Current Projects:
Ogilvy & Mather Sr. Front End Developer — Ranked #1 in the world by leading analysts, OgilvyInteractive has been a pioneer in the interactive marketing industry since 1983
Most Recent Projects:
Pronto.com Sr. Front End Developer — Pronto.com is an emerging business as part of IAC/InterActiveCorp, a family of sites that includes Ask.com, Citysearch, Evite, Match.com, Gifts.com, The Daily Beast and Vimeo. My primary focus while at Pronto was to build and launch the Pronto Network of micro-sites: ProntoStyle.com, ProntoHome.com and ProntoTech.com. In doing so, I redesigned the HTML/JSP core so that it can be skinned (using CSS) to present three different micro-sites, each with its own look and feel. The project also included reengineering large portions of the preexisting code to make the HTML more semantic and meaningful. This optimization made the micro-sites over 65% faster than the main Pronto.com site.
Manage My Home / Sears Team Lead/Front End Developer — I developed standards and guidelines for producing a feature-rich website with semantic markup and progressive enhancement. In a pair-programming environment, there was a lot of knowledge transfer and our team was always pushing for innovation — we had excellent results as the first large-scale web application to incorporate JRuby on Rails into a large JAVA project. While at ManageMyHome, we also leveraged such technologies and products as GWT (Google Web Toolkit), Prototype/Scriptaculous/AJAX, JSON, Alfresco WCM, OWL (Ontology), Semantic Web practices and third-party APIs such as Flickr, Plum and Zillow. My contributions to the team also included internal educational presentations on a number of topics such as progressive enhancement, accessibility, CSS best-practices, JavaScript, and microformats.
Past Positions
As New Media Director at Origin, I worked with a broad spectrum of clients on projects such as e-commerce sites, flash assets, email campaigns and content management systems. Daily work included creating and maintaining sites using XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and ASP as well as utilizing Flash and Actionscript for rich Internet application development. Within the small company, other tasks/responsibilities grew to include server mgmt/admin (email/web/repository - Mac/PC), video and print production, SEO and more.
Excelling in the fast-paced environment at Cherryone, I quickly moved up the ladder where my ultimate position and responsibility was managing a group of 30 designers and developers who were all working independently on a number of projects.
Origin Projects:
Origin Marketing and Communications
This was the latest incarnation of the site for Origin Marketing and Communications. I programmed the site using jQuery to display portfolio examples - similar to the way the screenshots work on this site -- and a bit of flash for that little something extra.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | developer
Site: www.origin-group.com
CJBS
We were in the process of rebranding the accounting firm of Coleman, Joseph, Blitstein and Stewart as CJBS just before I left Origin. It involved creating a new identity, collateral materials and website. Here you will find three preliminary homepage designs on which I was working.
Screenshots:
Role:project manager | designer | developer
Spinwave
Spinwave, an image optimization company with online and desktop applications, has been around for many years and they had just released an image compression DLL library that optimizes images on the fly from the server. We redesigned the site -- which hadn't been done in years -- to coordinate with the new product launch.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Site: www.spinwave.com
KCATA Admin Interface
Change Control Group, a database publishing software company, provides solutions to merge print and web materials through a unified database and a series of templates. This is the interface to the system for Kansas City Area Transit Authority, which resides on an intranet so I can only provide screenshots here.
Screenshots:
Role: designer | front-end developer
GSI Technologies
We created their identity and designed/coded their website. There is a flash splash page and there are flash headers in the category main pages. A look under the hood reveals CSS that is very clean, degrades well and is standards compliant.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Central Ink
We did a complete identity makeover with Central Ink Corporation, from corporate materials to their website. Essentially, this was phase one of the project, with an e-commerce site coming in the near future.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Site: www.cicink.com/
Change Control Group
As mentioned above (KCATA), Change Control Group is a database publishing software company that provides solutions to merge print and web materials. The CCG system combines database functionality with print templates and a web interface to seamlessly merge the print and web display mediums.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Mather LifeWays
A client of Origin, Mather LifeWays needed to update their current design. Without making major changes, we redesigned the site to make it slightly cleaner and made the navigation much more intuitive. We also created home-pages for their subsections and each of their residences. Mather LifeWays keeps their maintenance in-house, and therefore rely on Contribute and Dreamweaver Templates; this was a major obstacle as we needed to re-use some of their code and content and make them work within these templates.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Site: www.matherlifeways.com
Freelance Work:
Shure / Shurenotes
Shure had hired me as a contract web specialist during each of their website redesign projects. They would also call upon me when their workload became too much for their small staff. Wild Crow Web Design now manages their Shurenotes e-mail and online newsletters. I had coded several issues for them and in doing so, I refactored some of the code using CSS based layouts to make future issues easier to code, manage and maintain.
Screenshots:
Role: developer | occasional designer
Site: www.shure.com | www.shurenotes.com
BANDandLABEL
BANDandLABEL is an online management application for bands as well as record labels who need to manage multiple bands. The software makes short work of managing tasks: show dates, press releases, flyers, online and print reviews, radio submissions, mailing lists, etc. Since this project is currently in development and we are focusing on the backend functionality first, I only have two screenshots on display.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | front-end developer
Reelsounds
Reelsounds is a world-class recording studio with both analog and digital recording capabilities. Located in Skokie, IL, Reelsounds has been recording large and small bands for a decade. The site is in production and will include a full-featured, interactive photo gallery and an online database of equipment.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Development Site: dev.reelsoundschicago.com
America-Immobilien
America-Immobilien offers resources to German nationals looking to make a big move, i.e. real estate agents, relocation services, lawyers, etc. After completing the design and development, I taught the proprietor of the site (she's also works at the Goethe Institut Chicago) HTML and CSS so that she can perform basic updates and maintenance.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
*joesepi*
The *joesepi* site is in constant development, upgrade and flux. The band is scheduled to release an EP this fall and the site will be redone to coincide with the event. But in the meantime, this site is packed with goodies: weblog, full-featured photo gallery, streaming and downloadable audio/video.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Site: www.joesepi.com
Wild Crow
I had done freelance projects for the Evanston based design agency, Wild Crow. We redesigned the Wild Crow site working to incorporate a literal interpretation of the company name.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | front-end developer
Site: www.wild-crow.com
Bottomless Pit
This simple site has received many compliments on its usability and sparing design. The imagery is based on the look and feel of the band's latest album, Hammer Of The Gods.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Site: www.bottomlesspit.us
Pensamplivox Records
Pensamplivox Records is a record label founded in 1998. Here you will find an e-commerce store, a full featured photo gallery, news and literary we blogs, and many examples of streaming and downloadable media.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Site: www.pensamplivox.com
Kardas Photography
Renowned Chicago photographer, Michael Kardas, has photographed such icons as Mayor Daley, Fran Drescher, Michael Jordan and Slash. He has also traveled the world shooting incredible landscapes. His e-commerce site features an extensive gallery of shots that can be managed and maintained by the artist.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Adam Siegel Studios
Adam Siegel is an artist well known in Chicago and in art circles throughout the world. His work is featured on Michigan Avenue in a larger than life setting and he has shown in such institutions as the Spertus Museum. His 'works on paper' have been an international hit and he had recently been commissioned to do several large-scale paintings for a very well known restaurant in downtown Chicago.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer
Site: www.adamsiegel.com
Blood Party
This site was designed for a band in Boise, ID. Currently under construction.
Screenshots:
Role: project manager | designer | developer