Creative • Fast • Easy To Work With

Print and Web Design

Welcome to Bishop Design! I am a graphic designer, illustrator, and web developer over 20 years experience in print design, especially package design, logo design & branding, promotional (flyers and brochures), and educational signage. Starting out in advertising, years ago, I’ve also been heavily involved in tourist industry design as well as medical (including medical illustration, presentations, and publications).

Working in web design since the mid 90s, I added programming to my skill set by getting a recent AAS in Web Technologies, and while I can (and have!) program websites from scratch, I prefer working with WordPress to help my clients be empowered to take over their own sites. I’ve enjoyed setting up brochure style websites for small companies and getting them started maintaining their own sites, after training them in WordPress.

I have a wide variety of talents across the board, from concept to finished piece/site, and would love to discuss your project with you if I can help you out!

 

Great!

"Wow, Paula, everything looks great. I always know that I can count on you, taking care of things in the cool way that you do."

Stephanie Wilds, Owner, Acoustic Corner

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:16:31+00:00

Stephanie Wilds, Owner, Acoustic Corner

"Wow, Paula, everything looks great. I always know that I can count on you, taking care of things in the cool way that you do."

Fun To Watch Work

"When I go to any other shop and ask them to do something, they only know one way to do it, but you know two or three different ways to do the same thing. I learn so much watching you work–you make it look so easy! I’m not taking my work anywhere else from now on."

Todd Branham, Owner, Blue Ridge Adventures

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:17:37+00:00

Todd Branham, Owner, Blue Ridge Adventures

"When I go to any other shop and ask them to do something, they only know one way to do it, but you know two or three different ways to do the same thing. I learn so much watching you work–you make it look so easy! I’m not taking my work anywhere else from now on."

Incredibly Good Designer

"There are two things I can say with great confidence when it comes to describing Paula: she loves chocolate and she’s an incredibly good designer. In addition to her design skills, Paula has a strong worth ethic and works well within a team. If I were ever in the position to need her services, I’d hire her again without hesitation."

Robert Hillman, Product Marketing and Management, Hewlett-Packard

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:14:32+00:00

Robert Hillman, Product Marketing and Management, Hewlett-Packard

"There are two things I can say with great confidence when it comes to describing Paula: she loves chocolate and she’s an incredibly good designer. In addition to her design skills, Paula has a strong worth ethic and works well within a team. If I were ever in the position to need her services, I’d hire her again without hesitation."

YAY!

"Thumbs way up for Paula and Bishop Design. Paula designed my website and has been very helpful in teaching me how to manage some aspects of my website. YAY!"

Greg Gillette, Owner, Nutritionist, Gillette Nutrition

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:13:40+00:00

Greg Gillette, Owner, Nutritionist, Gillette Nutrition

"Thumbs way up for Paula and Bishop Design. Paula designed my website and has been very helpful in teaching me how to manage some aspects of my website. YAY!"

A Joy to Work With

"Asheville’s own Paula Bishop was truly a joy to work with, and was full of great ideas. Plus, she was able to execute all of my outrageous special-effects concepts with her abundant Photoshop expertise! The work she did on my CD (as well as her recent CD design jobs for Michael Farr and Ashley Chambliss) are on her website. And her rate is a real bargain once you see how fast she works!"

Benjamin Berstein, Astrologer, Astro Shaman

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:08:58+00:00

Benjamin Berstein, Astrologer, Astro Shaman

"Asheville’s own Paula Bishop was truly a joy to work with, and was full of great ideas. Plus, she was able to execute all of my outrageous special-effects concepts with her abundant Photoshop expertise! The work she did on my CD (as well as her recent CD design jobs for Michael Farr and Ashley Chambliss) are on her website. And her rate is a real bargain once you see how fast she works!"

The Only Designer For Me

"Paula is an exceptionally talented person! She has designed fabulous labels for all of my bath and body products. She is very easy to work with and I will continue to do so for any future graphic work."

Mary Novak, Owner, The Laughing Mermaid Soap Co.

