Who I Am
I practice User Experience Design, User Interface Design, and Art Direction.
I draw and paint.
I model, texture, and animate things in 3d.
I enjoy working in both digital and real world media.
I will google that for you.
I –nearly always– name my layers and carefully curate historical versions of files.
I will clean up that wiki, take notes in the meetings, and share those notes afterwards and I will do my best to highlight action items for everyone.
I will excitedly share with you how to use that new feature that was just released in that software we both use.
That article in your inbox is something I thought you'd really enjoy or benefit from.
I love to help solve problems for my clients and my teammates, and time permitting, the world.
I am enthusiastic about refining processes, systems, and finding better ways of being in this world and helping others do the same.
How I got Here
My road to UX Design and Illustration— if we ignore the signs, portents, and wandering soothsayers of my early childhood— could be said to have begun during my years as a game artist. While I had graduated from the Art Institute of Seattle, I had done so before they offered anything resembling a degree in a games development, so I showed up in the offices of Monolith Productions with nothing more than relatively acceptable drawing and painting skills, a good attitude, and a will to learn. Monolith provided me the opportunity to expand my skillset from basic photoshop to include 3d modeling and animation, html and css, python scripting, and the use of a wide variety of tools and ways of thinking. I began to focus on special FX and UI design and through this, I began to think more on how what I did could help shape the experiences of our users.
I took this burgeoning interest with me when I left Monolith to help found Sandlot Games as it's first artist. As we grew, I took on the role of art director, guiding and training new artists, and eventually managing both the artists for our US studio and a development studio we set up in St. Petersburg, Russia. All the while, I still created most of the UI of our games and attempted to be a voice for our users, putting accessibility forward as an important concern.
After Sandlot, along with a long-time partner, I helped establish a development studio in Seattle for the San Francisco–based iWin. Here, I again served as art director, general artist, and UI designer. We started an internship program with the nearby Art Institute of Seattle and I had the honor and pleasure of training, managing, and learning from our amazing, ever-changing team of artists and designers.
Times change and new opportunities make themselves known and one day, we found ourselves creating a development studio for zSpace, a Sunnyvale–based company where my team and I worked to explore the possibilities of an in-development AR/VR-like system. We created games and educational software to better understand what made this company's particular approach to 3d unique and how we could make it a great experience for users.
Eventually, I found a new home at iLink Systems where I've been working on a great volume of projects for almost as many clients: well over 60 in the 5 years I've been here. UX design is my primary concern but UI design, and client communications are a close second. Over the last couple of years, I've been working to iterate upon our processes, leading several initiatives on process, UX education, and cross team communications to help improve our teamwork and create better products.
Contact Me
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