Lesley began her writing career in kindergarten. She joined Webtrax as an editor in 2015, but hoped to become a travel writer because of her addiction to traveling. She combined her love for writing, scientific research, and travel by becoming a scientific writer/editor on the road. In 2017, she got her lucky break when we asked her to help us launch the sustainable tourism project she had proposed to us. Working on-site in Italy was a requirement. She travels throughout Italy to meet with clients and comes back to Chicago frequently. Lesley is the Divertimento Group (DG) Project Manager and is responsible for writing and editing all DG materials (online and off). She says she couldn’t be happier.
Sharon Stade
At Webtrax, Sharon does most of the Joomla production and client training. Sharon embraced web design more than a dozen years ago when she found it let her combine her technical aptitude and visual skills with a gift for structuring complex and varied content. Sharon designed and hand-coded her first project, an eco-educational website. Thereafter, she coded many more webpages and several websites for financial and academic employers, a non-profit, and a small business client. For the past decade, Sharon has built and managed websites in the open source CMS platforms: Wordpress and Joomla. Sharon especially enjoys collaborating with clients to build the bridges that connect the designer’s visual concept, the template developer’s code, and the client’s content plan. Sharon loves drawing, painting, digital photography, video editing and video live streaming.
Cassandra West
Cassandra works with WebTrax as a social media consultant. She loves nature and architectural photography, biking, growing vegetables, visiting out-of-the-way museums and making short videos. She’s on the One Earth Film Festival's marketing team and Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry board. Cassandra has been an editor/writer for the Kansas City Star, Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune. In 2007, she turned her focus to digital media, drawing on her extensive interviewing and reporting experiences to craft creative content marketing strategies for nonprofits and small businesses. She jumps at the chance to help clients optimize their LinkedIn profiles, step up their social media game and develop successful paid search advertising campaigns. http://newmediaaccess.com/
Royall Spence
Royall’s specialties are PHP, SQL, and JavaScript.
Read moreBob Simpson
Along with Estelle Carol, Bob founded WebTrax Studio, which was originally named Carol Simpson Productions. He is an activist and blogger for many causes, including economic justice, gender equality, unions, peace and environmental justice. He is a former high school history teacher. Bob has a new career as a photo journalist and blogger for activist causes with a focus on the Chicagoland area. He has a passion for social media and creating online communities. See his blog posts on the DailyKos.com.(http://www.dailykos.com/blog/BobboSphere/#)
Daniel Quinn
Daniel Quinn is a client and marketing communications specialist who lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife, two daughters, and two dogs. His expertise includes website content, pitch and proposal materials, content marketing, social media marketing, white papers & articles, and content editing. His portfolio of work extends across a broad cross-section of industries, including financial services, construction, the arts, associations, and wellness & fitness. http://www.dqcomm.com/
Brittany Purlee
Brittany is a photographer whose most interesting freelance assignment thus far was to document the work of a non-profit organization that helps women leave prostitution in Beijing, China. Brittany’s passion for photography blossomed after she finished her bachelor’s degree in art at Indiana University in Bloomington. She usually shoots with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, but also enjoys experimenting with film cameras in her free time. Her portfolio of portraits, weddings, special events and more is at http://britography.com and http://britography.squarespace.com.
Liz Olson
Liz does translations, publication layouts, newsletters, and copyedits, and will make sure your final product is well polished and beautiful. She is currently based out of Beijing, China, working as a publications and project coordinator at an environmental protection NGO. Liz loves traveling, playing roller derby, rock drumming, and making beautiful layouts.
Isabel Lee
Isabel works primarily with content management, copy writing/editing, social media management, Squarespace site design, and graphic design. Isabel works on various platforms and manages social media for her family business and her own company. She especially loves the challenge of learning something new. She loves working on her clothing line, Wishful Thinker Clothing, and volunteering with Bring the Music Initiative, Girls Rock! Chicago, and her local food pantry. http://wishfulthinkerclothing.com
Roger Kerson
Roger is a writer and media consultant for green businesses, labor unions, environmental groups and other non-profits. Former director of public relations at the United Auto Workers, he has prepared and conducted interviews with print, web and broadcast media from the U.S. and around the world, placed news stories, features and op-eds in major U.S. and international media, and directed multi-million dollar issue and candidate advertising campaigns. http://www.rkcommunications.net/
Lisa Files
Lisa is a Squarespace website designer, builder, writer, editor, and proofreader who started out in print publications for non-profits. Selecting and cropping images to convey your message emotionally, on a gut level, is one of her greatest pleasures. Finding just the right words to showcase your enterprise is another. Her embarrassingly meticulous proofreading will polish your website to a shine. Lisa loves road trips with family or promenading the streets of Oak Park with friends.
