This site was constructed for a Birmingham, AL catering company owned by successful restauranteur George Sarris of The Fish Market & Dodiyòs. The focus of this project was to translate their print menu into a web site that would showcase menu items, engage visitors, and take advantage of SEO and search engine traffic. Features of the site include an image gallery, slideshow, contact form, Google analytics integration, location-based information, social sharing, and email signup widget. Work performed in conjunction with Reliable Ad Group.
I am an experienced integrator and designer of sites that are functional, visually pleasing, content rich, and findable. I practice credibility-based design—always balancing user experience, what search engines see, and business goals. I also have experience in all aspects of interactive marketing, content creation, search engine optimization, social media, newsletters and email management, RSS feeds, and audio and video editing for the web. Subscribe to my feed for project updates, actionable/interesting information on web design, social media, and how digital media affects us.
Specialties:
Web design, web development, domain management, information architecture, content creation, video, audio, interactive design, virtual tours, screensavers, logos, web site optimization, keyword research, SEO, online editor, CMS, traffic analytics, email newsletters, search engine marketing, social media, open source utilities (including WordPress and extensions, forums, mail lists, photo galleries, ecommerce).
There is a lot more going on behind the scenes, ie freelance. Please visit Rustixs Interactive to see more examples of my work for freelance clients.
Taken at one of the Coastal Living Idea House shoots. I was there to assist the still photographer and shoot the virtual tour.
Bio
Gayle Christopher is a freelance interactive media professional in Birmingham, AL. Her path to this vocation was unconventional and proves the value of transferable skills. She holds a doctorate in physiology from Auburn University and has taught university level courses in anatomy, physiology, human health and web design. In her early career Dr. Christopher was a research scientist but has since filled a number of roles in digital media with a focus on content and design: Online Editor, Managing Online Editor, Interactive Media Director, and Web Designer and Developer, to name a few. Her employers include the Samford University, Coastal Living magazine, and Oakstone Publishing. She describes herself as practicing “credibility-based design—always balancing user experience, what search engines see, and business goals.” To see her outstanding portfolio of professional, clean, and visually rich and engaging work, please visit gaylechristopher.com and rustixsinteractive.com.
The St. Christopher Project, an organization dedicated to saving lives by improving the safety of drivers everywhere, approached me to write a white paper on the dangers of distracted driving and roadside crashes. Their new and innovative product, the CrashFlasher, is designed to help alert traffic of a roadside vehicle. Of interest to them for this effort were 1) the prevalence of distracted driving due to inattention other than the obvious and well-researched effect of the use of technology and 2) roadside crashes into disabled or stationary vehicles.
Considerable research using government and non-government publications was involved in this project. The white paper,Crashes Into Disabled or Stopped Vehicles: An Under-Estimated Danger in Today’s Distracted World, is currently in use on their web site as a marketing tool for fleet sales of the product.
For Personal Best, I helped create a series of videos to promote Health Fairs, and the use of Personal Best products, to corporate wellness decision makers. My efforts secured expert talent to appear in the videos which were shot during an actual health fair. I was at the shoot with a team of videographers to produce the main and B roll footage.
Afterwards, I directed the editing process of the first video in the series and chose additional stock footage from iStockPhoto. (The remaining two videos in the series were produced using footage from this shoot by the marketing department. I had nothing to do with the creation of those videos.)
Personal Best videos were published to YouTube. The brand channel contains 5 videos, including a flash-based video and a converted PowerPoint. I edited the flash-based video to update content before posting it when the channel was created. More recently, I used Camtasia to convert the PowerPoint presentation “Power in People” into a screencast and added a music soundtrack. This video was used by the sales team to promote Personal Best.
This site was designed to meet the needs of the marketing department and functional requirements of Oakstone Publishing’s Practical Reviews CME products.
The marketing department desired more new media features, engagement, and ad placements than the previous platform. The new site was built on a proprietary .Net content management system.
Design and front-end development included audio, video, screencasted tutorials, aggregated RSS feeds, and CSS elements. Project began with wireframing and color palette choices and continued until site went live.
Praise from an Oakstone Publishing partner: “The new site looks beautiful. The multimedia experience really adds to the branding of Practical Reviews an online, streaming, multimedia, 21st Century CME provider. Great job to the website team.” —Justin E. Anderson, Manager, Apollo Audiobooks, LLC.
Project for single page project for Southern Accents magazine marketing department that included tableless CSS and incorporation of video within their templated CMS.
This site was constructed for a Birmingham, AL catering company owned by successful restauranteur George Sarris of The Fish Market & Dodiyòs. The focus of this project was to translate their print menu into a web site that would showcase menu items, engage visitors, and take advantage of SEO and search engine traffic. Features of the site include an image gallery, slideshow, contact form, Google analytics integration, location-based information, social sharing, and email signup widget. Work performed in conjunction with Reliable Ad Group.
I am an experienced integrator and designer of sites that are functional, visually pleasing, content rich, and findable. I practice credibility-based design—always balancing user experience, what search engines see, and business goals. I also have experience in all aspects of interactive marketing, content creation, search engine optimization, social media, newsletters and email management, RSS feeds, and audio and video editing for the web. Subscribe to 
