JHM Designs Portfolio

Bush Medicine of the Bahamas The residents of the Bahamas practice a form of traditional medicine using tropical plants for curing diseases and treating ailments. Rooted in African herbalism, healing rituals, magic, and religion, and transformed by generations of trial and error experimentation with New World plants, this form of medicine is of value today not only for what it tells us of a unique culture but for what it might have to teach us about healing. This site offers information resulting from research on oral histories and the bush medicine largely from San Salvador Island, Bahamas. The book that resulted from this project, "Bush Medicine of the Bahamas," includes bush medicine research throughout the Caribbean including Atlantic coastal of Central America.
Dr. Lewis Weber & Associates was established in 1978 with the goal of developing a group practice with a high caliber group of professionals with good camaraderie, and opportunities to learn and grow. It serves a variety of mental health needs, bringing together a group of wonderful people and great services. Any one of these professionals could be in an independent practice and yet each has chosen to be a part of this exceptional team. The website was re-designed by JHM Designs in 2018
Saving our Seeds The mission of Saving our Seeds is to promote sustainable, ecological, organic vegetable seed production in the Mid-Atlantic and South. This site provides information, resources, and publications for gardeners, farmers, seed savers, and seed growers. A number of publications on organic seed production are available for free download.
Office of the Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Trustee The Office of Herbert L. Beskin, Chapter 13 Trustee is located in the Historic Downtown District of Charlottesville, Virginia. This site was created as part of a mission to greatly reduce the amount of paper generated by the office. The site provides information and forms to debtors, attorneys, and creditors, as well as information on court hearings, contact information, and links to useful sites that serve the interests of their clientele.
Garden Medicinals and Culinaries This large e-commerce site offers over 200 varieties of medicinal and culinary herbs, selected heirloom vegetables and flowers, and supplies for herb growers. The site includes a number of digitized photographs, colored graphics, dynamic elements, and a reference library of over 250 sites related to herbal medicine. JHM Designs first developed the site in 1996 as 7-page website. Over the years it has been expanded into an information-intensive site, now consisting of over 90 pages. The e-commerce section now utilizes an osCommerce shopping cart system featuring a number of modules such as product reviews, most popular products, new products, specials, and product search. The business was sold to a new owner in 2008, and the website updated by the new owner.
Michie Contracting Corporation Michie Contracting Corporation has operated as a Class A licensed Virginia contractor since 1968. They are prequalified with the Virginia Department of Transportation for street and highway construction. The Company is a family owned corporation with 45+ years experience with a wide variety of excavating equipment. They specialize in road construction, lake and pond construction, site development, land clearing, excavation, and railroad construction.
Spirit School of the Intuitive Arts The Spirit School offers courses, workshops, and intensives to develop intuitive techniques to discover inner wisdom, to gain access to spiritual guidance, and to develop a better understanding of one's life path. Based in Charlottesville and Sperryville, Virginia, they also offer workshops in Maryland, and Costa Rica. JHM Designs was asked to re-design their site because their previous site had problems with the navigation (which 9% of their clients couldn't access because JavaScript was turned off in their browsers). Also they were looking for design enhancements, better customer service, and a more personal touch. Currently, their website is being re-designed.
Van Yahres Tree Company Van Yahres Tree Company originally designed their own website which served its purpose for a while, but after several years wanted a more professional-looking site. JHM Designs re-designed their site in close collaboration with their own designer who wanted consistency with their marketing literature. Here is how their old website looked before the re-design. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia – Van Yahres Tree Company dates back to the 1920's when George Van Yahres helped to restore the grounds at Monticello. Still family-owned, many of the staff are ISA-certified arborists with many years of experience in tree care. Website development was turned over to Van Yahres in 2014.
Virginia Plant Savers (VpS) VpS is a networking and education center for the members of the Virginia Plant Savers and other concerned individuals and organizations interested in the conservation and cultivation of North American medicinal plants. Part of its mission is to promote the creation of medicinal plants sanctuaries in Charlottesville, VA, Albemarle County, and throughout the state of Virginia. This is the first state chapter of the national organization, the United Plant Savers (UpS).
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (SESE) Specializing in heirloom and traditional seed varieties, this nationally recognized site was first developed in 1996 by Julian Heck. The following year JHM Designs took over the site and further developed and expanded it from 7 pages to over 50 pages. During this time we added interactivity, more graphics and content, a small catalog, and a shopping cart. In 1999 the company was sold to a new owner.
Clergy and Laity United for Justice and Peace (CLJP) CLJP is an interfaith group of clergy and lay people in Charlottesville, Virginia who believe that the voice of the religious right on crucial issues of justice, peace, and the common good has gone essentially unanswered. For that reason they seek to help build a more faithful community of conscience and to stimulate action in the arena of public policy. They seek a commitment to active participation in the political process by those members of religious communities who hold views larger than sectarian interests or narrow ideologies and who would serve, beyond private advantage and any claim of spiritual superiority, the moral vision of the common good. This is largely a text-based website, recently migrated to WordPress to allow the site owner to make updates.
Sand Hill Preservation Center Specializing in heirloom seeds and rare breeds of poultry, the Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa offers over 1000 varieties of heirloom vegetable, flower and herb seeds, and a large number of rare and unusual breeds of poultry (including chickens, ducks, turkeys, guineas, and geese). They also offer a large selection of sweet potatoes. JHM Designs was commissioned to completely re-design their site. Here is how their old website looked before the redesign. The site owners wanted to maintain their site after the re-design, so we offered software and training to enable them to edit their text and to add new varieties. Later, with additional training, they plan to offer photographs of their seed varieties and poultry breeds. After a number of years in 2018 they decided to migrate their website to Wix, but they can offer a recommendation for our services.
Belize Survivor: Darker Side of Paradise What if you had lived your life differently? What if you'd just slung a backpack over your shoulder and traveled to some far away place? This engaging book, an exposé of unspeakable domestic violence against a contrasting backdrop of magnificent tropical splendor, has gathered attention as a literary work about domestic violence while homesteading in Belize. The author commissioned JHM Designs to create a site that creates a visual paradox, contrasting a darker message of domestic violence against a backdrop of the tropical beauty of Belize where much of the action and adventure occurs. Recently, the author has decided to fold this website into a personal website which has a focus on her artistic ventures.
Two Blue Herons This broadcast site is named as a tribute to the heron, considered in ancient Egypt to be the guardian of the spirit. Two Blue Herons is the creation of two visionaries who see the world changing quickly. Their site featured Eco-Light Radio, recorded broadcasts that offer mindfulness experiences: talks with leaders in creative thought, earth-wisdom, arts and science, as well as interviews with innovators in conscious business. Their objective was to feature the work of people who are living their truth, as well as leaders of the spirit who share their vision, joy, and perspectives on evolving consciousness. Our assignment was to design a clean, simple, open, and visually interesting site that symbolically illustrates the mission. The website owners have since moved on to pursue other interests.