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:12:33+00:00

Mary Novak, Owner, The Laughing Mermaid Soap Co.

"Paula is an exceptionally talented person! She has designed fabulous labels for all of my bath and body products. She is very easy to work with and I will continue to do so for any future graphic work."

Creative and Dependable

"Paula Bishop designed a wide variety of projects that included brochures, corporate overviews, educational literature, booth graphics, web graphics, and more.  All of this work was executed with an extraordinary illustrative flair that helped set the tone and corporate personality of all of our company’s corporate material. They don’t come any more creative and dependable than Paula. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone any better."

David Barrett, Marketing Creative Director, Genova Diagnostics Laboratory

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T19:47:26+00:00

David Barrett, Marketing Creative Director, Genova Diagnostics Laboratory

"Paula Bishop designed a wide variety of projects that included brochures, corporate overviews, educational literature, booth graphics, web graphics, and more.  All of this work was executed with an extraordinary illustrative flair that helped set the tone and corporate personality of all of our company’s corporate material. They don’t come any more creative and dependable than Paula. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone any better."

Intuitive and Listens

"Paula Bishop exceeded my expectations when she created my skin care product labels and also branding of the company’s logo. She listens and intuitively understands the client’s point of view. She demonstrates effective communication throughout the project and wants her client to be fully satisfied with the final results. Paula is professional, courteous and full of creativity. I would highly recommend her."

Susan Lampe, Owner, Angelic Scentsations

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:15:24+00:00

Susan Lampe, Owner, Angelic Scentsations

"Paula Bishop exceeded my expectations when she created my skin care product labels and also branding of the company’s logo. She listens and intuitively understands the client’s point of view. She demonstrates effective communication throughout the project and wants her client to be fully satisfied with the final results. Paula is professional, courteous and full of creativity. I would highly recommend her."

Fast Turn-A-Round

"Paula has a knack for taking very little instruction and bringing back exactly what we needed. In addition to her high-quality of work, she works fast and always seems to deliver before the deadline, just in case, we have last minute tweaks we need implemented."

Freelin Jones, Marketing Communications Coordinator, Genova Diagnostics Laboratory

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T20:11:29+00:00

Freelin Jones, Marketing Communications Coordinator, Genova Diagnostics Laboratory

"Paula has a knack for taking very little instruction and bringing back exactly what we needed. In addition to her high-quality of work, she works fast and always seems to deliver before the deadline, just in case, we have last minute tweaks we need implemented."

Innovative Design

"Paula’s design was the first system map we had, and was an important item for us to provide customers during our fare-free period in fall, 2006. With over a 40% increase in ridership during this experiment, it’s evident that many first-time riders found their way using Paula’s innovative design, and that the map was absolutely crucial to our success."

James Garner, Department Manager, Research and Analysis, Pace Suburban Bus

Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design
2017-03-21T19:51:30+00:00

James Garner, Department Manager, Research and Analysis, Pace Suburban Bus

"Paula’s design was the first system map we had, and was an important item for us to provide customers during our fare-free period in fall, 2006. With over a 40% increase in ridership during this experiment, it’s evident that many first-time riders found their way using Paula’s innovative design, and that the map was absolutely crucial to our success."
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Paula Bishop, Graphic Designer, Bishop Design

Skills

Print Design : Concept, layout, production, prepress
Web Design : UI, organization, design, programming
Illustration : Computer (vector & pixel), drawing, painting, collage
Copy Writing : Advertising, marketing, web page content, tourist
Technical Writing : Programming, research
Database Design : Relational SQL, Access
Management : Training, employee moral, office management

Programs

Adobe Creative Suite : InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, Flash, After Effects, Dreamweaver
Other : Quark XPress, Freehand, Fontographer
Microsoft Office Suite : Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access

Languages

Programming : HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, SQL
Natural : English, German, French

Some Examples of Recent Work

Getty Images free for use on the web

Recently, the big news was that Getty Images–a huge stock photo company that has been around for many many years, and got really big doing print design photography–recently came out and gave permission (with certain strings attached) to use their vast library of images on blogs and non-commercial web use.

