Michael Richard Murphy » Design

Bay Road Grocery & Deli design refresh

Michael Richard Murphy — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:46:52 +0000

I was really excited when I got a call from Mike at Bay Road Grocery & Deli. The convenience store, located at the corner of Volk and Bay roads in Webster, was an institution in my childhood neighborhood and I have fond memories of riding my bike with friends there for candy, soda and cap guns.

Bay Road Grocery had an existing website but Mike wanted to update the look and feel as well as remedy the site’s poor search engine rankings. As it turns out, most of the content (images and text) was embedded in a rotating-type javascript gallery. Not exactly search engine friendly. Or easily update-able.

As part of the refresh, I created a WordPress-based site for Mike with a custom theme. Using WordPress gave him the ability to get in and easily update the content on his site that changes frequently; like his menu, the kinds of lottery tickets he sells, and any lottery winners from his store. That also moves the valuable content that describes his store and the services he provides from obscurity in javascript code to plain search engine readable text.

The custom theme was created using proper, semantic HTML markup with the headings and structure that make search engine optimization more effective. Design-wise, the whitewashed plank header and weathered logo enhance and reinforce the nautical theme echoed throughout the store itself.

Bergman Real Estate: Mobile App Image

Michael Richard Murphy — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:25:56 +0000

Mark had an existing website and identity when he approached me about creating some images for his planned expansion into the mobile app marketplace. The company creating his mobile application required images and icons in sizes his existing logo wouldn’t readily scale to. The challenge was to keep his existing identity consistent but still recognizable and legible in the scaled-down mobile world. Below are some screenshots of his original logo and the new mobile app icons and images.

The original (website) logo

The new Android mobile web app icon (can be resized as small as 16x16)

The new Android mobile app banner image

The new iPhone app store image

Bay Road Grocery & Deli design refresh

Krudmart: Product page and checkout process refresh and SEO

Michael Richard Murphy — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:59:11 +0000

Krudmart is a Buffalo New York-based e-tailer and street lifestyle website. While Magento is their e-commerce platform of choice, they wanted to upgrade some of the stock buttons and images that came pre-installed with something that fits in a little better with the aesthetic they’ve worked hard to develop. But skinning new buttons was just a small part of the larger project to make the site more customer and search engine friendly.

Although the site boasts loads of great content (mostly linked to from the homepage), it wasn’t well-organized and didn’t have a sense of hierarchy or direction. Everything screamed out to be clicked. Reorganization of the content on that page was designed to focus more on product sales (and featured products) and minimize the draw of the additional content (blog, polls, etc) which is secondary to the purpose of the site.

Product pages also lacked clear calls to action (adding to cart) so the redesign of those buttons focused on making them more prominent and noticeable. Customers would also become confused after attempting to add a product to their cart because confirmation messaging appeared at the top of the page; often not visible after they had scrolled down to read product descriptions. This messaging was moved to directly above the ‘Add to Cart’ where it was more obviously associated with the action on the button (and also always visible). A subtle fading (to white) background animation was also added to attract attention.

Like the homepage, the shopping cart itself was cluttered with lots of content and options, and the buttons were not designed or placed where they stood out. There also wasn’t any real difference in the appearance or location between the buttons for the primary action (checking out) and secondary actions like editing the cart or viewing related products. Along with creating a noticeable difference in the size and locations of the buttons for our primary focus (getting the customer to checkout), the layout of the shopping cart was also simplified to make it easier to use and digest the information contained in it.

In addition to layout changes on the homepage, product pages, and checkout process pages, underlying HTML code was modified to be more semantic and meaningful to search engines.

Lance and I were very happy with work that you did. We have nothing but positive things to say about your work ethic and we were very happy with the results. We saw a positive sales increase immediately. Thank you for your service as well as your dedication to our project. We certainly will be calling you for any future work. Thanks from Krudmart!-Christina Vinci

American Cancer Society’s Celebrate Hope Gala

Michael Richard Murphy — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:00:49 +0000

Sheri needed an informational website for the American Cancer Society’s local Celebrate Hope Gala honoring the Wegman family. The clean, elegant design maintains the branding established by their print invitations. In addition to the details about the event, including the amazing menu, the site also gives donors access to Candle of Hope order forms.

Michael exceeded my delivery expectations for the project. I have known Michael both professionally and personally for a number of years and I have always been impressed with his willingness to go above and beyond to delight his customers. Thank you Michael!-Sheri McKenna

Yaeger, Treviso & Associates, Inc.

Michael Richard Murphy — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 19:17:51 +0000

This redesign of the YTA website has a simple, straightforward design but also boasts back-end features such as the ability for clients to upload financial information such as QuickBooks files. A Resources section also includes several helpful financial tools like closing costs, cash flow, and loan calculators.

We approached Michael to create our company’s web site. He made the process simple and worry free. His design techniques were exactly as we requested and his pricing was not only affordable but also exactly as he quoted.-Chuck Treviso

Shop Derma Spa

Michael Richard Murphy — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:25:51 +0000

Dr. Robert Loss was excited to unveil a newly redesigned site for his dermatology practice. Unfortunately the e-commerce platform he preferred wasn’t supported by his current hosting company.

The decision was made to create a separate e-commerce site on a new domain and link back and forth between the two. I designed and implemented the e-commerce portion to have the same look and feel as his existing site so the transition would be transparent to visitors.

This project included design work, heavy customization of a PHP-based e-commerce platform, and backend database and information architecture.