Prior consulting projects


U.S. Government CD project: The client (the U.S. Forest Service) and their team provided their own graphics, photography, and content. They had a clear idea of how they wanted to present the material. Our mission was to design the interface, layout, navigation and look-and-feel. This project involved the production of a website on a CD (over 150 pages). Additional information and references available upon request.

Hiromi T'ai Chi Hiromi T'ai Chi is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching and promoting the health benefits and art of T'ai Chi Ch'uan in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hiromi offers training in the Cheng-Ming System as taught by Grandmaster Wang Shu-Jin as well as other related martial and healing arts. JHM Designs was asked to create a website that conveys the mission of the organization as well as the look and feel of the dojo and teachings. The site was later converted to a WordPress site. This is the original design.

Harlowe-Powell Auction Ltd. Harlowe-Powell Auction (now called Quinn & Farmer Auctions) is the leading antique and fine art auction house in Central Virginia. They sell full estates and quality individual pieces, at their gallery and on location. They also sell real estate over a broad geographic area. Harlowe-Powell came to us asking for a complete makeover of their site. They also wanted to integrate the site with an online database to feature both upcoming and past auctions. In addition, they wanted in-house control over making changes to text and pictures so they could make rapid changes to content.

The Nature Awareness School Specializing in cutting-edge technology for 5000 B.C., the Nature Awareness School used to teach wilderness and survival skills, primitive tool-making, fire-making, stalking, camouflage, tracking, making cordage, nature and spiritual awareness, and vision quests. Beginning about 2011, the focus and mission of the school changed substantially and is now focused on spiritual aspects of nature awareness.

Villa Las Cumbres: This website features luxury rental villa on the Mexican Riviera overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Manzanillo, Mexico.

Healing Herb Shoppe This site was developed as a "business brochure site" for Paul Olko, a Chinese herbalist who has a very successful practice in Earlysville, Virginia. The site was designed as a one-page site with future expansion in mind. A navigation menu can be easily added underneath the header without having to re-design the site. The Healing Herb Shoppe offers a number of herbal products with an emphasis on bulk Chinese herbs, supplements, and custom formulas.
June Russell's Health Facts: A health-oriented website by June Russell, a retired health educator, writer, and researcher. The purpose of this website is to educate the public about health issues. This is a very large, text-only site which is being reorganized and reformatted to make the information more readable and accessible.
LearnerTools LearnerTools aims to put the chance to learn to read and spell in the hands of every would-be reader. It also provides tools for teaching basic math skills. This is a developing e-commerce site that will be offering learning tools such as books, games, and exercises to help develop basic skills. This site relies heavily of the use of cascading style sheets for control of the layout and the look and feel. The content is programmed with a flexible layout—designed to wrap according to the size of the browser window.
Charlottesville Therapeutic Massage This site started as a "business brochure site," or one-page starter site, and then was expanded. The client wanted a site that was similar to the look, feel, and content of her business brochure. Her site explains the benefits of massage therapy, what to expect during a massage session, as well as rate and contact information.

Crisis Incident Analysis Group: Center for the Study of the Mind and Human Interaction, University of Virginia. The Critical Incident Analysis Group is an interdisciplinary consortium of academicians, professionals, and experts dedicated to improving the public’s ability to understand and cope with critical incidents, and government’s capacity to anticipate, prevent, and manage them effectively. Their website was maintained, upgraded, and then migrated into the University of Virginia template which can be seen here.

The Peace Project A message-oriented personal website by Stephanie Blackton who has been inspired by her experiences in using the labyrinth as a tool to help people connect with their inner wisdom. The site is designed as an outreach for her work, and to develop a sense of community around the use of labyrinths. She wanted a simple, uncluttered site that conveyed the look and feel of her vision. Stephanie wanted to maintain the events and calendar portion of her site, so we provided the training for the parts she wants to change.

Labyrinth Ministry of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist The labyrinth site was originally designed to provide a service to the central Virginia community, and to provide information on scheduled labyrinth walks, and to provide resources for learning more about the history and uses of labyrinths (which date back thousands of years). The site has now been transitioned into the larger church website, instead of a separate website.

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For further information about Web site design, consulting services,
or client references, contact Jeff McCormack at: