Digital Designer & Content Editor at Envato
Feb 2017 – Present
My work with Envato has varied between designing support strategies, launching seed projects with a small development team, overseeing project product design pipelines and producing content to the tune of nearly one full webpage concept per day for 600 days. I am currently responsible for curation and review of author contributed design, QA and design improvements on the Elementor product range, Author coaching, and development support for the Envato Elements WordPress plugin.
Creative Technologist
Freelance, Sept 2010 – Present
I provide artists, authors, entrepreneurs and brands with hand-crafted websites and e-Commerce solutions that convey their unique brand or vision. I seek to deliver a top-notch user experience based on careful research into my client’s average visitor, and extend it to my clients through coaching, content development and free support. Specializing in WordPress and Squarespace.
Code Wrangler
Obox Themes, LayersWP March 2013 – Sept 2016
From theme development to hotfixing, debugging and QA, many coffees downed and moons gazed while keeping our theme catalogue bright and functional. This hands-on approach to problem solving (and creating) greatly enhanced my skill in programming, debugging and beautifying across a variety of platforms, including WordPress.com.
User Experience, Customer Engagement
Obox Themes, LayersWP 2011 – 2016
Developed and managed in-house support systems, documentation and developer resources for our products and open-source framework, Layers. I identified user journeys and target audiences and translated them into concepts, visual designs and user flows with the ultimate goal of surpassing user expectations in support quality and response times. I acted as an advocate for our users and developer community throughout the process of proposing, wire-framing, and implementing UX improvements. Layers went on to inspire the #1 page builder Elementor and was acquired by them in 2018.
Content Author
Contently.com, New York, NY, 2012 – 2013
Created content marketing and editorial work for Contently’s client brands utilising AP Style, trendcentric topics and my expertise in the design industry.
CopyWriting & Content Editor
WiX, 2008 – 2011
Content Editor for the WiX Facebook and WiX Mobile blogs, and wrote guest posts for 25+ partners on web design, WordPress and Social Media. Worked closely with the Marketing Manager to coordinate timelines and develop project strategies. Utilised SEO and AP Style editorial technique. My articles have appeared in popular websites including JUSTCreative, Webdesignerdepot, and Specky Boy.
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Past this point is another era before web careers were really a thing. While I worked as a technical lead for a financial corporation, I made websites for local bands, ran a 12,000 member social network for Japanese rock bands in English and dreamed of creating something like Bandcamp without knowing how to launch a startup.
Here is a screenshot of one of my earliest professional case studies (Relapse Records) from 2008 compared against a recent work for Uptown (2020). Cheers!