About

I am a creative professional who can function across many different areas, from sketching low-fidelity wireframing, user flows, and user experience design, to visual design and illustration, to hand-coding complex data-driven websites. As a part of Nuorbit Media, I had the opportunity to design and code websites for some of the most prestigious international brands in the business like Lionel Trains, Quaker Oatmeal, Tropicana, and Aunt Jemima. I am currently living in central Indiana, where I work as a Senior UX Designer for Indiana University.

design philosophy

It might be cheesy but after I read the book “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose” it inspired me to think about my core values and philosophy as a creative designer.

• I believe a great user experience is a balance between — business goals, user goals, usability, and “enjoyability”.
• I believe if I am not moving forward, I am at best stagnant.
• I believe my best design… is my next design.
• I believe in staying current in the latest design and trends, but not being too trendy.
• I believe design is like life sometimes less is more and just because you can wear pajamas, spandex, and yoga pants in public — does NOT mean you should.
• I believe in goal-driven design — strategic communication is the best type of communication.
• I believe in getting to “yes” quickly but if it is not right for everybody… don’t do it.
• I believe in being different, different is good.
• I believe every project regardless of the medium or size is an opportunity to be creative and inclusive.
• I believe design should be more about building relationships, than design.

areas of expertise and tools

My expertise and passion are creative design and development, I have over 2 decades of professional experience designing and hand-coding websites. Although I feel I’m not as nearly as proficient, I have designed and developed back-end applications using Cold Fusion, PHP, MYSQL, JSON, and XML. Check out my portfolio to see my work.

The tools I use the most. When starting projects, I use a lot of paper, sketching wireframes, user flows, personas, storyboards, and low-fidelity prototyping. For mock-ups and concepts, I go to Adobe PhotoShop, Illustrator. In high fidelity prototyping, I’ll usually use an HTML framework like BootStrap. I do have experience with Balsamiq, Axure and lately Adobe XD. For development, I like working on my localhost usually with docker, the backend usually determines the tools I’ll use everything from Atom editor to Rubymine. I’m a Wacom tablet addict and am comfortable using a Mac, Windows, or Ubuntu I use a variety of web-based tools for speed and accessibility.

weekends

I enjoy quiet evenings and long walks alone on the beach with my cat, not really… I love being on our farm “The Lazy F” with my wife, kids, and a variety of animals. We like to frolic in our redneck ways and most weekends we are camping with our horses and trail riding the Hoosier National Forest. I also enjoy dabbling in traditional art- clay, and illustration.