What's Your Idea?

Iluminada Design is a Santa Cruz web design studio specializing in custom web design, eCommerce solutions, logo/identity design and opensource web application development for small to mid-sized businesses around the world.

We believe elegant design and utilitarian function are one in the same. A good website looks as good as it works. Period. All the websites we build focus on a top-to-bottom total integration of form and function. When it comes to your business’ web presence, elegance of both function & style is everything.

Since 1999, we have taken pride in developing high-quality websites, shopping carts, logos, content management systems, print marketing materials and online communities for reasonable rates, while establishing strong, lasting, mutually beneficial, trust-based relationships with our clients and development team.

We're a local company with a national (and international) reach: we currently service clients in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Michigan, New York, South Dakota, Florida, Mexico, Indonesia and Costa Rica

Iluminada Design has an extensive web design portfolio ranging from high-end eCommerce websites to basic informational sites... with everything in-between.

Some featured projects include:

»View our full portfolio

For years Pranamaya Inc, makers of award-winning Yoga videos featuring some of the finest instructors in the world, struggled through their eCommerce experience with a dated and clunky proprietary web store software package. They were eager to explore something more flexible and scalable, something that would let them leverage their considerable technical know-how and creative expertise.

We worked with Pranamaya to redesign their web experience, from the overall look-and-feel to the store software itself, and implemented a powerful Magento Commerce store solution. The new Pranamaya store utilizes many of the tools the upstart Magento system provides, from the flexible user interface to the review engine, related items and data APIs for integration with their fulfillment house. Beyond the site's design and theme, we also customized things quite a bit to create the detailed tabbed product descriptions, modal windows containing custom video players, and the unique navigation that lets you browse by style or teacher.

The Magento eCommerce platform is a new platform that shows quite a lot of promise despite a handful of issues related to its youthfulness. We think the Pranamaya website showcases what can happen when a modern commerce application meets a skilled development team and is managed by a tech-savvy, realisting shop owner.

»Check out the site

We sincerely believe that we are the very best option in the Santa Cruz area -- and one of the best nationally -- for any small to midsize business in need of a website and/or online shopping solution. Big words, we know... but you don't have to take our word for it:

"After going through pure hell with four web gurus, I was blessed, and I mean blessed, to find John Benedetti and his iluminada.com operation. John's creativity with design and content, plus his patience, have made what used to be a nightmare into a pure pleasure. John is there when you need him. If he tells you he'll do something, he actually does it! I can't say enough good stuff about him."
--Allan Weisbecker, Author of In Search of Captain Zero and Cosmic Banditos

"We needed a web designer who was straight forward, honest and able to listen to our unique needs. We found those qualities and more in John Benedetti and Iluminada Design."
--Devon Dabbs and Lori Butterworth, Children's Hospice

"Iluminada is the best thing that's happend to my business."
--Cathy Erwin, Walkabout Harnesses

"You folks do an awesome job and I always appreciate your human touch..."
-- Eric Gil and Team Sockmith (Sockshop and Shoe Company)

» More Praise

Apps? We got apps.

When given the choice, we like to work with opensource web applications. That means the app was built by a core group who released the source code to the world so that the community at large can help them improve it. It also means that the app is portable-- when you use it, you are not tied for life to any one web design firm... even though you might want to be, once you see how nicely we've designed and built your site. By working with a ready-made opensource app, you save money by leveraging years of development work that has already been done by the opensource community. The app is free, you just pay us to customize it.

But, there are times when a custom application is needed to suit a client's needs. In those cases, we build an app for you. We use the CakePHP framework for this, which is a rapid, scalable, secure and robust framework for application development.

We typically work with the following opensource web applications: WordPress, Drupal, osCommerce, Slideshow Pro and Magento Commerce.