Good design is
thorough down to
the last detailGood design is
thorough down to
the last detail, Good design is
innovative
–, Good design is
aesthetic
–, Good design is
unobtrusive
–, Good design is
honest
–, Good design is
long-lasting
–, Good design is
as little design
as possible
Located here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge in Charlottesville, Virginia, Strange Wind Studio is a web design & development agency operated by husband & wife team Seth Atwood & Jessica Geist.
Seth has always been a compulsive problem-solver, and wrote his first lines of code around the same time he learned how to read. He has spent his life in the web. Jessica is a talented craftswoman who earned her B.A. in Computer Science from the University of Virginia with a minor in Studio Art.
If you've made it this far, you're in the right place. Let's talk.
An Indie Publishing Powerhouse
Our friends at Sterling & Stone are making a big mark on indie publishing. Not only are they a group of highly productive writers, but they have a thriving community growing around them by way of their several podcast series and in-person events they host for fellow indie writers and smarter artists in Austin, Texas.
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A Kickstarter-backed App for Writers
StoryShop is our most ambitious project to date. We partnered with the folks at Sterling & Stone on a Kickstarter campaign to develop a story planning & writing tool for authors; one that fit their productive process like a glove. With the support of over six hundred backers, the campaign was a huge success. Today, StoryShop continues to grow, with thousands of authors creating their worlds & stories in StoryShop.
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A Full-Service Fiction Studio
Stories to Go is the latest offering from the folks at Sterling & Stone. They are pioneering a game-changer in the indie publishing industry: full-service coaching & co-writing. On StoriesToGo.io, an aspiring author can pick a cover and plot synopsis that strikes their fancy, then work closely with a team of storycraft and marketing experts to both write their book and make it a huge success.
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UVA Curry School of Education
This video coaching site has been used to help thousands of teachers be more effective in the classroom. The project represents one of our more impressive system architecture endeavors. We spent weeks whiteboarding, planning, imagining, dreaming about just the database structure before we wrote even the first line of code.
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Local Events Calendar
SceneThink is a new startup with big ambitions, currently letting people in Charlottesville, Virginia know what's happening around town. We were subcontracted during the prototyping phase to help with heavy lifting on the back end. The simplicity of what's seen on the surface masks wonderfully the complexity underneath. Though the site is no longer a prototype, we're proud to see our fingerprints in the genuine article.
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A Feature-packed WordPress Theme
Dynamik is the product of a year-long collaboration with WordPress Theme development company Cobalt Apps. We were brought on to add some high level functionality to Frugal Theme, which became Catalyst Theme, which ultimately led to Dynamik Website Builder Child Theme for Genesis Theme. We're happy to have helped forge a toolkit that has supported thousands of fellow web developers in making great websites.
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Total Control of WordPress Pages
Impact is a premium WordPress plugin we built while working on Dynamik Website Builder, and addresses a problem we saw in the WordPress marketplace at the time. We sold our interests in Impact to an entrepreneur in India a few years back, but we're pleased to know that between the free & paid versions, Impact has now been downloaded over 25,000 times!
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Shoeshines Delivered
A Shine To Go offers pick up & delivery service in San Francisco & Manhattan, and mail order everywhere else. The site provides a unique experience to users seeking this high-end convenience. Clean, minimal design with an engaging pictographic vocabulary.
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Extraordinary Shoeshines
A Shine & Co is a fantastic shoeshine cooperative founded in 1996. They have a compelling story to tell and a real family dynamic. We developed their site as well as a new logo and complete rebrand, taking their hot pink swing-pop aesthetic and toning it down a notch into something classic.
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Handsome Italian Boots & Shoes
When Rider Boot approached us for a new website, we quickly discovered an opportunity to harness Ron Rider's strong personality as the base for a complete rebranding. We travelled to Rider's NYC HQ in the West Village to put ourselves in the proper mindset for penning the Rider Manifesto featured on the homepage, as well as to inform the overarching neo-post-retro-modern aesthetic.
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eCommerce with Live Market Data
We're proud of the success we've seen with this project. When we first started working with Jefferson Coin, they had a minimal web presence. We worked exhaustively to design & develop their site with the majority of their prices tied to live market data, and to create the Live Price Board used in their showroom to set prices for the majority of their day-to-day front counter transactions.
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An Honest Silver Price Comparison
We took this project on for Jefferson Coin in response to several similar sites that were suspected of manipulating data to serve secret interests. Our guiding principles were honesty, transparency and simplicity. Jefferson Coin is confident they provide the very best service in the industry & their pricing is fair, so they don't mind showing their hand.
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