Design Firm Page (M4)
Create your web design/development brand — your firm. (Terminology: "firm" means this design brand; "mascot" / "whimsical company" means the animal-named business site. They're different sites.) Every other page you own credits this firm in its footer.
Find Your Domain
- Come up with a firm name that includes your name — John Doe Designs, John Doe Enterprises.
- On a registrar (Namecheap, GoDaddy, …) find an available domain close to that name. Don't buy it — just confirm nobody owns it. Any TLD is fine (.co, .cc, .org, …).
- Create a folder named after that domain, including the TLD — e.g. vonbriesenenterprises.org/ — as a sibling or sub-folder of your course folder. No spaces, no capitals. A dot in a folder name is normal: multi-domain hosting accounts name each domain's folder after the domain.
The Page
- One simple index page with the usual semantic elements (header, main, footer) — but not your course header/footer components; this site stands alone.
- The h1 is the firm name, with a logo next to it (make one, or find one at openclipart.org).
- The h2 is the page name — "Home", "Services", etc.
- One paragraph describing the company; one paragraph on what you can do for a client.
- An unordered list of 5–10 amazing things about your firm, with a non-standard bullet style.
- A nicely formatted section of (fake) contact info: phone number and email address.
- No links to course pages (contract, introduction, etc.) — totally separate from your other sites.
- Footer: "Page created by [Your Firm Name]" followed by your certification.
Styling
- Visually different from your other pages. Pick five colors that work together with the coolors.co generator.
- CRAP principles: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity.
- Embedded stylesheet (single page); no unnecessary divs, ids, or classes.
Linking & Submitting
- Every other page's footer says something like "Page designed by [Your Firm Name]", linked to this site — use a relative backtracking link (../yourfirm.tld/) from pages outside the folder. Add the same footer link on your whimsical company site.
- Not in your primary course menu — it isn't part of the 3135 site. The secondary menu is optional.
- Submit your course URL — we follow the footer link to reach the firm. Test the link from every site where it appears.
- Then peer reviews: apply these instructions to at least two classmates who don't already have two reviews.
What gets checked: the firm folder is named domain.tld; the page has firm-name h1 + logo, page-name h2, both paragraphs, the 5+ item list with custom bullets, contact phone and email, the "created by" footer with certification, embedded styling, and no course links.