Company History Timeline

In terms of Internet years, we've been around a long time.  The transitions of the Graphic Memory homepage reflect the changes with the Internet over the last 20 years. We all started with writing clunky HTML coding in notepad that transitioned to web editing software. We also designed to smaller monitor standards and slower bandwidths.

Today, we design within development platforms that make website design and management more robust, intuitive and easier for client's to manage; sites function effectively across multiple viewing platforms; bandwidth is almost instantaneous; and we now have wide-format wall-mounted monitors for better viewing.

With each of the Graphic Memory homepages below, we also talk about what was going on with us at that time period in our history.  Click on any homepage image to enlarge.

July 1998

Graphic Memory's inaugural website when the company was established out of the owner's home in Hampton, Virginia in July of 1998. The site was a static HTML presentation designed in Dreamweaver and for optimal viewing on a 640x480 monitor that was standard at the time.

The company's name seemed to have a good fit for several reasons. It implied that our work left a lasting positive impression to those who viewed it; the owner prided himself on having a good memory for details client's requested; and the domain name was available to register.

Our first logo featured beveling and gradients.  We quickly realized that this logo version was extraordinarily more expensive when it came to printing costs. A revision to a flatter version came soon after.

Our first clients were the Law Firm of J.B. Thomas & Associates, Top Guard Security and Benton-Knight Clothier.  All businesses obtained from knocking door-to-door to get the company going.  We also designed the first Suffolk Peanut Festival website.

Sept 2002

Still retaining some of the elements of the original company website, the site progressed to employing a flat color logo. The company had grown to servicing 50+ clients at this point and still operated out of the owner's home.  Our monthly hosting services remain at $24.95/mo. to this day. We also did 360° virtual tour real estate photography services at the time.

One of our new clients was a new cutting-edge daycare center where the owner wanted to feature password-protected Internet-based cameras so parents could view their child's activities from work. When the website and camera system were successfully completed, two local news stations, WAVY TV-10 and WVEC13 News, both did a segment on it the same evening. Graphic Memory installed several more daycare camera systems from the coverage as far away as Alexandria, Va. A sister company, Accesscams, Inc., was established to take advantage of this growing vertical market.

New clients included Accessible Environments, a successful $100K monthly e-commerce company selling handicap products; Advanced Technologies, Inc.; AMC911 Foundation Repair;  and Boulevard Veterinary Hospital.

Aug 2005

Graphic Memory opens its Downtown Hampton office suite in July 2004 featuring 1600 sq. ft. consisting of a large lobby sitting area, 5 offices and a conference room. The company homepage featured a unique Flash animated header "movie" of a sailboat going across water transforming smoothly into the logo.

The company is now servicing over 120 clients and is heavily involved with various local business organizations such as the Virginia Peninsula & York County & HR Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, BNI and the Hampton Kiwanis Club. Several municipalities start offering website grant programs to assist businesses to take advantage of the Internet.

Graphic Memory also becomes a sponsor of the Wild Hair Monster Truck, a Newport News-based national Monster Truck circuit participant. Our logo (as small as it appeared) was actually on the Mattel Hot Wheel version of the truck.

New clients include the Downtown Hampton Dev Partnership; Hampton Blackbeard Festival; Danny's Glass, Equidata, TCIPhones, Bay Diesel & Generator, Colony & Centerville Insurance Agencies, and the HR Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Mar 2010

Graphic Memory continues to grow now serving several hundred client's locally and across the nation.  We also changed our logo in 2008. The company adopts the Joomla CMS website platform in early 2006 which had become popular with the web development world.

The company develops a close relationship with Retail Alliance in 2007 providing website design and marketing to their members under their grant program.

Graphic Memory participates in the "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" TV show build in Virginia Beach in February 2011.  Our client, Trademark Construction, was the primary builder for the project. We developed the local EMHE website for the project working with Rubin Communications featuring a build timeline and a feature showcase of all vendors who participated.

New clients we serviced were the Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce; United Way of South Hampton Roads; The Watermen's Museum; Blackwater Electric; Industrial Maintenance Solutions; The Roofing Company; Mid-Atlantic Realty; and Warwick Plumbing & Heating.

Jan 2014

Graphic Memory goes to a darker contrast rhodemine red and teal color scheme. The company also adopts the WordPress CMS as its go-to platform for development in 2012. WordPress had proven itself as a solid development platform growing exponentially over the previous few years.

With flexibility of themes, built-in mobile responsiveness, easy-to-use administration and thousands of modules to apply, it has become the industry standard for design. We have developed hundreds of websites successfully to this day using WordPress.

Graphic Memory pushes more into the website SEO and social media marketing world with a full-time staff conducting daily posting and ad marketing for many of our clients to all the major social media platforms.

New clients include Virginia Landscapes; Hampton Bay Days, NNSY Apprentice Students Assoc.; CDIS Corp.; Alliance Solutions Group; Command Post Technologies; Patrick's Hardware & Glass; Precision Glass; Newsoms Peanut Shop; and Liebherr .

Mar 2015

Graphic Memory reformats the company website's body demonstrating a daily changing informational and social media presentation. The site featured weekly blog articles written by various staff members specific to their areas of expertise.  We featured a wide variety of design, SEO and social media articles that we still get feedback from to this day. The site also featured our Facebook and Twitter live feeds that we posted to on a daily basis.

With a strong staff on-hand to maintain it, this model was ideal at the time as it always presented something new each time a visitor came to our site.

New clients we serviced include The Law Firm of John W. Lee, Hampton Machine Shop; Southern Light Solar; Bryant-Ritter Hewitt Electric; Aquia Realty; Denbigh Law Center; and Innovation Research Park - ODU.

Oct 2019

October 2019 finds a new company website design that still retains some elements of the old. We've always felt the messages our sliders have conveyed were still relevant to this day and have kept some of them as well as keeping the header clean and to the point. The new Mega-Menu applied to the primary navigation adds a nice graphical touch to get around our site easily.

In 2015, Graphic Memory developed a great working relationship with Cox Media with the redesign of the Hampton Road's Cox Media website. Up to this day, we have developed several Cox Media advertising concept sites shown frequently through commercials on their various affiliate stations for past and current campaign projects such as HRPro2Go, HRHealthPros, HRLegalPros, In Good Company, The I Do Show and Tech-N-Out.

New clients include Professional Heating & Cooling of Virginia; Power-Dyne; Hatchett Contractors; Advanced Marine Preservation; Computer Concepts; and Glass Corporation.

2023

With the advent of COVID, our long-term office space in downtown Hampton became severely under-utilized with everyone working remotely. The owner fulfilled a dream of moving to a waterfront property right below the VA/NC state line close to our client base and still continues to work from home.

Thus, we made the difficult decision to close our office wondering if it would relay an impression we had closed our business. We're here to say that the adaption has been a smooth one and we continue to serve Hampton Roads and now the OBX with better services and capabilities than ever.

New clients include Universal Solutions International; eAviation & Drone Academy; Kaz Vision & Laser Center; Gallop Funeral Services; Gloria Dei Lutheran Church & School;  Michael Henry Architect  and many more...