Lee-James Audio
A single-page portfolio for an audio engineer, styled like a broadcast console.
View Case StudyDesign & Development Studio // East Tennessee
Improving the web, one website build at a time.
HC Web Labs is a one-woman studio in East Tennessee building fast, accessible websites for small businesses — custom-coded, or tuned up on the platform you already use.
What I Do
Websites, Built to Modern Standards.
Every project starts with how your business actually works — then I build the site to match. Human-coded from a blank file when you want something truly custom, or careful improvements to the platform you already use.
Either way, the same standards apply: fast to load, accessible to everyone, and easy for people to use.
Full services & details-
Custom Website Builds
Human-coded, multi-page sites designed around your business
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Fixes & Updates
Repairs, tweaks, and content changes — most within a day or two
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Platform & CMS Tune-Ups
Optimizing the template or builder you already work in
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Monthly Webmaster Care
Ongoing updates, backups, and a person to call
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Free Website Reviews
A no-cost look at what your current site needs
Flight Plan
From First Signal to Launch.
Every project runs the same honest sequence — no surprises, every number in writing before work begins.
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Stage 01 · No Obligation
Signal Received
A free consultation — or the free website review — tells us both exactly where things stand. Scope, price, and timeline land in writing before anything is signed.
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Stage 02 · Custom-Coded
Build Under Neon
Custom-coded to the 2026 baseline — semantic HTML, mobile-first CSS, WCAG 2.2 AA — with preview links as the work takes shape, so nothing is a reveal.
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Stage 03 · You Own It All
Cleared for Launch
A final accessibility and performance pass, then liftoff — with a 7–14 day post-launch warranty and every file, domain, and account in your name from day one.
Selected Work
Real Builds, in the Wild.
Every project below was designed, coded, and shipped by one person — me.
Lee-James Audio
Audio Engineer · One-Page Portfolio · Broadcast-Console Aesthetic
The Inspiration
A working audio engineer splits time between podcast post, live events, and mixing — and needs one link that carries a real professional identity, not a résumé PDF or a generic one-page template with someone else's fingerprints on it. The idea was a single page that sounds as sharp as the work: something you could hand a prospective client that feels unmistakably like the person who made it.
The Approach
I built the whole thing to speak the language of the work — a broadcast-console aesthetic in amber and cyan against near-black, with channel-strip layouts, a scrolling ticker, and animated frequency and VU meters. It ships as a single self-contained HTML file with no framework and no build step, and every claim on it is grounded in the engineer's actual résumé.
Standout Features
- A broadcast-console visual system — A ticker-tape header, channel-strip service rows, a patch-bay contact card, and a footer VU meter, tied together by a custom-drawn inline SVG favicon.
- Five distinct sections, one page — Hero, Services, Work, About, and Contact each carry their own layout logic rather than repeating one block.
- A pivot from form to contact card — When mailbox constraints made a backend impractical mid-build, the contact section pivoted to a direct-contact card without disturbing the surrounding design.
- Résumé-accurate content — Every credential, certification, and role is verifiable — inflated placeholder claims were removed in favor of facts.
Without a Spot! Commercial Cleaning
Commercial Cleaning · Owner-Operated · Bid Pipeline
The Inspiration
Post-construction cleaning is a specialized, technical trade — the rough clean while trades finish, the final clean before inspection, the touch-up before keys change hands — but the websites in the space read like generic maid services. The challenge was translating that specialized closeout work into a site credible enough to win larger commercial contracts, with real names and real phone numbers behind the brand instead of a call center.
The Approach
I led with the founders — faces, names, and values — then organized the full scope of work into a clear service ledger, added an interactive before/after slider from a real completed job, and wired a bid-request pipeline built for fast, honest follow-up. Even the pricing page explains how bids are actually built instead of inventing tiers a walkthrough-based service can't commit to.
Standout Features
- A real bid-request pipeline — Live validation, AJAX submission with an in-page confirmation, and mail routed through the business's own domain for proper sender alignment — behind honeypot, timing, CSRF, and rate-limit protection.
- A signature chamfered-corner motif — Carried across buttons, cards, photo frames, and badges — a distinct identity instead of the generic rounded-rectangle template look.
- An automatic photo-treatment system — A consistent navy tint and saturation trim on every photo, so real phone-camera job-site shots added mid-project read as one cohesive family with no per-image editing.
- A before/after slider from a real job — An interactive drag comparison pulled from an actual completed closeout, not a stock demo.
City of Rocky Top
Municipal Redesign · WordPress → Custom PHP · Civic Identity
The Inspiration
My own town's website was a dated WordPress and Elementor build — slow, template-dependent, hard to maintain, and not really responsive across the devices residents actually use. A city site is the front door to its whole community, and Rocky Top's deserved to match the place: the coal-country history, the trails, the genuine downtown revival. I wanted to show what a civic site could be when it's built from the ground up instead of assembled from a theme.
The Approach
I rebuilt it from zero as a custom PHP platform designed around the community's identity — and, critically, built to be maintained and extended by the city for years. Everything runs from one config file and one tokenized stylesheet, so a phone number or a color scheme changes in a single place and updates everywhere.
Standout Features
- A genuinely used seventh breakpoint — The old build gave tablet users a phone layout in a bigger box; the redesign gives 768px real work — three-column timelines, four-across quick-links, an about sidebar, and a contact split.
- An icon-system fix — Consolidating to one icon library uncovered a cascade-layer bug silently forcing every component icon back to default size across the adventure section, park cards, and header — traced and fixed.
- An asymmetric, modern hero — A left-aligned composition with a capped-width tagline and a flat hairline stat strip, replacing a dated centered layout that pushed content below the fold on phones.
- A config-driven architecture — Navigation, constants, and social links in one file; change a phone number once and the header, mobile menu, contact page, and footer all update together.
The Human Behind the Code
Hi, I'm Heather.
HC Web Labs is my design and development studio in Rocky Top, Tennessee — and every project gets the full lab treatment: researched, designed, built, and tested until it works beautifully. I'm the designer, developer, and writer behind it all, serving clients everywhere.
I've been building websites daily for over five years, with an A.A.S. in Media Design Technology — and independence is the advantage: when you reach the lab, you reach the person who does the work.
Fully custom build, a CMS you can run yourself, or improving what you already have — you own everything. Your hosting, your domain, your files, from day one.
The full storyNo Cost · No Catch
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