This section features some general information about myself, probably more than you wanted to know. I currently reside in Northern Virginia just outside of the Washington, D.C. area. I am currently accepting Freelance Website, Business Service, Photography and Illustration work for 2009. See the Contact Page for information on getting a hold of me for Freelance Opportunities.
Before ‘Web Designer’ or ‘Entrepreneur’ I prefer to call my self a ‘Creative Problem Solver’. It may seem like semantics, but ‘Creative Problem Solver’ better describes how approach projects and new situations. I have a wide range of interest in a variety of fields; this has led me to develop a somewhat unusual set of skills. I’ve listed what I feel are my strongest skills below, while they may seem disconnected, ideas from different fields tend to cross-pollinate, so I consider the wide spectrum to be a good thing for a ‘Creative Problem Solver’.
Product Design - Having majored in Industrial Design at the University of Illinois at Champaign – Urbana, product design runs in my blood. Combining a love of design, engineering and innovation it is hard to find a field as vast and challenging as the modern world of product design.
3D Modeling - After switching to a Mac platform I moved from 3D Studio Max to Ashlar Vellum’s Argon, Xenon and Cobalt for creating everything from product mockups to rapid prototypes to tradeshow displays.
Illustrator – I have worked in a variety of fields as an Illustrator, including technical illustration, comic art, instructional materials and graphic novels. Being able to distilling visual information down its essential pieces while maintaining its realism is one of my best skills.
Graphic Design - Though there are a lot of overlaps in general practice between Product and Graphic Design, there are several important differences between the two. Kerning and letting in Graphic Design replace things like ergonomics and human factors in Product Design. My experience in Product Design has molded my view of Graphic Design as being first and foremost a form of communication as opposed to solely a fine arts exercise. Increasingly in the Graphic Design world I see the message that is trying to be sent, and functionality of the work, being drowned out because designers are approaching projects like fine artists, instead approaching design as problem solvers. Someone always needs to be asking, “Why?”
