My Next Step

I’m happy to announce that I am making the move to full-time freelancing. I’ve been a part of some incredible teams over the past ten years. It’s been an amazing adventure to get to this point and now I’m excited to start this new one.

How I Got Here

My first website came completely by accident in 2003. Actually, it was just a webpage that my physics professor required me to make as part of an assignment. He believed knowing code was essential to future success and forced me to figure it out on my own. I thought he was a jerk then, but now I can’t thank him enough.

Over the past ten years, I’ve moved from building small sites for me and my friends to designing web experiences for both startups and Fortune 500 companies. A lot has changed in web since I was in college, and I’ve been on the front lines the entire time, working with designers and developers to create unique user experiences and consulting managers, directors and owners on how to plan their businesses for screens of all sizes.

During that time, I partnered with a buddy to launch Be Thou Awesome, a web design agency in Long Beach. We already had full-time jobs, so we used the agency to work on small projects for local businesses and non-profits. We love Long Beach and wanted to see more local sites using clean, modern interfaces and forwarding-thinking techniques like responsive design. There was this freedom in being able to choose the projects we wanted to work on and to pour our hearts into the work we did. It was an infectious feeling and I knew it was what I wanted to eventually do full-time.

That’s why I am moving to full-time freelancing.

What’s Next

Starting now, I’ll be taking new design and development projects, consulting clients and focusing time on personal projects that I’ve been dying to do for a long time.

Web Design and Development

I love building websites. There’s nothing I love doing more and I’m excited that I will get to do this more often. As I moved up in other companies, I was moving into positions where I was managing designers and developers more than I was designing and developing. Now I can get my hands dirty the way I like them.

I’ve been building responsive websites since 2010 and I’ll continue to specialize in web experiences that scale to all screen sizes.

Consulting

One of the things I’m most excited about is having the opportunity to consult people on this crazy thing we call the web. The fact is that the web is changing constantly and keeping up with the current realities of how and why people use it is difficult. I’m all about finding simple solutions to complex problems and my goal is to make sure my clients can benefit from my extensive and diverse experience to have a better online presence and create meaningful interactions and experiences for their users.

Personal Projects

There are a number of ideas I’ve had over the years but never had the capacity to make them happen. Some of them have to do with design and development and others don’t, but they’re all things I hope to share with you sometime soon. Stay tuned!

Here’s to New Beginnings!

I’ve been working on the web for the last decade but feel like I’m starting all over again at the same time. I think the best thing we can all do for ourselves is to love what we do and I’m fortunate to do exactly that. Thanks for reading this far and sharing this new start with me.

Oh yeah, and please consider hiring me for any upcoming projects. That would be awesome.