Helen Stevens makes websites

Html(5) and xhtml

Markup languages are the language of the web, they allow us communicate what we mean both visually and semantically.

My first exposure to HTML was in the mid 90s when I built my first personal webpage that featured both a table-based layout shudder and "really nice" handcrafted animated gifs. I also started playing with an application called FutureSplash Animator on a Power Macintosh.

I guess this was the moment when my markup could have turned to the dark side, but thankfully I made the right choice and embraced the W3C.

PHP and JavaScript

If markup describes the content and allows themeing via CSS, code is the logic that get's the dynamic content to the page in the first place, allows manipulation of that content behind the scenes or generates the content itself.

PHP development is one of the most exciting and interesting aspects, and an increasingly large part, of the work I do–from custom module development to presentational logic that pushes the boundaries of themeing.

JavaScript is kind of like hot sauce, a little bit makes just about everything better, but too much can make most people sick. I find JQuery to have just the right heat.

Cascading Stylesheets

CSS is, in short, the "pretty."

In the wrong hands CSS can provide the not-so-pretty, too. But take a well marked-up page and apply CSS with design finesse and an awareness of the end user's chosen browser and device and you have yourself a beautiful website, inside and out.

CSS is superficially simple and amazingly powerful and, as we know, with great power comes great responsibility.

What I do

This is the part of the website where the author typically says some lofty but vague things about their "philosophy"

I am a builder and a maker. I like being useful. Some people are professionally "awesome" and some people are awesome professionally. I aspire to be the later, to do my best possible work and to keep getting better.

I am curious about how things work and how to make them work better. In everything I do I try to solve the right problems and try to solve them the best way possible.

I love to collaborate with visual designers, realising their vision with CSS and HTML implemention. I also like to fire up Illustrator and Photoshop and design sites on my own, like this one here.

My Work

Here are 5 sites I've both designed and developed, and one that I designed.

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  Drupal

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  Drupal

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  Wordpress

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  Wordpress

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  Drupal

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  Design Only