Web Design, Book Design, Publishing
Client: Frank J. Edwards, M.D.
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 an Arizona publisher to do a new book cover (see below) for Dr. Edwards’ novel Final Mercy, available on Amazon in print and Kindle versions. I like doing book covers but I don’t generally meet the author. I did in this case, and while Final Mercy (rightly described in an Amazon review as “one of the best books published in 2011…”) turned out to be one excellent medical thriller, 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. So much so that when the time came for me to start a small publishing venture of my own, Pascal Editions, Frank (who had re-acquired the rights to his novel) allowed Pascal Editions to publish it as its first fiction title. I created a second cover for it just to celebrate.
Every author nowadays needs a web presence, and eventually I had the pleasure of helping build one for Frank at www.frankjedwards.com, as well as a host of further design work, including a Frank J. Edwards screensaver. (Click, download and enjoy.)
And speaking of download: yes, you can download a Kindle of Frank’s five-star-rated novel right away (and/or order the classy print version) from Amazon. Just click.
I’m also happy to say that the relationship has continued. His second novel, Reap, has the honor of being a Pascal Edition, and an upcoming book of poetry is in the design stage right now.
Web Design, Author Promotion
Client: Colin Trafford
A more recent project for a very different author. Colin Trafford has not sent me all the content for the pages, nor even finished publication arrangements with Amazon, but he did give me carte blanche to create a site with a touch of elegance, and allowed me to make it public as is.
I’d like to get the site (and the talented Colin) some attention asap, so here it is. Stop by!
Web Design, Business Card Design
Client: Browncroft Garage
The greatest garage in the world, now led by master mechanic, cool guy, and good buddy Scott Posadny. Winner of City’s Best of Rochester Award.
Scott is improving and upgrading the place mightily. Below is a new business card design I’ve contributed.
Here’s the vectorized company logo, courtesy of Adobe Illustrator and David Pascal. Old School classic:
Copywriting
Client: University of Rochester Medical Center
One day I got a call from the University of Rochester Medical Center. Would I like to write something for the School of Nursing? Given that the U of R has been ranked by Newsweek as up there with America’s top Ivy League colleges, I said sure.
For once my contribution wasn’t design but pure copywriting. I did the Success Stories section (plus an additional few paragraphs of web copy here and there).
I interviewed the students, got their often moving stories and wrote draft pieces in as close to their voices as I could manage, after which I gave it back to them to edit.
The end result was happy all around, but particularly so for me, because in some ways it was my first extended introduction to ghostwriting, a craft where catching the collaborating author’s voice is key, and one that became a large part of my later work.
Web Design, Music Promotion
Client: Steve Greene
Steve Greene! Guitarist extraordinaire, bluesman, jazz artist, recording artist, composer, teacher, master of a vast multitude of string instruments. Steve had an existing web site, but wanted another one that focused on his teaching activities. So he called me up.
You can visit the resulting finished web site here. (And if you’d like to comparison shop and see the earlier site that I did not design, go here.)
I suggested to Steve that he might want to do a bit of internet advertising on Craiglist and elsewhere online; and to that end, I ended up knocking out a quick variety of digital ad images I thought he’d like. He didn’t care for a single one!
Print Advertising, Professional Practice Promotion
Client: Dr. Mark Groskin
Mark Groskin, a fine Rochester dentist (and one I patronize) asked me one day if I could create a half-page black and white ad for him for the Messenger Post Newspaper Group. Of course, said I.
I designed the ads below, and they ran (successfully) in several newspapers. He liked it the top one enough to go full page for #2! Check ’em out:
Editorial Services, Book Design
Client: Center for Virtual Worlds and Education Research
And speaking of document design — not long ago a number of academicians and others interested in virtual worlds and education decided to put together a formal peer-reviewed journal. I became Managing Editor throughout the creation of the first issue, and one of my duties was the creation of a full publicly-available print and digital version of that first issue. Here it is, and you can download the full 213-page digital version here.
It isn’t the first academic publication I worked for, and the criteria were strict and subdued rather than flamboyant, but it’s the only full book I’ve done that I can provide for your inspection free of charge. And (if you’re interested in the subject, or academic writing) there’s some interesting material among the contributions. Enjoy.
Magazine Articles
Client: Metropolitan
Yes, I’ve written magazine articles too. Usually ghostwritten articles, for clients, but every once in a while I write one under my own name, just to show passersby like yourself that, by golly, I really am a published professional writer.
Here are four articles I wrote for Metropolitan Magazine. In one I had the pleasure of interviewing the distinguished British orchestra conductor, Christopher Seaman; in one I describe the anatomical science exhibit, Our Body: The Universe Within; in one I review an international art exhibit featuring artists from New York and Toronto; and one piece is a profile of Writers & Books, America’s third largest literary center, where I taught various writing classes for several years.
To read the full articles, just click the linked text and download.
