I Make Websites That Work For People That Need Them

My Recent Work

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What I Can Do For You

Web Design & Development

I am a professional Charlotte-based web designer and developer located in Uptown, providing fully customized solutions to help your brand succeed with eye-catching design and online marketing services.

Whether your website requires ecommerce features, compliant XHMLT/CSS, high-volume content management, or more, I handle your project from start to finish.

The website design process will take you through all of the steps required to build a successful website. I will guide you every step of the way.

EMOD: Email, Mobility, OnDemand

The fact is that marketers are human (yes, all of us). As such, even the best of us can forget the key tenet of marketing: understand your audience. And this simple yet inevitable fact sometimes causes us to write content that may achieve our business objectives, but may not be relevant to our audience.

The truth is, content matters. In fact, it matters a great deal. As more and more email fills the inboxes of our target audience, we need to make our email marketing messages stand out even more. That means understanding our audience – their needs, wants, motivations, interests, etc. And, perhaps more importantly, we need to put our audience ahead of our own priorities.

Identity : Branding : Social

One major role in the 'brand' or 'corporate image' of a company is its identity.

In most cases, identity design is based around the visual devices used within a company, usually assembled within a set of guidelines. These guidelines that make up an identity usually administer how the identity is applied throughout a variety of mediums, using approved colour palettes, fonts, layouts, measurements and so forth. These guidelines ensure that the identity of the company is kept coherent, which in turn, allows the brand as a whole, to be recognisable.

Ryan Singer

Good ideas turn into good designs fairly quickly. If you catch yourself fiddling too much with colors, borders and treatments to bring a design together, chances are the problem lies somewhere deeper.

— Ryan Singer
Alina Wheeler

Design is intelligence made visible.

— Alina Wheeler
Tim Van Damme

I want to design websites people use, not websites people look at.

— Tim Van Damme
Brandon Mathis

I mostly design web applications, and while it's nice to have a visually stunning experience, I'm more interested in usability, than pixel perfection.

— Brandon Mathis

So, who exactly am I?

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I am a website designer and developer living and working in Charlotte, North Carolina. I specialize in front-end development, user interface and user experience, and I'm available for full-time, part-time, consultant, contract, and freelance work.

I create useable, scalable, and professional websites using standards compliant code as set forth by the W3C, resulting in semantic and SEO friendly XHTML, CSS, HTML5 and CSS3. The first thing I do is start sketching (on paper with a pencil!) and then lay them out in a grid system. My favorite flavors are 960 Grid System, YUI 2, and Blueprint. When users need a site with its own content management system I use either WordPress or SilveStripe for general ease of use and familiarity. My primary programming language is PHP 5 with a nice MySQL backend.

I primarily hand code my sites and use a wide variety of products from the Adobe Master Suite collection to achieve the desired results. This includes but is not limited to Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver (to name a few). I use the W3C's validation service to make sure all of my work is clean, semantic, strict, and accessible.

I am a firm believer in the Agile approach when it comes to working with users in mind. The Agile approach is all about listening to the needs of the client and creating value for the client more quickly. If you would like to know more about the Agile approach, please click here.

Aside from writing markup language and coding, I also work with Rich Media. I do every, and anything from video production and editing to sound clean-up and restoration. Interactive Flash development and ad design are something that I also enjoy developing and designing.

When I'm not designing or developing, I'm surfing the web, getting my hands dirty in developing for the iPhone, going to see local live talent, reading whatever I can get my hands on, enjoying a nice beer with a great steak, mucking about with my friends, and attempting to master the art of cooking. Currently, I've been geeking out pretty hard on Adobe Edge. It's nice to see Adobe taking a proactive stance on HTML5 and CSS3, especially as it's another nail in the Flash coffin.

Skillset

  • Design 95%
  • Development 95%
  • Adobe MS/CS590%
  • XHTML & CSS2 90%
  • HTML5 / CSS3 70%
  • JavaScript85%
  • jQuery85%
  • AJAX 75%
  • JSON 75%
  • Wordpress CMS90%
  • Joomla!75%
  • Drupal70%
  • ExpressionEngine70%
  • SilverStripe85%
  • PHP70%
  • Cocoa 25%
  • Objective-C 30%
  • MySQL60%
  • Search Engine optimization60%
  • Social Media80%
  • Pen & Paper95%

My Work

Notice!Future clients and/or employers; a majority of the work that I've completed over the past year cannot be displayed publicly due to contractual obligations, proprietary reasons, and/or non-disclosure agreement's that have yet to expire. I am sorry for this inconvenience, but I will provide samples when they are called for or needed. Thank you for understanding.

Contact Me!

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