From fine artist to
creative web designer
I have been interested in art for as long as I can remember. My parents were
very supportive and supplied me with plenty of crayons, pencils, paper, and
paints. I was exposed to books about art and artists and became familiar with
famous works. In high school I took every art class available, and experimented
with techniques in painting, drawing, cartooning and comic art.
In my senior year, I worked as a cartoonist for my school newspaper.
I attended an art college in Denver Colorado , to further my education in fine
arts. I worked at various jobs throughout the years, and for a time as a
commercial artist.
In 1999 I came up with the idea to start a new health product retail company
with a friend who owned an adjustable bed company. He later became my business
partner. We called the company a.m. Products and after researching eCommerce
shopping carts, we decided to use the Yahoo! Store platform.
Creating a company, filing the paperwork, choosing a platform, and finding
suppliers was the easy part.
After becoming familiar with the Yahoo! Store, I began the process of adding
products from our distributor catalog one by one, and hundreds turned into
thousands. 5,500 products later and summer well spent, we were now selling our
products online!
I spent much of my time researching products and promoting our website. My
office job duties included phone and email support, packaging the products and
going to the post office to ship them out. I handled every aspect of running an
internet company. We sold our products nationally as well as internationally.
International sales made up 20% of our business.
In order to improve sales and attract more customers to our website, I decided
we needed a professional and user friendly website. I decided to put my creative
skills to the test and, after a week or so, we had a colorful, creative, and
professional looking website! We received a ton of positive feedback about the
site and I found myself continuing to improve the design, navigation, and
shopping experience.
10 months later we were up to 40-50 orders a day and the business was booming!
Money was coming in and sales were great. I was able to maintain a "5 Star Top
Service" rating with Yahoo.
After about a year and a half of running our business, I decided to sell my
shares to my business partner so that I could do what I love - website design
and development. I also wanted to spend more time with my family.
7 years of working with my clients has been a truly wonderful experience. Most
of my web design business comes from referrals and the Yahoo Design directory. I
am looking forward to the new year and some of the new services we are now
offering. They include Organic Search Engine Optimization and our
new website promotion company New Ad City. New Ad City will include a
storefront mall that will feature customer store front and products, just
like your local mall. Please check back with us regularly.
Daniel J. Wood -Webmaster / CEO
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