Projects

I've been designing and building websites since 1999, starting with hand-coded HTML and evolving alongside the web itself. This is an archive of some of the freelance and personal projects I've worked on over the last 10 years, from early designs to recent work I'm proud to share. It's a reflection of where I started and what still pulls me back.

Duncan Hurst

April 2025
Squarespace

A full redesign of my brother’s bagpiping website resulting in a 3x lift in uniques and inbounds since launch! What started as a refresh turned into a full end-to-end reimagining of voice, built to boost local SEO.

Homepage

Duncan’s original Wix homepage, which he built himself, was functional, but formal and written in the third-person. While replatforming to Squarespace, I rewrote this page to be personal and emotionally resonant, helping visitors feel connected immediately.

Before

Website home page for Duncan Hurst, a professional bagpiper from Whately, Massachusetts. Features sections on services for weddings, funerals, lessons, and events. Includes an introduction, photo of Duncan holding bagpipes, and navigation menu for home, funerals, weddings, lessons, FAQs, media, and contact options.

After

Website homepage showcasing bagpipe services for weddings, funerals, and events with an image of a bagpiper in traditional attire. Includes testimonials and service descriptions.

Service pages

I reorganized and expanded his services into landing pages for weddings, funerals, and events. I rewrote all the copy for first-person warmth, added more testimonials and call-to-action buttons, and built an SEO-optimized structure to rank for key searches.

Before

Webpage for Duncan Hurst Bagpiper's funeral services, detailing bagpiper tasks with a four-step format for funerals, customizable options, and audio samples. Includes testimonial at the bottom.

After

Website offering bagpiper services for funerals in New England. Features sections on expectations, popular tunes, and a testimonial.

Lessons

I refreshed Duncan’s lessons page to shift the tone, emphasizing his warmth, youth, and personal connection as a teacher. I added Squarespace’s playful dividers, improved structure, and created stronger CTAs.

I also designed a custom service area map, embedded across the site, to visually reinforce his broad regional coverage.

Map highlighting parts of New England and northeastern United States, including New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Cities marked include New York, Albany, Saratoga Springs, New Haven, Providence, Boston, and Portland.

Pandemic Pictures

November 2020
Self-hosted and built using Node

A movie tracker built during the pandemic to document a personal mission: watch every Best Picture nominee ever made. Designed, coded, and shipped with my husband—because why just make a spreadsheet when you can build an app?

Quarantine project

What started as a spreadsheet idea became a fully-featured web app listing all 97 years of Academy Award Best Picture nominees. You can filter by decade, IMDb score, running time, winners only, and whether each of us had seen, loved, or skipped it. Josh built the backend while I kept us aligned on scope and polish. I designed the UI, built the HTML and CSS, and led feature planning, like a randomizer button for indecisive nights. Each card drops down for full details.

Grid of Oscar Best Picture nominees from the 1929-1931 era, including film titles like 'Wings,' '7th Heaven,' 'The Broadway Melody,' and 'All Quiet on the Western Front,' with ratings and movie posters.
Screenshot of a movie selection interface titled "Pandemic Pictures". It includes filters for "Seen by," "Skipped by," decade range, maximum duration, and a minimum IMDb rating. Movie options listed for the year 1930 are "The Broadway Melody," "Alibi," and "Hollywood Revue." User reaction icons for Josh and Alicia shown below each movie.
"Pandemic Pictures" app screen showing Oscars Best Picture Nominees.

PowerToFly

2016
WordPress

While working as a product manager at PowerToFly, I also replatformed the marketing site to WordPress for easier updates and redesigned it for a more polished look.

Redesign

I tackled the redesign over a long weekend, using skills from my freelancing days that I’d retired from the year prior. Using a CMS gave the team editing control without developer intervention, since it had been hand-coded before.

The old site had heart, but the visual design was dated: tight spacing, inconsistent fonts, and insincere stock photography. I customized a premium WordPress theme to give PowerToFly a cleaner layout, sharper typography, and a more modern, cohesive feel without losing their approachable tone.

