took the train. It was elegant – and this site makes me remember it. And I designed it. And I programmed it. And both sides of my brain rejoiced.

And down the rabbit hole I fell, like Alice.

Sparing all the gory (think: Resident Evil) details, their previous site was gone and they needed a new one. With 87+ listings, virtual tours, custom design and lots and lots of photos.

And lo, and thusly, Coastline Properties was launched today after a three week hiatus, gallons of coffee, days of real office hours in a real office and a whole lotta code hacks.

I’m pretty proud of this one. Here are some highlights:

• 100% powered by WordPress, the site has a customized dashboard to load listings and their details, including pricing. All the sorting is done on the backside.
• Batch upload of photos with auto-thumbnailing, slideshows and galleries – hours of time saved each week, with an updated professional look and modern feel.
• Custom coding for sorting properties from lowest price to highest price – not just the old “newest on top” listings, no-siree.
• Integration of virtual tours
• Custom Facebook App to link new listings to Fan Page
• Incorporation of Twitter RSS feeds for local newspapers (Caller Times & South Jetty)
• Comparative Market Analysis Forms
• Custom sidebars depending on pages
• Custom forms for inquiries
• Mortgage Calculator Integration
• Sliding featured posts
• Local area information with restaurant reviews, school information & home sales statistics and history

Different, but very interesting to work on. I liked moving away from travel for a minute – it recharged my batteries and gave me all kinds of inspiration for some new travel ideas!

Utilizing the YAMIDOO theme, the owner wanted an integration of the Magazine/Blog into their existing site.  We customized the template, plugins and additional code to finish this out in just under 5 days.

LIVE SITE: DressRegistry.com