With finals over, most students at Flathead Valley Community College have taken their knowledge home for the summer.

For the students in the Information Technology Project Management class, they take home a new website design for their portfolios and the respect of a local business.

For a final project, the class is assigned a local business that needs a website redesign. The students must code, design, support and search-engine-optimize a working site for the business.

Amber Lawrence, adjunct computer professor, described the project to the other professors and business people seeing the completed sites.

“They worked as a team to meet the needs of the client,” she said. “They also had to develop a user manual to allow the owners to maintain or update the website.”

For project manager Russ Peterson, head of the Pinnacle Web Design group, the company he was assigned gave the group a lot of ideas.

TL Custom Homes, a Kalispell building company, not only had ample photos of its work but also a distinct logo and color palette for the students to work with.

“We based the design around the logo,” Peterson said. “It’s a mix between a modern and a rustic theme.”

He said the team’s biggest challenges weren’t making a working website that looked good, but instead trying to get on the same schedule. Another issue was switching the direction the project was going midway through the work.

Tony and Lori Giardina, the owners of TL Custom Homes, were ecstatic with the new site.

“We are just thrilled with it,” Lori said. “It was great to team up with the college. Word of mouth and the website is it for us in terms of advertising.”

Tony said not only were they able to allow FVCC students to get on-the-job training, but they got a new, fully functional website out of the deal.

Becca Wheeler, the graphic designer on the Pinnacle team, said seeing different parts of the website was a great learning experience.

“Getting to see components of the website receive individual attention was great,” she said. “We were allowed to divide and conquer.”

Programs represented in the class included Information technology, support professional, web technology and graphic design. One student on the Pinnacle group also specialized in search engine optimization — essentially making sure her selected website rises higher on  searches.

Other companies that worked with the college were Mindful Motion Physical Therapy and Kids by Nature.

While most students were able to design independently of a third-party developer, the sites were created on WordPress. That site should allow the business owners to easily update and change the site as need be.

To see some of the students’ work, go to tlcustomhomes.com, mindfulmotionpt.com and kbnkids.com.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.