I'm Suzanne Stephens

Let me tell you a little about myself. Originally from North Carolina, I've studied art and design almost all my life. I moved to the West Coast following a divorce in 1989. I met Dave Stephens, a graphic designer and musician specializing in album cover design, on America Online in 1994. We soon merged our personal and professional lives.

In November, 1994, just after the first public release of Netscape, Dave I and were introduced to the World Wide Web. Virtually unknown to the general public, at the time it had fewer than 800,000 users. Stunned by what I saw, I instantly recognized the Web as a major paradigm shift in communications.

I immediately stopped doing print design work to focus on teaching myself to do Web design, a significant challenge at a time when no books on Web design had been published and no Web design software existed. My first sites were created using only Simpletext and Photoshop on the Mac.

In the spring of 1995, Stephens Design became one of fewer than 50 Web design companies listed on Yahoo! Our site on which we sold Dave's handcrafted art jewelry was featured in the May, 1995 Yahoo! Internet Life magazine as being one of the five best jewelry sites on the Web. It was also recognized by the Society of North American Goldsmiths as being the first art jewelry site online.

Since the mid-90's, I have been involved in the design and publication of over 1000 Web sites for clients all across the U.S. My work has included interface design for use by major real estate site developers on database-driven site systems. For the past few years, I've worked almost exclusively on real estate Web sites.

My involvement with Web design has has been the culmination of a lifetime of involvement with art and design. As a child, I took weekly private art lessons from the fifth grade through high school.

I attended Hollins College (Roanoke, VA) majoring in art history and foreign languages before graduating with highest honors from the Fashion Institute of Technology (NYC). I also studied graphic design and illustration at Central Piedmont Community College (Charlotte, NC), where I later served as a professional advisor to students in the Visual Communications program. I've also taken courses in landscape design and interior design.

I worked as a fashion illustrator and ad layout artist for major southeastern department store chains before opening a graphic design studio in Charlotte, NC. It evolved into an award-winning "creative boutique" full-service ad agency specializing in retail advertising, commercial development, and hospital marketing.

After operating the ad agency for several years, I took a sabbatical to work as a graphic designer, raft guide and whitewater canoeing and kayaking instructor for a large outdoor outfitter in the North Carolina mountains. From there, I moved to San Francisco and worked for several years as a freelance art director for several advertising agencies.

For the past few years, Dave has been more involved in his music-related work than with graphic design. He operates SDPickups.com and makes custom-made electronic components for guitars.

My son Craig keeps a family presence in my beloved North Carolina mountains. He has taught whitewater kayaking there for over fifteen years and helps lead kayaking trips to Costa Rica and Ecuador in the winter. Craig has been a REALTOR®/Associate Broker since 2005 and is currently associated with a Prudential office in Sylva, NC.

When I'm not at the computer, my passions are following politics, gardening around our home near Vancouver, WA; our little boss, Shetland Sheepdog Munchkin and her Sheltie buddies Bo and Jazz, and ZoomZoom the cat. Since buying our house, I've become addicted to HGTV. I continually fantasize that one of the HGTV interior designers will surprise me with a home makeover. No luck yet.

Curb Appeal for Your Real Estate Web Site © 2010 Suzanne Stephens