David Owen Hastings

David David Owen Hastingsis a graphic designer and fine artist who works exclusively with nonprofit organizations — helping development officers and marketing staff connect with donors, supporters, clients and the community through distinctive and dynamic branding and marketing design tools. He provides decades of nonprofit experience and expertise at reasonable rates.

Get Help for Your WordPress Website

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LifeWire tablet screenshot

Client:  LifeWire
Founded in 1982 as Eastside Domestic Violence Program (EDVP), LifeWire was the first agency to directly serve survivors in East and North King County. Today, LifeWire is Washington state’s largest domestic violence organization and a nationally recognized leader in the field. LifeWire has helped over 141,000 survivors break free from abuse, find safety, heal, and create a stable home for themselves and their children.

Scope of Work:
Front-end web development
Performance optimization
Rebranding
Security hardening
Search engine optimization
Visual redesign

Team: David Owen Hastings, Scott Marlow

The Challenge

LifeWire completed a branding overhaul with Phinney Bishoff circa 2014. The website needed to be updated with the new brand identity.

The Results

We built the new mobile responsive site in WordPress on _Underscores, optimizing desktop layout for more modern 1,440 pixel width monitors. New full-bleed homepage headers promote the organization’s latest news. Bold custom fonts and colors help distinguish the new brand. Social media, Constant Contact e-newsletter signup form and the latest events are promoted via a colorful attention-getting sitewide footer. Volunteer management was streamlined with a new online volunteer application. Online donations are integrated thru eTapestry.

In 2018, the LifeWire site was updated with a fresh online Impact Report section.

Performance WordPress Site Benchmark
Google Mobile Speed: 94
Google Desktop Speed 100
Pingdom 89 faster than 87% of tested sites
WebPageTest Speed Index 2,255 median = ~4,493
top 10% = <1,388
YSlow 79 average score = 70
Web Page Size 1.2 Mb In 2017, average page size = ~2.4 Mb
median page size = ~1.9 Mb
Web Server Requests 34 < 40 – 60 recommended

Thank you so much for the fantastic job you have done on the LifeWire website! It looks awesome!!
Kelly Becker, development director, LifeWire

Fostering Content Management for Clients Through Open Source Solutions

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Ladies Musical Club website

Graphic Design: David Owen Hastings
WordPress Web Development: Scott Marlow

To celebrate its 125th anniversary, Ladies Musical Club of Seattle worked with us to redesign their static ‘fixed width’ website into a mobile responsive Content Management System (powered by WordPress – the most popular open source CMS in the world).

The new site features rich, custom photography and videography; and a public concert event calendar. Volunteers can now add and edit content, including events.

So exciting! A huge thanks to you and David for the beautiful layout, design, your knowledge and patience while guiding us through! … There is more work ahead, more to learn, but let’s take a big breath and delight in this huge milestone!  Wow, just wow!
Claudia McCormick-Kester, Vice President of Communications

The new site also loads among the top 10% of tested sites.

More site features are planned for the future.

Localized Community Websites

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Community Health clinic website screenshot
Graphic Design: David Owen Hastings
WordPress Web Development: Scott Marlow

International Community Health Services is a nationally recognized nonprofit community health center that provides affordable health care services to King County’s Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.

In 2015, we upgraded the 300+ page site with a new mobile responsive design. New site features include:

  • improved information architecture, with custom menus and clearer calls-to-action
  • more dynamic homepage content
  • translation for multiple languages
  • font resizer and contrast toggle for visitors with disabilities
  • simple online contact form, social media integration
  • extended footer with Quick Links
  • overall improved accessibility and usability features

Design and Development

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nonprofit website screenshot
Graphic Design: David Owen Hastings
E-Commerce Development: IvyCat
WordPress Theming: Scott Marlow

A new Content Management System for Life And Hope, a nonprofit Christian organization that improves lives for families in rural NW Guatemala.

This new WordPress site allows Life And Hope volunteers to easily  manage their own content and site updates. Organization supporters can now easily Sponsor a Child through an integrated online donation form, which also helps Life And Hope track and manage donations.

WordPress to the Rescue

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K9 Search and Rescue Team website
Graphic Design by David Owen Hastings
WordPress Site Development by Scott Marlow

A mobile responsive site redesign for Snohomish County Volunteer Search and Rescue K9 Team.

This volunteer-led nonprofit previously relied on an outdated version of a DotNetNuke CMS with a non-mobile friendly layout.

Our new WordPress site is not only mobile friendly, but includes a dynamic news section for updates and alerts, as well as new members only content that volunteers can manage and maintain themselves.

Performance has been improved by reducing page size 92%, from 4.7 Mb to a respectable 371 Kb – resulting in a page load speed under 3 seconds.