I'm a 23 year old web developer and graphic designer living on the Gold Coast, Australia. I love working as a freelancer, because I constantly get to work with switched-on people who recognise that quality design is the way forward.
You’re looking; I'm ready—I think we’ll get on great.
Good first impression? Read on »
As IT manager, I helped a local printer consumables company grow from a three-man operation trading out of the owner's garage to a super-profitable national distributor with 20 staff and thousands of square-feet of warehouses, all in the space of just 3 years.
I've been working as a freelance web developer and graphic designer for three years now, and I love it. I thrive on the constant variety of projects, and I love helping fellow business owners use design to improve their customers' experiences.
Since 2009 I've been studying a Bachelor of IT (Security). I study off-campus through Deakin University, and while the course and the materials are great, the discrepancies between the academic world and commercial reality make me glad to be finishing soon.
After only a few weeks of technology audit work during a vacation program for Deloitte, I found myself hankering for hands-on involvement in projects again. Deloitte have offered me further work, but I've realised I want more than corporate giants can offer.
No designer should limit their skills to one medium. I've worked on countless web development projects, but my design experience extends much further than just pixels and code. I've helped businesses with everything from branding and identity design to printed catalogs, publications, packaging and product design.
I'm not afraid of my own creativity, and never let the fear of appearing wrong or silly cloud my ability to express. I know how to nurse ideas from abstract thoughts and impulses right through to physical objects and visible results. In fact, one of my creations (under development) is going to help people do just that!
Design is about problem solving. Online, this means balancing form and function to convey meaning and engage an audience. Quality writing is integral to this balance, and I'm confident my skills in this area are just what you’re after. I genuinely enjoy everything from outlining the overall feel, flow and tone, right through to the nitty-gritty details of em dashes and ampersands.
Facilitating groups is something I've been involved with in a variety of contexts for years. I've taught hundreds of people how to dance, coordinated off-campus group assignments at university, and presented at local Barcamp meet-ups. I can recognise when focus drifts off-topic, and I'm comfortable making decisions using my best judgement, experience, and intuition.
In addition to HTML, CSS, and Javascript frameworks, I have a working knowledge of Ruby on Rails, PHP, Perl, and have done work in both Java and C for projects at university. I write clean, semantic code, and can build fully-functional prototypes quickly and without fuss.
Vim, Textmate, Coda, and Git are my usual coding implements, and I turn to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for creating digital assets. I'm just as happy working on the command-line with 10 screen sessions open via SSH as I am kerning type and pushing pixels.
Not many people still use the basics, but I do. I've always got a sketchpad within arm's reach in which I sketch layouts, map out database schemas, and brainstorm creative concepts. Pencils, markers, a sketchpad, and a scanner in the right hands are powerful, efficient tools.