Judy Erickson
Judy is WebTrax’s bookkeeper, a job she discovered that she surprisingly enjoys after deciding to partner with her husband in his construction business. She and her husband have operated Kearney Construction in Oak Park for about 30 years, during which time they also launched two delightful daughters into the world. She has volunteered for various local and regional nonprofits, notably as treasurer of the Ten Thousand Villages store in Oak Park for its first 18 months. Her favorite pastime is reading, usually something about history involving further study of her historical atlases and her oversized world atlas. She appreciates the Big Picture in more ways than one!
Avery Cohen
In his free time, Avery watches his kids’ sports and theater productions, or kicks back and reads a comic book or two. He is chief executive officer for Metrist Partners, an internet marketing and technology consulting firm. Avery works primarily with marketers, helping them understand the power of interactive online media to gain valuable insights into customer needs. He and the staff at Metrist Partners have developed expertise in web analytics, search engine optimization, marketing automation, search advertising, email marketing, test design and social media. Avery is happiest when diving deep into analytics and finding "hidden treasure" for you. http://www.metristpartners.com/
Alex Billet
Alex Billet is a data and content manager. His strengths lie in his attention to detail and written communication skills, both of which are greatly valued at WebTrax. He tends to be happiest with his work when the parameters are crystal clear, and enjoys asking questions toward that end, which means a stronger and more impactful result for the client. When not busy at WebTrax he's engaged in various kinds of solidarity activism, and researching and writing about music, theater and literature. He is also a founding editor at an online arts and culture magazine.
Estelle Carol
Estelle is the senior designer and lead project manager for WebTrax Studio and is happiest when designing or illustrating for a client whose work supports working families, communities and our planet. She studied art at University of Chicago and graphic design at University of Illinois at Chicago before founding Carol Simpson Productions in 1991 with her partner, Bob Simpson. What started out as a graphic design and illustration studio evolved, keeping pace with digital media, to become WebTrax Studio in 1998. Estelle designs websites for three platforms: Joomla, WordPress, and Squarespace. When she is not at her desk, she’s in her urban vegetable garden or kitchen, preparing soups with homegrown squash, kale, and pumpkin.
Arcadia (Case Study)
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WebTrax provided Arcadia with website design services. Arcadia Investment Management is a Kalamazoo, Michigan, based asset management firm, specializing in working with both institutional investors and high net worth individuals. Their challenge in redeveloping their website was to ensure their message was effectively articulated to both of these core audiences.
While all investors want to grow the value of their investment portfolio, institutions and individuals typically go about doing so differently. As such, their messaging and website design required a distinctly different approach in order to be effective.
Working closely with Arcadia’s portfolio management and client services teams, WebTrax and communications consultant, Daniel Quinn Communications (DQComm), developed a new message around which the rest of the content strategy and subsequent technical build-out of the website would be based: “Wall Street expertise. Main Street perspective”.
DQComm created what were in essence, two separate content strategies tailored to each of Arcadia’s core constituents. While DQComm finalized the content strategy and composed the writing for Arcadia’s new website, Webtrax designers worked in tandem to select images and graphics consistent with the new message while WebTrax developers constructed Arcadia’s new mobile responsive website in the Joomla! CMS.
Read more about WebTrax website design services. View more of our case studies.
Seven Generations Ahead (Case Study)
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WebTrax provided Seven Generations ahead with website design services. Seven Generations Ahead (SGA) is a non-profit organization whose work ranges from creating curricula and conducting educational programs for young school children, to co-hosting regional conferences for public and private sector leaders, to partnering with a popular summertime festival to promote composting. SGA promotes programs and initiatives to support ecologically sustainable and healthy communities in collaboration with a variety of government, community and business partners.
