Pascal & Associates: Portfolio
This is one of my more recent web sites, which I did for poet, physician, novelist -- and now friend -- Frank J. Edwards
This site has a story behind it. Originally I was hired by Zumaya Publications to do a new book cover (see below) for Dr. Edwards' novel Final Mercy. I like doing book covers and I've done several. But I don't generally meet the author. I did in this case, and while Final Mercy, described in an Amazon review as "one of the best books published in 2011..." turned out to be one of the finest medical thrillers I'd ever read, Frank J. Edwards was a story in himself: former Vietnam helicopter pilot, Master of Fine Arts in Writing, published poet, academic author, Emergency Physician. We hit it off at once.
Every author nowadays requires a web presence, and eventually I had the pleasure of helping build one for Frank, and of making his work and his books better known to the public. So while the Frank J. Edwards web site presents my work a web designer, I'm glad to say that it also showcases the literary achievements of this exceptionally gifted and exceptionally decent human being.
So Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, Tess Gerritsen, look out! There's a future spot on the New York Times best seller list for one heck of a writer, and his name is Frank. J. Edwards.
The new web site of the School of Nursing of the University of Rochester, one of America's top Ivy League colleges.
My contribution? Pure copywriting. I did the Success Stories section (plus an additional few paragraphs of web copy).
The greatest garage in the world, run by the greatest mechanic in the world -- Eric Koesterich. The man sells some darned good used cars too. Winner of City's Best of Rochester Award.
Here's an earlier, completely different design for the site -- en Espanol!
No, I don't just do just Joomla and Wordpress, powerful though they are. This is a site I designed and coded from the ground up for Kirtas Technologies -- the world leader in digitizing books and bound documents, whose clients have included Microsoft, Yale, and the British Library. After creating the Kirtas Europe site, I went on to do the web site of Kirtas Technologies itself and then a Kirtas Maghreb a site for the North African branch.
The three interrelated sites eventually stretched to over five hundred pages and thousands of associated files, took on multiple language and e-commerce capabilities, and included an extensive secure Extranet. I even ended up training the webmaster.
Time passed and the original site designs were made over into a Blogger-like look. (I still groan to think of it.) But you can at least see the interior pages of the Maghreb site as initially designed, and it's still one of my favorites.
This is a site I did for Donald T. Noga of DTN Security Services -- a Rochester-owned, Rochester-based security firm that's kept literally thousands of Rochester homes and families safe, and that's served clients ranging from the Ginna Nuclear Plant, the US Navy, the US Marines, Arby's, Pizza Hut, Marriott, Bally's and everyone else on down -- even ADT! And that gives the most affordable price in town for it too.
Don is a tinkerer, and this site undergoes minute changes almost daily. But the company itself is the best, and its owner, Don Noga, and his wife Lillian, are even better, genuinely committed to helping people and keeping them safe. There aren't finer people in Rochester. (What's that? Do I have a DTN sticker on my house? You bet.)
Seriously. Call them: 585-342-4480. Your home and family are worth it.
Another real estate web site, and another Joomla site, this time for the Syd Chase Group. Been a few changes since I did it, but the fundamental structure is still there
This is a Wordpress-powered site I did for the talented, humane, sensitive Dr. Christine Blake, a California- based therapist who does relationship counseling with couples, and does it very well, I'm sure. Her Twitter page is worth following too.
An author's web page, for writer and former senior contributor at Wired magazine, Charles Platt, the author of more than forty books, and a journalist who's interviewed everyone from Stephen King to Timothy Leary to Kurt Vonnegut.
I did a whole range of things for real estate investment advisor Syd Chase, ranging from a Joomla web site and the usual brochure, logo, business card etcetera corporate ID package, all the way to pay-per-click optimization involving Adwords, keyword research, and social media promotion -- the works. I learned a great deal too.
This piece is a report on investing in American properties for Europeans. I designed it totally, all the way down to the choice of fonts, and arranged it so it could be both printed out as an elegant annual-report style print document by a printer (which it was), or downloadable as white paper or an ebook.
If you'd like to see a sample of how your ebook could look, download it now.
Best fitness club in the finest area of town.
I did quite a lot of things for this client -- branding, designing and placing print ads from box size to a full-page newspaper advertisements, logo design, direct mail, surveys, press releases, demographic analyses, the works.
This is such a nice example of a rather full marketing campaign for a smaller business, and of what I can do, that I've given a special page to it. Click here for the full tour.
Unreal City -- web site for an online literary magazine that has received international praise.
The Journal of Virtual Worlds and Education -- for which I did the web site, and of which I happen to be Managing Editor.
'Know The Market And You Will Master The Market.' I wrote that. I also designed and coded this layout for a market research firm specializing in market segmentation.
Did this for CSS Zen Garden but I've been to busy to submit it. Check out that sideways scroll!
"Nice design work, but where are the writing samples, Pascal?" What! Why, this whole web site is a set of writing samples!
But if you like to take your business prose straight, you might want to browse through a few items on my newly launched blog, or click over to Walt Ketchum's marvelous marketing and advertising resource, AdHub. I write a column there on writing and marketing.
You also enjoy might some of my magazine articles -- here's a few about the Rochester Philharmonic, a Toronto art exhibition,the Universe Within tour, Writers & Books, and so on.
