About Me

So... what can this guy do?

Art Director

For nine years, visual design has been my passion and focus. Tell me your high-level goals and I’ll self-organize and make them happen. I have a tremendously wide skill set, making me a valuable player and a team gap-filler at critical times. I keep my finger on the pulse of the design world: I have borderline compulsive lists of design and photography references on sites like Dribbble and Creattica. I've managed teams of highly motivated creative people who are smarter than I am, and I keep them focused and motivated. My goal is always the same: deliver you soul-stirring designs while unifying and improving your brand.

User Experience Designer

I have a strong foundation in UX design. When you're faced with a long feature list and tons of content, I'll help you scope out the project: we'll define your user, prioritize the most common use cases, and then map out the site structure. Then I'll convert our site map into wireframes, drawing from common UX design patterns and best practices. When we launch the site, I'll use analytics and surveys to measure success and target areas for improvement. This includes tools like Google Analytics, Usertesting.com, and PollDaddy.

Front-end Web Development

Although I’m not a developer, I have a head for programming and working with developers. My passion stems from a desire to bring my interfaces to life -- it's about the experience, not the code. I'm comfortable building UIs in HTML/jQuery, Wordpress, Flash, and video games. I'm cool with dynamic data, AJAX, and traversing JSON.

I also test my interfaces rigorously to make sure they’re compatible with all browsers. I develop on a Mac with a XAMPP server for testing locally, and I use VMware with a Windows 7 virtual machine for testing Windows browsers.

Photography

My passion for photography continues to be a huge asset: my clients always need headshots, product photos, and event coverage—and my ability to create this footage sets me apart from most designers. I own Canon DSLRs, flashes, light stands, umbrellas, and a whole lot of accessories. Check out my photography section to see what I can do.

Motion Design

I’ve edited product highlight reels and created special effects for short films. I have expert After Effects skills, including leveraging expressions to link assets in powerful ways. In addition, I’m a capable videographer, and I’m comfortable planning and executing video shoots using DSLR-based rigs with shotgun and lavalier mics.

3D Graphics

While I'm not a 3D specialist, I can produce beautiful 3D graphics in 3ds Max. For example, I can quickly create a 3D logo treatment that would be difficult or impossible to do in Photoshop. From there, it's a snap to render footage for a poster or a video. If you have a bigger project up your sleeve, no problem -- I have phone numbers of a handful of specialized 3D artists who can jump in and help out.

Wordpress Sites

I've created several Wordpress sites. I understand Wordpress's PHP underpinnings, so I know how to tweak things or go totally custom in order to get what I want. But more importantly I've learned to respect existing code libraries and leverage them to maximum effect. This provides maximum development speed while still keeping your site safe to upgrade and edit.

X Factors

I’m American-born, but grew up overseas—I didn’t live in the US until age 16. I’m fluent in Spanish. I’m pretty good at piano, guitar, and trombone, too. I have a passion for nature photography, hiking, and national parks. And I have a weakness for Great Dane puppies and $5 games on Steam.

The Big List of Skills:

Design

Photoshop
Illustrator

Motion

After Effects
AE Trapcode Plugins
Premiere
Soundbooth
Apple Soundtrack
Adobe Media Encoder, FFMPEG

Front-end Web Development

CSS
HTML
JavaScript
jQuery, jQuery UI
Flash, AS2.0, 3.0
PHP
Wordpress

Wireframes

OmniGraffle

3ds Max

InDesign
Quark XPress

Photography

Adobe Lightroom

Roblox
San Mateo, CA

Art Director — April 2010 - present

Roblox is the most popular kids site on the Internet, with over one billion pageviews each month. As the company’s first full-time designer, I built the Design Team from the ground up: I interviewed and hired our Director of User Experience, a Senior Designer, a 3D Artist, and a regular team of contractors. As Art Director, I define Roblox’s visual style across multiple platforms. I create style guides and work closely with our Web team and In-game User Experience team. I work with our CEO and Product Managers to develop high-level goals, and then I self-organize and create weekly milestones for the Design Team, and lead the team in meeting those objectives. Life at Roblox is full of challenges and surprises.

Facecake
Los Angeles, CA

Senior Designer — July 2009 - April 2010

FaceCake is a small software startup in Los Angeles. With a close-knit team of four, I led planning, wireframing, visual design, and testing of FrameWizard (a Flex-based desktop photo editing app). We shipped FrameWizard in an impressive six months—meeting an ambitious marketing deadline, and working a few late nights. Using After Effects, I animated FrameWizard’s weather effects (the software’s main selling point). I also created the logo and retail packaging.

Cyberflow
Hollywood, CA

Senior Designer — Nov 2006 - May 2009

CyberFlow is a design agency specializing in Flash banners and user acquisition. After three years tracking banner analytics, I learned it’s a challenge to predict what performs well. CyberFlow taught me rapid prototyping, performance testing, and iterating to find winning designs. In 2008, I struck gold and produced the agency’s top performing banner of all time (a banner called “Men are Dogs”, Nov 2008).

Full Tilt Poker
Los Angeles, CA

Senior Designer — May 2006 - Oct 2006

At this online poker company, I created graphics for the 2006 World Series of Poker, including marketing videos, websites for professional poker players, landing pages, and large format banners.