Website Design

Today, a website is often your first point of contact to a potential customer. And let's be honest, most visitors have an attention span measured in seconds. I can help you get the message across and let them know why you should be their choice before they go elsewhere.

Website Hosting

Most of my clients don't want to be bothered with shopping around for the best web hosting service provider. And why should they? I already know the options out there and can save you time and money in choosing a web hosting service. You'll probably be surprised at how affordable it can be.

SEO

What the heck is SEO anyway? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. A properly optimized site is the difference between praying that someone stumbles upon your site and knowing that your site is going to be among the results they see when they're searching Google.

Personal

I'm Mike Barnlund, a 30 year old freelance software developer / UI designer from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I've been a software developer for 7 years, specializing in web application development. I've worked on all levels of web app development, and with most of the main languages and technologies available. UI design has always been the part I enjoy most so, fortunately for you, I'm now available as a freelance web designer.

Not that anything in my personal life really has any relevance, but I've been asked so I'll include it here. I love my job and I'm very good at what I do. I truly believe that freelance web design is close to as good as it gets in tech careers (if you're good, that is). But I don't eat cascading style sheets, I don't breathe anti-aliased fonts, and I don't live for XHTML compliance. I don't fall in love with every piece of work I do. In any job requiring creativity at the instruction of a client, there's a risk of becoming too emotionally invested in your work. Too many designers take it personally when their client tells them it's just not quite what they're looking for. If I've made you a beautiful, stylistic masterpiece, and you tell me to tear it all down and make craigslist, that's what I'll do (and I won't even shed a tear).

Design Skills