Speaking of copy, I designed this ad, images and layout and everything, for Long Life magazine. But frankly the
best thing is the copy. Classic short clear print ad copy, just as it should be.
Another full-page ad, this time for the newspapers. It premiered in the Brighton-Pittsford Post.
A billboard, this one. Did the copy and gave some design input. Some alternative copy to the above got selected, but this one was my favorite. Eric's too.
You've heard of the History Channel? This is the History Store: J & S DeSimone Booksellers. A book store that offers not only the best selection of historical books in the area, but has a stunning collection of historical autographs, medals, busts, lithographs, war memorabilia, films, digital media, you name it.
Another author's web site for another fine, fine author. Sarah Freligh is a professional journalist, writing teacher, poet, baseball fan, and good friend.
This site at www.sarahfreligh.com was commissioned to celebrate the publication of her most recent book, Sort Of Gone.
Shortly after completing it, Ms. Freligh received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Latinos Communications -- 'Leading The Marketing Revolution,' and that's no exaggeration, since the rising Hispanic demographic promises to transform American society and business from top to bottom.
This was my first (but not last) job producing a bilingual English/Hispanic web site. Hispanics are the fastest growing part of the American market, and businesses that want to get business need to take notice.
Email - "the real killer app". Two HTML e-newsletters for Latinos Communications: my concept, design, and copy.
Unfinished site for a migrant ministry. But of course that doesn't mean you can't help with a donation now.
Not a web site, despite the rectangular layout, and old as the hills. But this six-page brochure is the first I ever wrote, and I'm pleased to say it still holds up well. Client: the Elmwood Dental Group.
My first venture into social computing, and the first web site I ever coded in pure CSS. This site aims to bring together the writers, the writing community and the writing resources of one fixed geographic area -- Rochester, New York, my home.
This project started out from an article called Writing In Rochester that I was commissioned to do by the Arts and Cultural Council of Rochester, for which I've written several articles since.
In fact the association has gone so well that I was asked to serve on an Arts Council grants panel recently. There's nothing like awarding grants to give you insight into how to write them.
This was a web site which I did pro bono for Ora Academy, the only private high school for Orthodox Jewish young women in New York State. Alas, it's gone now! That's the curse of being a web designer. Every few years people upgrade or want a change and out the old design goes. But this one was really a beauty. Ah, well...
The web site of Dr. Mark Groskin, bodybuilder, humanitarian, founder of the Tai-G martial arts discipline, Three Stooges fan, and as fine a dentist and as good a guy as you will find in Rochester. His dental practice (and his staff!) are a delight.
Long copy sells. But not when you're selling statuary. Only thing needed for this advertisement was to design the
photo shot and the select the right font.
Potential Point is a company pioneering some of the newest and most effective ways to boost workforce perfomance, strategy alignment, and employee recognition.
I didn't do the design here, just much of the copy. The Flash concepting was mine too.
Ah, flyers. Say what you will about pay-per-click and AJAX, you just can't beat the basics for getting the customers in the door. Simple, but worked like a charm. Also for Browncroft Garage.
A web site that I created for a nonprofit organization seeking to raise funding and public support for cryomedical research in an area much handicapped by poor earlier public relations handling. Very poor -- so much so that I was reluctant to take the job myself. But not to support medical research in any area can in the long run only hurt us all.
The very first sales letter I ever wrote was back in 1988, for Hafner Associates, an interior design company that had designed the interior of everything from the Waldorf Astoria on down. And here -- sentimental fool that I am -- is a copy of the first draft.
The Galen Group, my dear old alma mater. How many letters, ads, brochures, flyers, etc., have I not read, proofed, groaned over and/or blue-penciled for the Galen Group over the past dozen or so years? I've lost count.
The site's halfway into an upgrade now. But not the text -- since the Director of Trade for the State of Virginia was kind enough to call that one of the best-written expositions of marketing services he'd ever read.
Camy Sorbello is a professional journalist, as well as a teacher, novelist, traveller, and long-time friend. This is a professional author/journalist's web site that I produced for her.
A touch of Flash.
Writers & Books in Rochester, New York, is where I teach The Art Of Copywriting -- a course that's brought me into contact with more than one budding advertising genius. Above is one of several Writers & Book ads that I wrote for the class to show them the process.
I've also given talks and lectures about marketing and copywriting at local universities and colleges as well, and taught classes in web design, ebook creation, newsletter writing, fiction, and poetry, most recently on T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland.
My favorite is a course on overcoming writer's block called Writing More And Suffering Less. I just finished the first draft of a book on that subject. So expect a sample chapter to show up here one of these days.
(And I wrote the ad underneath to get people into the class in the first place.)
Though I began as an illustrator, I think of myself as primarily a writer and marketing consultant now. But doing web design with Photoshop and InDesign has gotten me doing pure design work again. The work is mostly all digital now, but then what isn't?
Clicking any image above and it'll take you to a page feqturing a few examples of my pure graphics design work.
And speaking of ebooks -- I'm currently writing a book on copywriting. A draft of a chapter on writing for the web is available as an article on my blog right now. Just click the cover.
Yes, more samples are available. And if you have a question, or if want to chat about a possible project, just give me a call.
You can reach me at 585.643.1167 or contact me directly via this web page.
Thanks for stopping by!