Annomedia

You may notice that I am not the designer always goes for the minimal designs with just fonts, graphic elements and a little color. But I could, if that is the style that suits you best.

In general I love using textures and photographic elements, I love using extreme color combinations, I am not afraid of creating a bit darker websites (light text on dark background). Usually my slogan here is: 'More is more', not 'More is less'. But that said: it all depends on the client, what suits him or her best, 90% of the time a design is the result of cooperation with the client.

Another important thing is that I think a site can benefit from using certain design patterns that originate in news paper design, for instance: listing of related content, cross links to important subjects. In short as many cross-links as possible, and in a way that it is an integral part of the design of a page. This is in my opinion important on two levels. For the visitor it creates the incentive to check out other parts of the site plus the site seems more alive. And for the search engine it shows you put content first - which could in theory lead to a higher ranking.

You could of course see a website as a static digital flyer online, and I have made plenty of those so I can help you with that. I really think such websites can be extremely useful because your potential clients need to know about you, need to find you online. Such a digital flyer could help people to decide to get in contact with you or to visit you in order to experience first hand what you are all about. A face to face conversation is still way more important than visiting a website, but the website is in many cases the starting point for that conversation, it helps people to find you using search engines and it helps people to find out about you when they can  read the info on your site.

But sometimes a website needs to be more than just a flyer, it has to be a more thorough representation of your organization or person and how your organization or you as  a person grows. There is a reason you want to represent yourself online, and sometimes you not only want to be found with a website that is your storefront window, you also need to start that conversation you want to have with your visitors online. Maybe you even want a forum, or you want your clients to be able to respond to your latest postings, maybe you need a forum to help your visitors get into contact with one another, maybe you want to be able to send newsletters to your visitors to tell them about the latest developments. Such a website could grow with your business.

It does not need to be either or. You could also have a more or less static website - the digital flyer online - combined with a blog where your audience can learn about the most recent developments. You decide, because you know what is best for you. And I might be able to help you with that.

My name is Jeroen Goulooze, I can help you to present yourself on the internet in a useful way.  If you you need a website, we can get together and discuss what you expect from your internet presence, what the look and feel should be and what functionality would fit your goals. If you think I am the right person to do the job and if I think I am able to fulfill your needs we can work together. We then start out by writing a plan that describes the various aspects of your website and based on that I can create that website for you, but always in close cooperation with you. The end result will be a tailor made website, designed and developed to meet your needs. And as an extra I can also offer you hosting and support so you will have someone by your side that knows your website inside-out for questions and problem solving

I've been working as a freelance web designer since 2005 (most of that time in Berlin where I live), but started out as a web-editor in 1996 when working as a journalist for an online-magazine in the Netherlands and from there I moved into web design. Between that time and now I have had various web-related jobs, among them working as a web editor for the website of a major mobile telco in the Netherlands and working for various (web) design firms in the Netherlands and in Germany.
Because my career started in the days the web was still young I have seen various technologies come and go (Explorer 3 was released the year I started working for the web) and I therefor favor simple solutions and compatibility over the latest technological trends because it will ensure that the visitors of your site have the best experience possible.

My services include:

• Web-design: in cooperation with my client I create a design and discuss the functionality you want to help you make the right decisions
• Coding and templating: I convert a design I made or a design you made and into hand coded web ready templates that will be tested in the most used browsers of today
• Content Management System (CMS): I can also offer you a CMS. A CMS is an online program that lets you manage the content for your website and manage the structure of you website (create new pages and menu items) without needing knowledge of web-design or coding for the web.
• Services for Designers: If you are a designer I can offer you my advice and give feedback on your designs to tell you if they are web-ready and I can explain the various things you have to pay attention to. I can also explain various options todays browsers offer.

With Services for Designers I support designers who are less experienced in working for the web, and I offer support for those designers who do not want to deal with the coding and programming part of web-design.

• I offer support and advice during the design phase.
• I code for you, thereby turning your designs into standard compliant (XHTML 1.1 / CSS2) templates
• I can also offer to turn them into a CMS (Content Management System) based on Silverstripe.
• On top of that I can also take care of the hosting for you

In short: As a designer you get access to my knowledge and experience, and I make sure you can offer your clients a web ready product with eventually even hosting and support.

There are some things that are important for you to realize when cooperating with me:

• It is important for me that the people you work for are your clients, not mine. During the design phase I will not contact your client, nor should I during the coding phase. But the CMS system that I implement comes with support and your clients need to get an introduction into that CMS. I therefor need to contact your clients and your clients need to be able to contact me when they have questions (and in my experience they always will, and it ensures that the customer is satisfied with a project when they know how to use it).
• In order to successfully create a website for your client based on your designs I need to have access to your designs in digital form and you have to be aware I might need you to work in a certain way - this will be discussed beforehand. This might mean you have to work differently from the way you are used to work.  In short: a 300 dpi tif image is not what I need, I need to have a layered psd at 72 dpi (screen resolution).
• Certain things work differently for web as compared to print. You have to think about the flow of text and elements on your page, you have to be aware of the way your layout might change based on different screen sizes, and you have to think about what happens when the visitor of a site hovers over an element or clicks on it (in a menu for instance). These are some of the things you have to think about.
• The web is advancing with great strides - and I have seen it advance enormously since the days of Explorer 2 / Netscape 2. However there are limitations - and my guess is there always will be. There might be certain things you heard about that you would love me to implement, but it could be that these things are outdated, proven not to work from a usability stand point or these things might work in some browsers but not in others because they are too new (and therefor still need a few years to become a usable standard).
• Based on the previous point it might be that you need to create not one but two designs: one for the visitors of the website who have more modern computers and use browsers that are ready for more modern features and the other design for people who have less modern computers/ less advanced browsers or who choose not to enable certain features.

Later - in the chapters on the right - I will start to explain various points that might be of interest to you if you want to design for the web and are not or do not want to be a coder.

Under the name AnnoMedia I offer web-design, coding/templating and services for designers. Under the name Alien Saints I offer designs for the people who are interested in something different. Alien-Saints.com is the website where I show my art, but it is also the entry point for those who want something a bit more extreme.

My name is Jeroen Goulooze. And I am a freelance webdesigner/coder. I live and work in Berlin, Friedrichshain (Kreutzigerstraße 18 10247 Berlin to be exact). My website is www.AnnoMedia.com.

I can be contacted by phone with the number (++49) (0)15 772 753 760 when you are in Germany. You can also contact me via (++31) (0)6 13 203 439 when you are in the Netherlands, but it can be that I have to call you back when using that number because I do not always have it with me.

You can also contact me by email.