Web Design, Political Blog
Client: Peter Thomas Simon
A political blog by the thoughtful and eloquent Peter Thomas Simon, which I had the pleasure of designing not long ago.
I don’t have much to say about this one, for if there’s anyone who can speak for himself, it’s Peter. Click on over and see. This man is legend for actually having predicted Trump would win the Presidency in 2016 on Christmas of 2014. I know scholars and gentlemen who have called some of his writing as much worth reading as the better-known columnists of the Times. But when it came to calling the big election of our time, he beat the lot.
I’ve also had a bit of fun designing the occasional article illustration. For example:
Stop by peterthomassimon.com yourself sometime and have a read. The shape of things to come is worth knowing.
Business Writing, Document Design
Client: Syd Chase Group
This is a piece that I did for an upstate New York real investor who wanted to interest foreign investors in American properties.
It was an enjoyable project for me because it gave me the chance to do the entire project in one integrated whole, from writing the content to designing the document to carrying through to print.
I tend to give this to people as an example of my business prose, and also the way design adds to the overall impression a business aims to make on readers.
Though it’s intended for print — and, ah, that smooth glossy cover, crystal-clear image resolutions, and fine paper quality certainly made a difference — it’s worth reviewing as a PDF: you can download the document in full here.
Web Design, Graphic design, Document Design, Copywriting, Editorial Services, Marketing Consultation
Client: Kirtas Technologies
Ah, Kirtas Technologies. In some ways my finest hour. Back in 2008, Kirtas, a multi-million dollar Fortune 100 business and the greatest book digitization firm in the world, whose Google-like stated mission was to digitize all the books ever written, hired me to revamp their web site. So impressed were they by the results that I got the job of webmaster and graphic designer (as well as sometime copywriter and marketing consultant). Best of all, their clients included people like Microsoft, Yale, the British Library, the University of Moscow, and the Library of Congress, the last few of which were eager for book covers for their millions of neglected classics.
For this firm I created the greatest web site of my professional life to date, coding every line from the ground up, and working with the great Lynne Perry, who handled the programming for the back end. It was vast, with well over a hundreds of pages, and spun off two variations for their global market: kirtaseurope.com (led by Netherlander Marcel Alderwald); and kirtasmaghreb.com, my first web site in Arabic. 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 found myself training an assistant webmaster, and settled down to what looked like a long happy future of web site maintenance and book cover artistry. And then…
And then the global economy collapsed, the company laid off a third of the work force, the entire marketing department vanished in a puff of smoke, management changed hands, and I departed for elsewhere, and the firm as a whole passed into, not quite oblivion, but very different management. My work faded into pixel heaven with it.
And some of that work was rather nice. Here are just a few web page headers:
And here’s the cover for a white paper:
Sigh. One of the sad things about being in web design is that every few years (sometimes every few weeks), management wants a ‘fresh look’, and a perfectly good if not spectacular and effective web site vanishes into digital oblivion. Your best work is not only gone but leaves no trace. Thus there’s no grand Kirtas web site out there any more that I can point you to, only to scraps like the above. Still, it’s a pleasure to have had a chance to do major work for a major client. It stretches you.
Book Design, Web Design, Graphic Design, Document Design, Copywriting, Editorial Services, Consultation
Client: Worldleaders Inc.
Late in 2015 I was hired by Worldleaders Inc. to provide a wide range of services including the creation and production of business documents, vector illustration, Powerpoint, multiple web sites, internet marketing involving AdWords, Amazon and Youtube — quite a wide range of items.
It helped that the principal person I worked with, Worldleaders CEO Joe Morone, is in the opinion of many (myself included) the world’s leading B2B sales trainer, as well as a commanding speaker.
I sat through his training classes for the better part of a year, and emerged not only with a number of diplomas but a much stronger understanding of sales and lead generation.
In all honesty I recommend his classes and trainings 100% for anyone with the least interest in sales. I also recommend reading his book, The Smart Sales Method, a new edition of which is now available at Amazon.com. It is damn good.
Print Advertisement, Fitness Studio
Client: Dr. Mark Groskin
Speaking of full-page newspaper ads, here’s one of my first, done eons ago for the Fitness Studio of Pittsford. An idea ahead of its time: the Studio aimed at bodybuilding for high-ticket clientele, and my requirement for this ad was to be elegant. I like requirements like that.
I did quite a few little things for the Fitness Studio of Pittsford–click here to see various items I created in the course of doing an entire campaign.
Powerpoint Presentation / YouTube Video
Client: Pascal Editions
Feeling a bit overwhelmed? There is a lot here. Relax, sit back, have a cup of tea, and enjoy a spot of poetry:
Web design, Copywriting, Internet marketing
Client: DTN Security Services
Kirtas is gone, but DTN Security is still there, online and off. Not surprisingly, for this firm’s been protecting Rochester homes and businesses for well over forty years. Above is the site I did for Donald T. Noga, president of DTN, a Rochester-owned, Rochester-based security systems 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!
