HumanCode Studios™

Driven user experience / visual design leader with a true hybrid skill set that combines both the visual design (designer role) as well as the development programming (client side developer role) necessary to build cutting edge user experiences for “built as designed” solutions from a single resource. Exhilarated by the challenges of hands-on design and development, mentoring and leading a team engaged in consumer facing user experiences. Motivated by the challenge of inventing and re-inventing useful and pleasing digital experiences across multiple formats/platforms. Seasoned and engaged in various types of product lifecycle strategies and techniques from agile to waterfall. Cross-functional collaboration and executive synergy is an absolute requirement.

Strong interactive visual design experience; including a portfolio of web 2.0 sites and / or applications; Experience designing and skinning GUIs; strong HTML and CSS knowledge as well as a solid overview of the web application design landscape. Expert ability to deliver and communicate visual concepts, working prototypes, and detailed design specs to engineering teams. Enjoy a fast-paced environment with multiple overlapping projects.

Core Competencies Include:

• Expert-level design + dev skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, OpenLaszlo, HTML, CSS, AJAX, Adobe Flex, XML, LZX, MXML, and ActionScript
• Expert-level user-experience design, usability and information architecture skills,
• Sr. Director-level experience with agile design and development methodologies.
• Expert-level experience as a mentor, director and overall team lead for strategic product and release planning cycles.
• Expert-level experience with online monetization technologies such as online advertising standards, visitor and CPM/thousand visits conversion models.
• Expert understanding of social networking/community UI building tools (blogs, comments, ratings, user-generated video, etc.)
• Expert ability to translate product requirements and wireframe concepts into dynamic, usable, and visually appealing product designs
• Optimistic, enthusiastic and inspired to push the envelope of evolving tool-sets defining the future of online visual design, global brand recognition and intuitive, useful online user experiences.

Recent Work Experience:

EastCoastRide Studios / NameMedia Inc.
Sr. Director – User Experience Design + Development
July 2007 to March 2009

EastCoastRide Studios was a contract-based firm dedicated to creating premium site experiences for NameMedia Inc. Projects ranged from static design concepts to full featured social networking environments, rich application design and AJAX style, “app” widget creation.

Responsibilities

Some responsibilities include application visual design, functioning user experience prototypes, mock visualizations, HTML, CSS, Flash, FLEX, Silverlight, etc. development, product requirement gathering as well as communicating/integrating with existing engineering, design and creative teams as a dedicated resource.

Monster Labs
Sr. Director – Visual Design + Development / Team Lead
March 2005-July 2007

Monster Labs was very much organized and run as a “start-up” business. In this role I was part of a highly collaborative and cross functional group including business, product, marketing, research, design and development minds. The group was broken up into teams (pods) of 3-5 members each assigned several product releases. Monster Labs was chartered with bringing innovation back to Monster.com with a small global team. Labs successfully developed 5-6 viable new business and application ideas now going to market including my product – AppApp. A patent-pending, consumer facing tracking application for online job applications, job search management, resume organization and employer contact. As a founding member of the Monster Board back in 1997, Monster Labs was an exciting environment for innovating next generation experiences for both job seekers and employers.

Responsibilities

Sr. Director of Design & Development of Monster Labs LLC. Monster Labs LLC is a division of Monster Technologies for Monster Worldwide (Monster.com) and is responsible for visual design technology R&D, focused on information search and retrieval, rich Internet applications and emerging Web technology.

Other Monster Labs responsibilities included:
- Advanced Product Development, focused on new divisions or product lines for Monster Worldwide
- Intellectual Property, patent creation and management.

Previous Work Experience:

With one exception(*), I held a series of visual design leadership positions at Monster. Following is my list of titles, times spent and size of team. The table on page 3 describes my core responsibilities for the team as well as the company. The team size varied depending on our current company status and the executive leadership and corresponding organizational structure. These were exciting and productive years as the web created an environment for print, software and broadcast to crash together and create a new hybrid of design and creative talent.

Monster.com – User Experience Engineering 2002-2005
Sr. Director – Design and Development (UX)
Team of 2-15

As Sr. Director of UI / User Experience (UX) Design/Development, global responsibilities for Monster.com included creation of wireframes, strong understanding of user flows and user behavior, cross-functional team direction (bridging the gap between Technical Engineering, Product Development, Marketing and Executive), creative direction, online strategy and hands-on web 2.0 site development.

Monster.com – Creative Services 1999-2002
Sr. Interactive Designer / Multimedia Producer
Team of 2-6

Brodeur Interactive – Brodeur Worldwide 1998-1999
Multimedia Producer / Visual Designer for online, CD-ROM,
Broadcast and interactive media products.

The Monster Board and TMPW Interactive 1996-1998
Interactive Designer

Dellustrations Inc. 1994-1996
Web Designer