Before

Screenshot of the PowerToFly website highlighting its services for female job seekers. Features a woman smiling while working on a laptop, options to sign up with LinkedIn, sign-up instructions, and partner logos including RebelMouse and BuzzFeed. Sections include 'How We Work,' job search resources, statistics on global talent, and success stories. Logos of media outlets like Fast Company and Fortune are displayed at the bottom.

After

PowerToFly homepage featuring a woman using a laptop, promoting a platform connecting women with tech jobs. Includes logos of companies like BuzzFeed and Time Inc., with testimonials and a section detailing how the platform works. Footer contains links for candidates and employers, and social media icons.

Fayetteville Coworking

2015
Vanilla HTML and CSS

Before coworking became synonymous with WeWork, I built a community for remote workers and freelancers in North Carolina, growing it to over 100 members. I designed and built the brand, website, and print materials, both to practice my skills and to help people find each other.

Color scheme v2

The second iteration kept the same font, but I introduced a bright gradient palette and full-page layout linking to our calendar, email list, and Facebook group. I also designed new flyers, business cards, and other collateral to post around town and hand out at events.

Desktop computer displaying coworking website with text "Work Independently, Not Alone" and buttons for social media and event information at the bottom.
Open cardboard box with business cards that say 'Work Independently, Not Alone' alongside a stack of colorful cards on a mint green background.
Smartphone displaying a webpage with text "Work Independently, Not Alone," featuring people in a meeting setting, on a wooden surface with phone chargers.
Coworking flyer: "Work Independently, Not Alone" message promoting collaboration among independent workers at coffee shops for interaction and productivity, with contact info for FayettevilleCoworking.com. Includes icons of a coffee cup, laptop, and briefcase.

Color scheme v1

The first version explained what coworking was and invited people to sign up for updates. It leaned on soft colors, hand-coded HTML, and clean typography to feel welcoming and easy to understand, especially for those new to the concept.

Webpage for Fayetteville Coworking featuring text about coworking spaces, event details, subscription form, and an image of people working at a table.
Business cards for Fayetteville Coworking laid out on a table, featuring information about free weekly coffee shop coworking events, contact details, and invitations to join their Facebook group and mailing list.
Flyer promoting Fayetteville Coworking event to form a coworking community. Details include a meeting on Monday, April 13 at 7pm at The Huggins Room, 306 McArthur Road, Fayetteville, NC 28311. Encourages joining for free weekly coworking Tuesdays from 10am-2pm at Starbucks, 4401 Ramsey Street, Fayetteville. Includes small images of a workspace and people working together.
Promotional flyers for Fayetteville Coworking Meetup detailing coworking info and join details on a wood-textured and gray background.

Vegan O’Brien

2014
WordPress with WooCommerce

A one-man vegan baking business in the Hudson Valley, brought to life online with an ecommerce site and cohesive visual identity, building off his existing logo.

Ecommerce

I redesigned Vegan O’Brien’s web presence from a basic Blogspot page into a full WooCommerce-powered storefront. With rich product photography already in hand, I focused on clear structure, visual warmth, and low-friction purchasing to help his baked goods shine. I also created assets for his Etsy and social channels to ensure brand consistency across platforms.

Vegan O'Brien Baking Company homepage with images of heart, butterfly, and shamrock-shaped vegan chocolate chip cookies, links to shop online, stores & markets, and about & press sections, upcoming events listing, and user testimonial.
Image of Vegan O'Brien Baking Company's chocolate chip brownies page, featuring a stack of brownies on a red napkin. Includes ingredients list with organic cocoa, vegetable oil, rice milk, tofu, vanilla, flour, baking powder, corn starch, and semisweet chocolate chips. Priced at $36 per dozen with an add-to-cart option.

Curious how far back this all goes?

History of aliciahurst.com →