Profile
Visual communication has been a central aspect of my work in several areas, from music composition to designing user interfaces for corporate software. I have interests and studies in a variety of areas, and my work experience is also quite varied. Web design and development, and user interface design specifically, combines my interests in visual creativity, language, communication, mathematics, and engineering, and so over the past six years has grown to a daily focus in my life and interest. I’m very curious about pushing the boundaries of technology in order to enhance and improve the user experience and discovering creative, visual means of problem solving in design.
I hope to find a interactive design position with a strong attention to user experience. An ideal position would be long-term with opportunity for creative and professional growth, offering consistent challenges and variety in the type of work and platforms.
Skills
- Interactive user interface design for the web and applications, including typography, color, widgets, iconography, visuals, and layout
- Hand-coding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Proficient in Adobe CS4
- Collaborating with information architects, programmers, project managers, and other designers
- Preparing designs for user testing
- Presenting work to stakeholders
- Project estimates
Experience
U.I. Web designer, Orbitz Worldwide, Chicago, IL August 2007 – Today
I have been responsible for user interface and asset design/production for multiple Orbitz Worldwide products, including Orbitz.com, CheapTickets.com, and the suite of EBookers sites. This includes production based on design standards, exploring and creating the design for site assets such as headers, mastheads, image-scpaes, modules, and icons, and designing full-page comps based on information architecture wireframes.
I am the main designer for a new product, Zeme, which aims to improve the workflow and workload for creating, configuring, and maintaining an endless number of web sites that share a single back-end platform and engine. As my work on this project continues I meet with my creative director once a week for sign off on comps, and regularly meet with project stakeholders in information architecture, product management, and technology to brainstorm functionality, interaction design, rhetoric, and present my design to receive feedback and sign-off.
In late 2009 I was made the lead designer for the complete re-design of the Orbitz Worldwide Private Label sites. My responsibility has been to define a holistic design system for these white-label websites that serve over 100 clients, catering to customers both domestically and internationally . One path of the template has been completed, the air booking path, and several remain.
Additional responsibilities include user testing based on interactive prototypes, designing and building our documentation interface for design standards and masters, design for internal e-mail templates, and development of the company’s employee network portal.
Freelance web designer 2005 – Today
As a freelancer I have designed and developed web-sites for various individuals and organizations, including the Stone County Missouri chapter of Kiwanis International, the Stone County Missouri County Seat, the Chop Shop Gallery, and J.D. Kutter Insurance Associates.
My designs are prepared using Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks to create mockups for approval. For development and site building I prefer hand-coding, and often use Dreamweaver for its site management tools.
Teaching assistant, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL August 2006 – May 2008
While pursuing my master’s degree at the Art Institute I was a teaching assistant for a variety of traditional and new media classes. The students required my assistance and tutelage with software and technology including HTML, CSS, Adobe Creative Suite, Final Cut Pro, and more.
Flash production artist, Newsom Creative, Kimberling City, MO June 2006 – August 2006
My responsibility for Newsom Creative was to design and produce Flash assets for various sites using Actionscript 2.0. The designs were based on standards implemented for each site, and utilized image assets provided by the clients, which I edited and prepared using Photoshop. All the Flash assets included custom a pre-loader and animation of both imagery and text. A selection also allowed for user interaction. The creative director incorporated the assets into the final site design after approving them with client stakeholders.
Web designer and technology assistant, Office of the Registrar, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI July 2003 – August 2004
My primary responsibility was to create the web site for the office. The registrar and assistant registrar were the primary stakeholders. I held this position while studying computer engineering in Marquette’s Haggerty School of Engineering.
I organized all the content, copy, architecture, and interaction for the site and built it according to the standards defined for the university’s main site.