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. Seriously. Call them up at 585-342-4480. Your home and family are worth it.
Print Magazine Advertisement
Client: Long Life Magazine
Web Sites! Digital graphics! Can’t you do an plain classic Old School magazine ad, Pascal?
Sure. This was for Long Life magazine. Loved doing the text — it had a ominous, faintly sci-fi quality.
Web Design
Client: The Little Flower Community
The Little Flower is a cooperative in Rochester, New York. What is a cooperative? A group of people who live in an intentional community. They know each other, help each other, meet a few times each week to talk over the state of community and how everyone is doing, share common tasks, work to help build up the surrounding neighborhood, and live in houses owned by the cooperative.
A hippie commune? No. An extended family. With a healthy sense of civic reponsibility. Led by Joe DiFiore, profiled in the Democrat and Chronicle and 585 Magazine and on television, the cooperative has hosted couchsurfers (travelers) from around the world, organized Vegan potlucks galore, and in general shown that the good life is here and available now.
But all good things need a web site to blow their horn, so that other seekers of a better way of living can be reassured that another way of life is indeed possible. It is, and visitors to the Little Flower web site can learn all about it. Why not drop by?
Web Design
Client: Caring Hands For Angels
Every year in Rochester children die as they’re being born. Two hundred of those children, who come so briefly into the world, do so in such crushing poverty that the parents or family can’t easily afford a burial gown for the child.
Caring hands for angels is a group of people who sew and provide such gowns. There is no charge. But there is a need for people with sewing and organizational skills, and a crying need for donations of suitable material. Sometimes brides will donate their wedding gowns, but of course such donations can be sporadic.
If people were aware of the work that Caring Hands For Angels was doing, more help might be given. So I was contacted and asked if I could donate a web site that would let members and the public know about the organization. I did, of course.
Sadly, the need for further help and donations is ongoing. Should you have suitable material to contribute, or wish to help or donate in other ways, please feel free to visit the site and contact the — fine and compassionate — people behind it: www.CaringHandsForAngels.com.
Web Designs
Clients: Various
Here a web site, there a web site, everywhere a web site. A little potpourri of designs gone by…
Web Design, Powerpoint, Brochure, Post Card, Document Design
Client: Real Estate (Various)
After 2010 I got into real estate and spent a few years working with some notable realtors and real estate entrepreneurs, including David Alan Frazer (see above), Warner Fisher of RE/MAX, real estate financial seminars by Equity University in association with FFREIA, an upstate New York real estate association (see below), and a whole slew of people and firms involved in real estate, ghostwriting books and creating full-blown real estate seminars–even giving talks at a few.
There is literally no aspect of marketing and design that isn’t touched on somewhere in real estate. A particular ego boost was designing for digital billboards. There’s just something about seeing your design work hundreds of feet across soaring into the sky as you drive by it on the expressway at sixty!
Web Design
Client: Cryonics Society
The shape of things to come — and the poignance of what might have been.
Every now and then a marketer likes to take on the impossible. My marketing work for the Cryonics Institute and then the Cryonics Society is a case in point — the sort of thing that only a fool takes on. But then it is precisely that kind of challenge that inspires one’s to do one’s best.
My work for the former organization tripled membership after two decades of — dare I say? — glacial torpor, and the FAQ for that site alone led Philip Alexander, to my mind the finest copywriter in Canada, to graciously tell me it was the finest copywriting he’d seen since Ogilvy. He overstated, and revision has much tarnished the once Elgin marble. But at the time I strove like hell to truly nail it, and I did nail it, and am proud.
The Cryonics Society? It has never found the patrons or supporters to lift it to the heights it deserves in its own exceptional niche; but it endures too, waiting for the visionary venture capitalist who is ready to transform the world.
You, perhaps?
Print Advertisement
Client: Writers & Books
“You don’t have to be articulate to change the course of history. You don’t have to express yourself clearly to be a leader or make a difference. But it helps.”
Indeed.
I’m a little foggy on how many years I taught writing on literary and business subjects across the board at Writers & Books, the third largest independent such writing organization in America. Seven years? Eight? At some point they asked me to do a print ad for them, and there it is. The gentleman in the picture is a fellow writer of some merit. I thought he could do with a spot of PR.
Lately? I’ve been doing a bit of teaching. I got into cryptocurrency, and am currently writing a little something about the blockchain. (And, happily, I was invited to give a talk on my first love, psychology, at the Osher Institute at the Rochester Institute of Technology, on B. F. Skinner and applied behavior analysis. After speaking in front of real estate crowds, academic ones are a breeze!)
There’s always more, of course. I’ve decided to put the straight design (logos and such) and the book covers on their own pages. Just click. More work is created virtually daily, so more will be arriving on this page soon enough.
And if anything you see makes you think of a project you may have in mind, well — just give me a call.
You can reach me at (585) 434-7067 or email me at davidpascal@gmail.com.
Thanks for stopping by!