Hello, I’m Susan Liimatta
Squarespace Web Designer, Artist, Creative Problem-Solver, Sounding Board and Organized Collaborator
I help artists, artisans, and entrepreneurs create Squarespace websites that grow their businesses.
I love taking a process that can feel intimidating and overwhelming and turning it into a delightful result in just a few weeks.
Balancing the big picture and its little details is one of my greatest strengths.
If that’s all you need to hear to decide that we should chat, let’s connect.
Looking for more before you reach out?
I’m an experienced designer with an art background and strong digital technology skills.
Relentlessly curious, I also bring strong marketing and event planning skills to my client projects. That means I understand the importance of positioning, messaging, and branding—and connecting with an audience looking for what you offer.
Beyond that, I’m a collaborative, positive, and highly organized person who thrills to the challenge of bringing structure to every project. Sounds like you could benefit from my skills?
Artists, artisans, and entrepreneurs are my specialty
Why? You’re the kind of person whose passion and commitment enlivens the creative process. Beyond that, giving your business the digital home it deserves is endlessly fulfilling to me.
Skills & Credentials
My career includes extensive experience in event design and management and project planning. As a result, I’ve created a highly collaborative and structured process to bring your website to life. For more on my process, see my Web Design Services page.
Squarespace Website Builder
Website Administrator
CMP, Certified Meeting Professional
Asana Project Management Software
Illustrator, Photoshop, Lightroom, CSS
Squarespace Circle Member
G Suite for Work
MailChimp Email Marketing
My Story
View of Lake Superior from Sugarloaf Mountain in Marquette, MI
A Michigan native, I have lived in Hawaii, New York (on Long Island), and Wisconsin. Recently home called me back, and I now live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I am a fourth-generation Finnish-American and have always been curious to know more about my Finnish heritage. I traveled to Finland to the cities where my ancestors emigrated from and was beyond thrilled to discover the little village called “Liimatta” along the Kemi River just south of Rovaniemi—pronounced “lee-muh-tuh,” emphasis on the first syllable. Amazing!
All my life, I’ve been motivated to create, build, make, and learn. I discovered the art of making quilts and became a competitive quilter. Competition quilting sounds odd but it’s a thing. My passion for gardening was fulfilled at my home in Wisconsin, where over nine years I planted more than 50 trees, a couple hundred shrubs, and countless perennials and prairie grasses. Just four-tenths of an acre, my garden became a bird sanctuary that provided berries, seeds, water, and shelter to many species.
Professionally, I have worked as an event designer and manager, in tourism, and now run my own short-term rental business. In event planning, you are creating the product that you will market. It takes a year to plan a national or city-wide event, and there is nothing more exciting than launch day, when people show up to enjoy, learn, and experience all that has been planned.
Events are always a collaborative effort: when I planned an art event in my small hometown in Wisconsin, I worked with artists, small business owners, musicians, the city, and the state tourism department. It was exciting to see more than 2,000 people show up for what we had worked on.
How did we do it? By having a marketing strategy, using digital media, sending out press releases that earned free publicity, and working daily toward our goals to make it happen.
I believe that details are important in anything you take the time to create. My work in events led to working on the back-end of a company website. It was there that I first learned how to present something worth talking about on the web. I am passionate about design and about collaboration, which means doing the best work that I can to lift my clients to their goals.
When I’m not working, I love to travel. A trip to France rekindled my love for the French language and, while I don’t have as much time as I would like to devote to it, little by little I am reading and understanding the language. Visiting the place where my family came from is my all-time favorite travel experience. Second to Finland is a trip to China and Tibet which included a trek to base camp at the North Face of Mount Everest. At 16,900 feet above sea level, it is one of the most remote and difficult places in the world to reach. But in that remote place, with yaks roaming around freely, at the highest elevation in the world you can reach by car, looking up at the peak of Everest, you will have perfect cellphone service.
The themes that have defined me personally and professionally are creativity, curiosity, collaboration, and commitment—to my work and my passions. I seek clients who thrill to the same things, because together we can create something that didn’t exist before. I look forward to connecting with you.