Landau Design Launches CAPDsupport.org

While we love building websites for money, every so often a time arises when a site must be built from a desire to give back to the community. Landau Design has just launched CAPD Support.

It’s a Joomla-driven website for individuals and families effected by Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). The site contains information about CAPD, a library with links to online articles, a resource directory for therapists, audiologists and online information as well as a message board.

The site is meant to support parents trying to determine if their child has CAPD, or help find solutions if their child has already been diagnosed. It is also a place for adults with CAPD can come share their experience, get support and find solutions to everyday challenges.

Aren’t Pre-Designed Templates Ugly?

Clients come to me for graphic design services because they need to market their business. Some clients want a customized design that is totally unique and created just for them. But other clients may crinkle their noses at the custom design fees that are part of their web quote.

Design snobs won’t design for these clients because everything must a unique design or else it’s not “quality” design. I love to design, but it’s more important that my clients get what they need, not what I want to give them. So if budget is a big factor in their project, I offer them the option of a modified template.

But then clients ask me, “Aren’t templates ugly?” I want to debunk this myth! While it’s true that the majority of templates designed would not be considered very attractive, the truth is there are designers out there who are putting out beautiful templates for HTML and CMS websites. With a modicum of modifications, these templates can give the impression of custom design without a price tag. Here are some examples from our own projects:

This is the template: i-Lunar
This is the site we’ve built with it: Possibilities Unlimited

This is the template: JSN Epic
This is the site we’ve built with it: Sheasby, Cho & Middleton, attorneys at law

This is the template: JC-Perth
This is what we built with it: The April Center for Anxiety Attack Management

While it’s fun to do a custom design and see it get built and shared, many of our clients who do not have unlimited web budgets. It’s critical for them to have a web presence that is usable, attractive and effective. We want our clients to have the tools they need to succeed in business, and sometimes template design offers a workaround that facilitates a successful, attractive site within the budget the client can afford.

What is Joomla?

“Joom-what?” you say. Joomla is a an open-source, content management system. Still confused? That’s okay, this is a question many clients ask me as I talk about Joomla a lot. Joomla is a swahili word meaning “all together.” It is an international software project developed and supported by thousands of people around the world.

Joomla is the main method that Landau Design uses to build websites. It’s a content management system, which means the site is managed by a database. The database stores all your contents in its tables, much like a filing cabinet stores information in drawers and folders. Your website does not exist in pages, it exists in the database. A template, or design, is created for your site, and every time a person clicks on a link in your site, the database feeds up the data into the template and presents the page. This is known as dynamic content generation because the content is not presented as a page until somebody interacts with it.

Joomla is open-source software, which means the developers who work on the program donate their time, and the software is given away for free. Why would they do this? Often an open-source project is begun when developers feel they can create a comprable project to commercial software. Once the project gets going, and its a success, the developers involved are often recruited for other work, which is the benefit they get out of volunteering their time. The popular browser Firefox, made by Mozilla, is another example of an open-source project.

Joomla is an excellent resource for creating websites. Not only do the sites go up twice as fast, but there are literally thousands of mini-programs, called extensions, which can be integrated into Joomla without requiring any programming knowledge. The sites are generated using CSS (cascading style sheets), which means almost any design can be converted into Joomla. In addition, our clients who are willing can be easily trained to maintain the site contents. Joomla not only saves money in site development costs, but also gives the client control of their site.