History

I still remember my first website - a table laden, Microsoft Frontpage written, inline styled website. My skills have come a long way since 2000, but my fascination with web design has always stuck with me. And after studying web design for years, I jumped in headfirst and began freelancing fulltime in May of 2007.

Design Outlook

Design is more than a flashy banner image. Its about finding harmony and balance between all the elements - the typography, images, color, positive and negative space, the user interface. There's an almost tangible quality to great design, something I look to achieve in all my work.

As Vince Lombardi once said, "the dictionary is the only place success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must all pay for success". The ancient Greek's said it even simpler, aien aristeuein - ever to excel. To me, web design is about striving to constantly raise the bar ever higher. And I firmly believe it is the combination of hard-work and passion for design that sets my work apart.

Experience and Skillset

I love designing CMS systems in PHP and MySQL, writing Ajax interfaces in jQuery, streamlining Information Architecture, and studying typography.

My professional experience spans XHTML, CSS, jQuery, MooTools, Ajax, JSON, XML, XSLT, sIFR, PHP and SQL (MySQL and SQLite) - although I've written Flash based websites in the past, I do not currently offer Flash services.

For the curious, I run Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS3, Flash 8, and prefer the markup highlighting of Dreamweaver 8.

In the Design Community

Just as I continue my own training, I'm dedicated to helping others expand their own knowledge base. Whenever possible I post tutorials in my blog, and offer code under an unrestrictive copyright license (such as Creative Commons, GPL, or MIT). I occaision the IRC channels #php and #jquery, and am always willing to assist fellow programmers via email or forums.

About the Designer

As if web design wasn't nerdy enough, I hold two degrees from Boston University in Philosophy, and ancient Greek. But whenever I manage to take my head out of a book, I've been known to be a big sports fan and exercise fanatic.