Client Spotlight: Elysian Archery

Elysian Archery is an indoor archery range, with public hours and 24/7 key-card access for members.  It's a great space, and for anyone with even the slightest curiosity about archery, it's something you really ought to check out.

The owners, Laura and Ron, were preparing for their grand opening at the end of the month, and had an experience with an "AI"-focused designer which left them a bit cold - their words and descriptions were basically thrown out and replaced with generated content.  They had in mind something more simple and direct, something expressing their own vintage style and character.

Their logo is a wonderful piece they commissioned from local-ish artist Noah Sanders.  Upon seeing it, I immediately imagined an animated splash screen, something I haven't done for a website in some time now.  But, it all flowed so nicely in my head that I couldn't help but try it.  From there, I let the logo's colors and style inform the rest of my initial pitch for their website, and was thrilled when Laura wrote back: "I LOVE IT!!" ...I do too.  We each reloaded the site more times than we'd like to admit, to see the little welcoming animation.

The site uses an integrated blog to let the owners continue adding event details and gallery photos, and hosts their calendar of upcoming tournaments, leagues, and other special events.   It also features a 404 page, which, for a thing I hope nobody encounters, I'm pretty pleased with.

I hope you'll take a shot at Elysian Archery, even if you've never held a bow before.  I can attest that they're lovely folks to work with, and their setup is top-notch.

Ron and Laura Romnes, Elysian Archery
https://elysianarchery.com

Client Spotlight: Herbal Health and Wellness

Western medicine has kept my wife alive (type-1 diabetic), but has also repeatedly failed to help her.  To fill in the gaps left by our society's industry-managed healthcare, she began visiting Herbal Health and Wellness, a one-woman naturopathic clinic in Lake Crystal, Minnesota, several years ago now.  The results were so positive that I began going in too.  Dr. Megan Eineke isn't only a doctor; to us she's a healer.  Every town needs a Megan (though we have yet to meet anyone else like her).

I can't speak to her specific treatments or her understanding of human balance and well-being - her sense and intuition is way over my head - but I can and do recommend that anybody with pains or stubborn medical issues make an appointment.

As I became Dr. Megan's patient, and friend, I also became her digital handyman.  She was paying quite a bit for her website, which was kinda-sorta doing what she needed.  Her clients could book appointments, and she could update her list of services and other information, but there was no integration with her patient records or SOAP notes, which she also needed to manage in a HIPAA-compliant way.

There are plenty of one-size-fits-all services out there which let non-geeks put together their own functional web presence.  It's positive and healthy that such things exist.  But, it's also positive and healthy when someone outgrows them, and in this case, that's where I could help.

Step one was to research as many options as possible.  Megan is a delight to work with, and we quickly settled on a new, HIPAA compliant patient records platform, which includes an appointment booking portal. 

Liberating her website itself from the previous all-in-one solution was right up my alley; I make websites for fun.  I replicated the look and feel of her old site (simplifying the underlying tech) as a base, which led to some easy cleanup and refinements.  A few animated touches, some reorganization, and she had the site she wanted!

One addition which came later was the integration of Megan's blog.  Recently, while she was in the hospital(!) she wrote up over a dozen articles, which are set to be published monthly over the next year.

Megan is driven to connect, listen to, and help people, one-on-one, using her gifts and her talents.  She has also been very supportive as I started my own one-person business.  Hers is an example which I intend to honor and pay forward at every opportunity.

Dr. Megan Eineke, Herbal Health and Wellness
https://herbalhealthandwellness.org