Miriam's Kitchen

In addition to needing their literary anthology designed, D.C. soup kitchen and homeless shelter Miriam's Kitchen also needed a website. The challenge was to create a site that not only provided menus and directions to would-be clients and volunteers, but also to serve as a place online where the group could make announcements and solicit support – all without making the site feel like they spent a ton of money on it.

The site I designed for Miriam's was meant to feel both elegant and homey. The green plaid pattern placed at the top of each page was meant to evoke memories of a childhood picnic blanket or tablecloth, while serving as an attention-grabber to the navigation bar. The site included many pictures of Miriam's volunteers and their clients, but remained fast enough to be accessed on public library computers with slow connections to the Internet.

Among the many elements on the site: descriptions of Miriams' upcoming special events, synopses of literary anthologies available for sale as fund-raisers, a menu for the clients, and directions for both clients and new volunteers.

The Miriam's Kitchen website was built using Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and hand-coded HTML and CSS.