Quadra Street Designs creates most of their new sites using Content Management Systems (CMS). This approach has several benefits for site owners:

Education Enrichment Center

A resource centre for teachers (or home school parents) and students. This site makes good use of Xaraya CMS when it comes to granting access to certain categories of data.

• Consistent layout throughout the entire site - guaranteed!

• Easy to add more pages or entire sections to a site.

• Site owners can make changes to site content without having to learn complex HTML.

• Just login to the site, pick which page needs updating, and quickly change content. You deal with just the content (text) portion of the site - not the whole web page.

• Useful and powerful interactive features, such as users being able to register for an event, are easy to piece together. The site owner doesn't have to shell out big money for big functionality.

Inspired by the historical charm and fine antiques of old world Victoria (BC), the city they fell in love with, Designers Kathy and Steve Switzer, redesign their passion for bead collections from around the world into timeless wearable art. Working together, their heirloom classic and vintage designs are priceless, reminiscent visions (originally worn from the early 1800 and 1900’s). Kathy’s love for flamenco dance and flare with décor and traditional art forms, are a perfect match to Steve’s ingenious knowledge of beads, his marvelous handiwork with the finishings, and his talent for creative graphics and professional website development. Their magic makes every piece unique!

Quadra Street Designs uses authentic vintage and historical glass, cultured and natural pearls, Swarovski and Czech crystals, and natural stones in many of their creations.

Cherish & Re-Capture the Passion of Jewelry

“Discover Tales of Treasured Beads”

New Jewellery Site on its Way!

We are in the process of revamping the Jewellery portion of our web site. The new site will be a "destination" for our retail store clients as well as their customers!

Note: We're proud to be Canadian -- we spell it "jewellery", not "jewelry". Same word, different spelling -- different jewelry too! We create amazing pieces that are designed, not just strung together to look like something we saw in a shop window.

We hope to meet you soon to show off our designs -- spelled either way.

Web Site Design

Quick Link: Portfolio of Recent Web Site Projects

We have 15+ years experience working with Victoria, BC business owners to develop effective web sites.

• Web Site Design - Home
• Content Management Systems
• Portfolio of Recent Web Site Projects
• Rates & Terms of Business
• Send-a-File

Tutoring

We offer tutoring services for adults and high school and university students. Help is available in these areas:

• Website Design
• Photoshop
• Java Programming

Please see our Tutoring page for more information.

Jewellery Design

We are in the process of revamping the Jewellery portion of our web site. The new site will be a "destination" for our retail store clients as well as their customers!

- Steve & Kathy at the beach near Victoria -

Web services are offered at a rate of $50^* per hour. A typical site will require anywhere from 10 to 50 hours of services, including gathering and documenting user requirements, graphic and layout design, and design implementation. An initial one hour consultation and estimates are offered at no charge.

Terms of Business:

• After your initial one hour consultation, provided free of charge, we'll provide you with a detailed estimate of proposed work tasks and the costs associated with those tasks. Our web services are provided at a rate of $60 per hour. These fees do not include those that must be paid to domain registration or site hosting companies.


Cordova Bay Preschool
Fun, yet clean and professional looking site for the preschool. Uses WordPress. Lots of pictures of cute 3 and 4 year olds!

• We require a portion (25% to 50% depending on the size of the project) of the estimated fees up-front as a retainer before any agreed-upon work can proceed. Work will not begin until that amount has been paid.

• If you wish to cancel your agreed-upon project within 24 hours of paying the retainer, you will receive 100% of your money back. After the 24 hour period, you will only receive your retainer minus any applicable fees based on work completed.

• At the completion of the web site, based on your sign-off, the remainder of the fees will be payable.

• Future maintenance, after sign-off, will be billed at the usual $50 per hour. Each task will be estimated in a detailed manner and business will be conducted as above.

^* Some organizations may qualify for a reduced rate.

We've always believed that the services we provide for others are of a professional quality, and that there is value in having us help you with your website needs. But perhaps you'd like to learn how to do "it" yourself?

In Victoria, BC we offer tutoring (think of it as "focused help") for both adults and students, at both high school and university levels.

Help for individuals is available in the following areas:

• Website design -- Basic or advanced html, image processing, simple javascript. I have 14 years experience.

• Photoshop -- Learn how to do those cool things with Photoshop that you've never been able to figure out on your own. I have 14 years experience.

• Programming -- I specialize in Java, but may also be able to help you with Perl, PHP, Javascript, or SQL. I have been a professional programmer for nearly 20 years.

Our tutoring services are offered at $50 per hour. The minimum charge is $50.

We are in the process of redesigning the Jewellery portion of our web site and the page you are looking for is most likely part of that redesign.

Here are some questions that should be examined before we proceed with the design of your web site:

How will the web site fit in with your business?

Examples:

• Increase sales,
• Expose your business to new customers,
• Sell products to your existing customers,
• Act as a resource to help out your existing customers,
• Advertising in conjunction with print ads,
• Keep up a relationship with your existing customers,
• etc.

Who is your target audience?

Examples:

• General public,
• Experienced computer users,
• Existing customers,
• Teachers,
• University students,
• etc.

How will your audience find out about your web site?

Examples:

• Google searching for specific keywords,
• Print advertising,
• Google ad campaign,
• Links from other web sites,
• Local posters and flyers,
• Your business card or rack card,
• Word of mouth,
• Existing customers will be told about the web site,
• etc.

Do you have a domain name in mind? Do you have a business name?

Everyone seems to have a web site these days – the local newspaper, drug store, neighbourhood coffee shop – even your favourite gas station seems to have a web site.

Do their web sites "work?" How about your web site?

We have more than 15+ years experience (since 1996) working with Victoria, BC business owners to develop effective web sites.

LearnSailing.org

Sailing learning tools created as PowerPoint presentations. Uses Xaraya, Gallery, and has a PayPal shopping cart integration.

At the end of the day, we want our clients to feel that they're not only getting a professional looking web site, but that they're also making a wise investment.

Our services include:

• Business and systems analysis.
• Site development using:
  • Content Management Systems (mainly WordPress),
  • PHP,
  • Java,
  • and Perl.
• E-commerce integration.
• Clean, effective web page design.
• Search engine optimization.
• On-going site maintenance.

Resources:

• I've written an article to help novice users understand digital photo files: Digital Photo Files for Dummies (PDF)
• Web Site Business Analysis