Adding APIs to your website

API stands for Application Programming Interface and is a set of protocols and functionality, implemented on an internet connected system, which allows other software (usually apps) to request information and calculations from it. Essentially, APIs help build applications, and function similarly to plugins or widgets for WordPress–they add functionality, but without having to be in a CMS framework. you can plug code right into html–with some javascript and jquery to help, to install APIs into your website or application. They are often the go-betweens in the communication between people and services.

Server Side Installations of Content Management Systems

This blog article looks at server-side install for three different content management systems: WordPress, Drupal, and Concrete-5. The process for each CMS was the same, starting out. Create a database (this can be set up through Cpanel with MySQL databases or through PHP MyAdmin, depending on how your Cpanel is set up, security-wise). Create a user-admin for that database. Make a note of the user and password you used to create the database, and store that somewhere–you will be using it later! Download the CMS from whatever web page hosting it (i.e. drupal.org, wordpress.org.) and uncompress the zip file.

Delving Deeper into WordPress

The term “blog” comes from “web log,” which, similar to the “Captain’s Log” made famous by Star Trek, is merely a series of articles or posts or entries chronicling something ongoing, similar to a diary, but out in the public eye, for everyone to see. Content is not limited to merely personal journals, but pretty much any subject you can imagine (including a Technical blog!). Essentially, it’s self-publishing, for the web.

Developing WordPress Plugins

Plugins are a big reason why WordPress has gotten as powerful and as popular as it has, for they extend the functionality of WordPress in many different ways, including adding shopping carts, boosting SEO ratings, adding widgets and calculators to make conversions, etc.

Content Management Systems, Take 5…

The rise of content management systems, or “CMS” (as I will hereafter refer to it), has enabled many people to start webpages, particularly blogs, by themselves, without having to learn any technical knowledge or programming languages, or even design. All they have to do is provide content, and BINGO! instant gratification new website created–in many cases without even needing to set up a hosting account. It has never been so easy for a novice to set up a web page, and have it look fairly decent (thanks to templates). Why? All because of Content Management Systems.

Social Media Campaigns

Whole Foods was largely established by John Mackey, CEO and co-founder, mainly because he was passionate about food and eating healthy, and wanted to offer healthy eating choices to people, for he, himself, had grown up largely on TV dinners. Now, that’s a great personal perspective to come from, and usually he would be a great proponent of his own store, except that when you combine his “hippie demeanor” with extreme, right-wing libertarianism (Ayn Rand is one of his role models) you have a complete disconnect with many of the potential market who would shop at Whole Foods, which has a largely liberal, left-wing customer base.

What’s In a WordPress Theme?

When you look at a webpage, you see it as one page, with various elements (masthead, footer, content area, sidebar, etc.), and in straight html, you code it as one page, with the DOCTYPE declaration at the top, opening and closing tags for various parts of the page. With themes, though, these parts are divvied up and each one becomes their own page, functioning under a model similar to the Model View Controller.

Final Project in Laravel, Graduation, and Onwards

For my Capstone project I chose to do a cookbook, as I’ve been accumulating recipes I’ve made on little pieces of paper in a huge stack in a bookshelf in my kitchen. I took the plunge and coded my project in PHP using the artisan framework Laravel. Laravel for PHP is like JQuery for Javascript–it’s not a language, per se, but a complex library of functions that one can hook into to create applications more quickly and securely–Laravel does some heavy lifting, but has a large learning curve, especially as it is all object-oriented. I could (and probably should) devote a whole blog to Laravel.

How to Engage Your Customers Through Social Media

Face it, social media can feel like a bit of a blind date sometimes–there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a response, or what the response will be, positive or negative. But, rather than be discouraged, or stop before you start, consider that honing your message will help a great deal–putting goals in place before you start for what type of exposure, engagement, and interest you’d like to create, and defining measurable metrics that coincide with your business goals.

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