Seven Generations Ahead staff had become frustrated with how difficult their former website was to update and customize for new content. SGA sought to present their diverse projects while keeping their design crisp, clean and simple to navigate.
WebTrax successfully employed the flexible and powerful Joomla! CMS to meet these goals in a website redesign in which the leadership of SGA played an integral role, contributing content and design concepts throughout the process.
By the time the website launched in 2014, the SGA staff had mastered adding content on their own, adding text, images and video easily and efficiently to their carefully constructed content hierarchy.
Read more about our website design services. View more of our case studies.
Green Community Connections (Case Study)
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WebTrax provided Green Community Connections with our website design, graphic design, and branding services. Green Community Connections is a volunteer-driven community organization whose mission is to develop a deeper understanding of natural systems, build community, and inspire change that promotes sustainability at the family, organizational and public policy levels. WebTrax became involved from ground zero, creating a WordPress website in 2011 with a homepage blog, a calendar for community sustainability events, and a page of resources, educating the public about specific measures they can take to conserve energy or take action on climate change, for example.
In 2013, WebTrax launched an upgraded site for Green Community Connections, improving the overall appearance. A sidebar allows viewers to sign up for a monthly email newsletter or view a related YouTube video, while social media buttons make it possible to instantly follow Green Community Connections on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Along with the website upgrade, WebTrax developed all the logos and branding for GCC as well as handouts, brochures, and posters.
As Green Community Connections evolved, the website also expanded. WebTrax added sections for two annual events, the One Earth Film Festival in the spring and a Native Garden Tour in the fall. A drop-down menu for each of these events allows people to quickly find information about films and tour sites with locations. WebTrax has learned along with developing a great relationship, the developmental needs of an increasingly expansive website and promotional materials.
Read more about WebTrax website design, graphic design, and branding services. View more of our case studies.
Open Communities (Case Study)
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WebTrax provided Open Communities with graphic design services. In 2012, Interfaith Housing of the Northern Suburbs changed their name to Open Communities. Due to this rebranding, Open Communities reached out to WebTrax in the fall of 2012 to design materials that reflected the new logo and overall image.
This redesign work included brochures, newsletters, handouts, and any auxiliary materials that Open Communities needed. All of these materials needed an updated look that matched the new feel of the logo and subsequent color schemes.
WebTrax learned the intricacies of evolving a brand into a new version of itself. Open Communities did not start from scratch. They had a presence and a following, a community and staff, a vision and a mission. Our goal was to carry over this well-established organization and assist them in the fresh new look they had decided on.
Read more about WebTrax graphic design services. View more of our case studies.
ESOP Law (Case Study)
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WebTrax provided ESOP Law with website design, professional writing & editing, and graphic design services.
In the fall of 2013, Deb Olson of ESOP Law reached out to WebTrax for a website overhaul. At the time, the ESOP Law site was outdated in terms of design, content, and navigation. The client was seeking not only a fresh and modern design but a website that fully offered all the information that needed to be shared.
WebTrax concluded that the best website platform for the copious amount of information was a succinct Wordpress layout. The site homepage showcases the select topics covered throughout the site, a welcoming video of Deb Olson herself, a brief overview of the site contents, a blogroll, resource links, and a grid of the client services offered. Given the amount of information divulged onto the site, it was critical to express as much as we could on the homepage alone. For someone fully interested in ESOP Law, it was imperative for them to be given the options contained within the site. The main menu navigation bar contained many dropdown menus. For a site visitor, it may appear daunting to have so many options, so the homepage laid out these various sections in a more visual way. The included brochures designed by WebTrax were “take-away” resources that provided curious visitors with something tangible. These same brochures were used as handout materials for Deb Olson in the presentations.
We were fortunate to work with Deb Olson on this site, because she had so much information that she wanted to share. From there, it was a matter of understanding what ESOP law actually was so that we could present that to an audience who may not know. After many conversations and reading through the content, we were able to agree on an efficient site layout that makes navigating throughout topics very simple. We learned the importance of categorizing information to make the process of displaying information much easier.
Read more about WebTrax website design, writing & editing, and graphic design services. View more of our case studies.