I HELP CREATE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND THROUGH STORYTELLING AND DESIGN.
Developing your online presence & brand identity takes more than design skills. You need a creative problem-solver who understands what you’re looking for (even if you don’t know yourself!) and who delivers excellence—on time and beyond your expectations. I am a skilled writer and editor with a diversity of design experience who will help you tell your story.
ABOUT ME
A New York–based visual content creator, I’ve been helping clients across the U.S. articulate and design their personal brands online since 2008. Before then, my background includes years of producing and marketing both magazines and books.
I work exclusively with solopreneurs, creatives, consultants, and small businesses. My talent is figuring out what your distinctive story is and how best to present it to the world. A series of questions at the outset will set the tone for our work together.
PHILOSOPHY
I believe that everyone has a story. They may just need a little help telling it. My mission is to work closely with you to develop your ideas and unique story, and take them to an exciting visual level. I will be your wingman as you and your project take flight.
FEATURED PROJECTS
AUTHOR BLOG
An elegantly simple WordPress website for author Philip Caputo, redesigned annually to promote his latest book project. Each of Phil’s 17 books gets its own showcase page, and the site hosts a variety of video and audio interviews.
In addition to maintaining his website, I create all Phil’s social media branding, graphics, and promotional videos.
Phil had already built a strong brand over the decades since his breakthrough book A RUMOR OF WAR: strong, masculine, outdoorsy, erudite, and thoughtful. My work for him is designed to convey that distinct brand and connect his online audience with it.
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PHOTOGRAPHER’S
PORTFOLIO
This custom WordPress portfolio/blog was designed and copywritten by me for fine-art photographer Barbara Erdmann. The site was launched in 2012 with 30 or so special photos, and now has several hundred striking photos showcased on it.
I’ve also created a number of printed branding materials, such as oversized display cards and custom business cards, to help Barb build her business via retail marketing.
As we created Barb’s various materials and messages, we were guided by her ethos of “elegant, simple, and dramatic,” which helped attract a discriminating clientele for her oversized art photographs.
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ONLINE STORE
green design GOODS, a Wix e-commerce site for sustainability consultant Jennifer Prescott, features carefully curated pages of “green” products, highlighting a strong sustainable consumption ethos. Soothing natural colors and textures are used throughout.
Jen, a former market editor for lifestyle magazines, and I worked closely on the logos, colors, and visual experience of this online boutique, with its associated branded graphics and videos.
The green design GOODS store is the offshoot of Jen’s sustainable living advice-filled blog, jennygreenjeans.com, a separate multi-page WordPress blog I designed in 2012.
MORE PROJECTS
Hover over each project to find out more. (Note: Some older sites are now closed.)
HAPPY CLIENTS
“Laura Kelly is beyond knowledgeable in building digital representations for businesses, blogs, and individuals. Personally, I’m most grateful for her intuitive skills. She is fast and thorough. Most of the time, she knew what I wanted/needed before I did! And she never once screamed at me to “MOVE!” à la Jimmy Fallon’s tech geek character on SNL.”
JENNIFER PRESCOTT
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my website! And I receive numerous compliments from all who visit it. After only being live for a week, I secured a new client and 2 new courses. Amazing! The website is beautifully designed and so ME! Laura helped me write content, edit and organize my site to perfectly articulate and showcase my expertise and experience. She is a brilliant designer. So easy to work with and responsive. She kept me on task with patience.
I highly recommend working with Laura. Not only is she a wonderful editor, designer, brand creator, she is one of the kindest humans that I know.
KATHY MARGIASSO
I was given Laura's name from a friend of mine who had just finished her website. When I saw the site, all I could think was wow, this person perfectly captured who my friend is!
From the start, Laura was everything you could want out of a website designer; she knew what to ask to help guide you, immediately got a feel for what I wanted from the site as well as the aesthetics, and gave me the space to make it my own.
She is also a fantastic editor and writer, which was important to me since my site is very focused on educating and connecting with my prospective clients. She was always timely with her emails and communication, and we met our deadline of 2 months to launch!
I am eternally grateful to Laura for building me a beautiful site and also taking the time to teach me the basics once it launched. She was a one-stop shop for me which was also super helpful. Thank you so much, Laura!
LIZ RODRIGUEZ
“Laura Kelly is a magician, or that’s how it looks to an ungeek like myself. But that’s not why I’m so pleased with the work she’s done for me. Laura was an editor before she tackled the web. She understood immediately how I felt and constructed a site that presents prose—mine and that of other writers I admire. It’s clever and inviting, but it’s all about the music and meaning of language.”
BENJAMIN CHEEVER
“I have been getting compliments on how beautiful and well organized my new portfolio site is. Laura listened carefully to determine what I wanted, and made it all happen very quickly and easily. I especially appreciated her help with organizing the voice and writing the text of the site, since I had never gathered information about my business all in one place before.”
BARBARA ERDMANN
“In addition to her extensive experience in web design, Laura brought more to my projects than I could have ever anticipated, including her creative vision, solid design and editorial skills, and excellent judgment. She helped me stay on track so my projects could reach fruition quickly and she was always patient, easy to communicate with, and accessible.”
IRENE LEVINE
“Major thanks go to friend, web guru, and all around awesome person Laura Kelly, who helped me with the campaign in every possible way: getting my website ready for launch, enlisting people to contribute, creating badges and banners, and providing moral support.”
EDIE JAROLIM
“Thanks to Laura for all her efforts in creating and maintaining my website and social media connections. My memoir The Longest Road sold 1,000 copies for the holiday season and I’m sure a lot of that is due to what she did.
“If you’re thinking of building or rebuilding your own site, I highly recommend her. ”
PHILIP CAPUTO
“Laura is the best! She is not only an excellent website designer, but an accomplished editor. Her trained eye catches typos and grammatical errors.
“She works quickly, doesn't overcharge for her services, and is a patient tutor, if you need one for blogging. Laura understands social media and knows how to use it to enhance business.”
WESLEY DAVIDSON
“Laura did an outstanding job with my website, handling both the creative design elements and the nitty-gritty technical details speedily, and with my priorities in mind. She also had great suggestions on what to include in my text.
“If you don’t want to deal with the stress of setting up your website yourself, I highly recommend Laura.”
PHYLLIS KORKKI
“Thank you so much, Laura. You are simply amazing! Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you and thank my lucky stars that you found us. Your contributions have been priceless and your friendship means a great deal to me.”
ROBERT KESTEN
“I’m very happy with the website! It looks great and I love the bridges between the sections. Thanks for your work.”
PAUL NARAD
“I’m very grateful for all your help with Finish Strong. You are a woman of many talents! Editing, typesetting, promotional know-how, and graphic design, too. You are amazingly prolific and endlessly helpful—the best partner I could imagine in this struggle to communicate difficult truths. Thank you for being marvelous.”
BARBARA COOMBS LEE
