One ongoing project Jen enjoys is creating a poster each year for the MIT BioBricks Foundation's International Meeting on Synthetic Biology. She was working at MIT and was asked to create the poster for the first event in 2004. Although she moved to Cedar Mill in 2008, she continues to produce these by working long-distance with her client.

Featured Business
Chrysos Designs
by Virginia Bruce

As more people use the internet to search for the goods and services they need, it becomes ever more important for small businesses to work with a professional to produce their web and print outreach materials. An off-the-shelf website, with spelling and grammar errors, poor-quality graphics, and hard-to-find or missing information, gives an impression that the business doesn't pay attention to details or care enough about their customers to make the effort.

It's easy now to find “do-it-yourself” printing and website production services. And it's tempting to think that sincerity is enough to express your business message. But a pretty template doesn't make up for an experienced professional with an eye for those important details. And with the proliferation of websites, sites need to be optimized so that customers can find you.

That's where our featured business, Chrysos Designs, comes in. Jennifer Cook-Chrysos has been working with clients for over ten years to create logos, graphics, print and web designs for events, businesses and organizations. She works from her home office in the Cedar Mill area and is looking for new clients.

Every business has a “brand.” In the marketing context, this concept includes every impression that a potential customer has about your business. From the way you answer the phone, to more formal outreach efforts, word-of-mouth references, and customer service follow-through—it's all part of your brand.

One of the websites Jen has produced for a local client.

“I offer a free consultation that includes a brief analysis of a client's current website or brand. In the case of a website, I often start with keyword research to see if the site is targeting the most strategic keywords,” she explains.

She can provide design services including logos, brochures, direct-mail pieces, business cards and more, and works with a local printer to create the finished products. She's also happy to step in and tune up existing designs.

She's been creating websites since the 90s,” when the web was pretty new. Things change so fast that I had to keep educating myself to stay current,” she says.”What clients needed in a website has changed pretty drastically since then, too. Back then, a website was like a brochure that you could send people to. It could remain relatively static for years as long as you didn't move or change your phone number.”

“Now consumers have changed so much in their behavior, going to the web every time they wonder about anything. They can access it wherever they are, even at the beach or on an airplane, so my clients need to worry about how their site is going to be found among so many other sites. Sites are now constructed in such a way as to make them visible to a specific consumer. And they need constant updating. The client needs to be able to edit their own site. The pretty picture that web sites used to be has become the skin of a complex organism.”

Jen uses a Mac laptop and a large screen in her home office.

She uses WordPress for many of her sites. This technology allows for a consistent design that the client doesn't have to touch. The client uses a web interface to make content changes and to add new material. She has learned how to “tweak” WordPress templates to achieve the look and organization that suits each client.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a whole industry now, and it can be a full-time job to keep a site at the top of the search engine results. But very few clients need that kind of effort. Jen knows how to build a site with correct coding and careful attention to keyword selection and content that will ensure that the right customers find a site. She can also help her clients use social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to find and retain customers.

It can be scary for a small business to commit to the investment of time and money to create the brand they need to succeed. Marketing is often an afterthought, and it's very tempting to use a relative or a kid to take on these esoteric and technical tasks. And you don't always get what you pay for. But working with a professional, local designer who is committed to your business success is one way to ensure good results that pay off.

Jen is an accomplished artist and can produce original art for her projects with traditional media like paint and ink in addition to computer graphics. She keeps charts on her wall to help with tricky human features.

“I love a project that I can take from beginning to end,” she says,”listening to my client describe their vision for their business and designing a brand for them that expresses that on all levels. I enjoy working with an individual or small business owner and being there to see the business become more successful.”

Jen has always loved to draw and paint. So when it came time to go to college, she entered art school at the University of Michigan. She says, “After a while I felt that I was missing something and changed my major to Biology. After graduation I worked at Boston University School of Medicine, but after doing lab research for a while, I really started to miss creative work. I started taking classes at night and eventually enrolled full time at the Massachusetts College of Art to complete my art degree. Since then I have worked with scientists in a variety of ways to communicate their work visually.”

She lives in Cedar Mill with her husband, George, a computer architect at Intel. Her son, Jalen, is nine and her daughter, Isabel is six. They both go to Terra Linda Elementary. Now that they're both in school, she'd devoting more of her time to building her business. She takes courses at Portland State's Multimedia Professional Program to keep her web and software skills current and to keep up with new developments in SEO and site programming.

Visit her website at chrysosdesigns.com to see some of her projects, and find out more. Or give her a call at 503-922-0167 and set up an appointment to find out how she can help your business.

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