2021
Website Design Services
During the Covid-19 pandemic, I joined GoDaddy's Website Design Services in my first corporate role. Due to lockdown orders, thousands of small businesses had to suddenly pivot to e-commerce with no experience in the internet space. Hundreds of individuals and entrepreneurs relied on me to create their new digital storefronts.
GoDaddy WDS provides a complete website with design, copywriting, development, and ongoing troubleshooting in under a month. I was responsible for creating the back-end setup using WordPress and WooCommerce and designing the front end with Beaver Builder and a small suite of approved plugins. Most clients did not have branding, so assets were sourced from Google Fonts and Unsplash.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
NBA all-time highest point scorer and political activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar came to WDS to update his personal site. I structured the backend using Pods, allowing his management to collect his op-eds, essays, and announcements while still allowing Kareem to post directly to his blog.
Due to the success of his personal site build, I was also asked to build the site for Kareem's non-profit Skyhook Foundation, a philanthropic organization which provides science, tech, arts, and math programs to underserved communities.
Scott Shigeoka
Hawaiian author and speaker Scott Shigeoka was featured in GoDaddy's Made In America video series. As part of this partnership, our internal Visual Designers created a site layout for him — but didn't know WDS had a limit on their available tools.
I was able to translate the provided mockup to the limited WDS platform, adding block-by-block scroll functionality that complemented the bold layout. His many video projects are now much easier to manage with easy-to-use templates for adding them to the homepage and giving each a Project page.
Learnings
Other clients I worked for in this role include Muggsy Bogues, Lizzy Greene, Patrick Reed, the NAACP in Mid-Manhattan, and quite a few interesting little side businesses. I hope to add these to this Project page at some point — if I'm able to grab the artifacts from my old team.
This role was a great test of designing with very few directions, a skill I first developed in my Graphic Design classes at ASU. Being in continuous production of two to three sites per week helped me overcome my tendency to get stuck on projects, which is useful in all my future roles.
Despite promoting to a new position in 2021, many of my designs are still featured as examples on godaddy.com in the Website Design Services example gallery.
© 2023. But you can steal this stuff if you want to, I don't have a lawyer.