FEATURED SITE: ISHMAEL.ORG

Ishmael is one of my all-time favorite books, so it was a dream come true to build a new website for the author Daniel Quinn!

The original site was over 20 years old and really needed a facelift, a major re-organization of content, and new features to easily to access that content.

This is one of the finest websites Pam and I have created in terms of beauty, ease of use and viewer engagement. We were especially pleased with how the animated “Ishmael eyes” video we created for the landing page turned out, and it was a relief to get all of Daniel’s writings, videos, images, etc… organized and archived properly. We had mounds of information to plow through, straighten up and figure out where to place it that made sense.  I especially love the Inspired section as we got a chance to highlight some wonderful work that people created after reading Ishmael.

It’s funny when you finish a big project like this and people go to the site and it’s very easy and laid out well that it’s impossible to imagine what we started with to to get to here! I actually love doing this kind of stuff – turning chaos into order – it’s very satisfying. It also helped to have a fabulous client like Rennie to work with. She took on this massive project and we worked very closely together for months to make it all happen.

Take a few minutes to check the site out, and, if you haven’t met him already, find out more about Ishmael.

“What does it take to turn a 20-year-old visually sedate website loaded with thousands of words
of archival material into a bright, visually exciting, easy to use, and very modern website?

I’d say it takes a magician! And that’s how I think of Ritama.

Starting with the eyes, her primary design concept. These are indeed the eyes of Ishmael. They grab you the minute you land on the home page. Just as they grabbed the student in the opening pages of the book that spawned our website.

These eyes I think sustained and inspired us through the long and sometimes tedious process of reinventing the site.
Presented with a mass of content, Ritama waved her magic wand and imposed order and structure and clear navigation.
She sent me combing through old files for photos and used them to help tell our story in a new way.
She took great pains to make sure every detail worked in the best way possible.
Though work on the site took several months more than we expected, the end result is beyond what I anticipated.

Working with Ritama was a joy!
Her enthusiasm, patience, and diligence buoyed me up as we slogged through all the material.

For a website design and development experience that is more than just “getting the job done”
I wholeheartedly recommend Ritama!”

–Rennie MacKay Quinn, Ishmael.org proprietor

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