October 19th, 2012
Originally developed as a list of thumbnails that display in a Lightbox when clicked, I expanded this plugin to also include an inline video player. The player and thumbnail list use the same set of easy-to-use settings for maximum flexibility and minimum effort. Read the rest of this entry »
October 19th, 2012
This is about a year old now, but I just dug it up and it’s pretty fun. Last year, I started diving deep into CSS3 and was beginning to learn LESS for work. I created a demo page of some fun animations to better learn both of the technologies. There’s no point to this page other than learning and enjoyment, so enjoy!
July 12th, 2012
If it looks like I haven’t been too busy in the last year, it’s because I’ve not been working on my freelance portfolio, but rather I’ve been working on dozens of exciting projects at 7Summits. Since joining the team in November of 2011, I’ve really beefed up my object-oriented Javascript, LAMP stack application development, and WordPress plugin and theme skills. And of course, I’ve become quite familiar with Jive, the social business platform 7Summits specializes in.
7Summits is not only a global player, but also an active member in the local community. I developed a new website for the Penfield Children’s Center, which is a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to help infants and young children with and without disabilities to reach their full potential through education, therapy services and family programs. I also created the website for The Wisconsin Independent Life College, a non-profit college serving adults with Autism who desire continued learning.
These projects were both fun to work on given how important the designs were. It’s been great to get a small break from the admin-heavy corporate sites built for Jive, and work on some gorgeous and fulfilling projects.
January 27th, 2012
(Latest release, v1.0 on 01/27/2012)
ImageScale scales and repositions images into the center of a container div using JavaScript. The plugin aims to reduce maintenance issues when dealing with a fixed content area that needs to handle multiple image sizes. While JavaScript image resizing isn’t always ideal, this plugin should do the trick when batch image processing is not an available option. Read the rest of this entry »
September 19th, 2011
As a web designer for Journal Interactive I design dozens of ads a week in addition to working on larger projects. The below samples represent my favorites from the past two years. Read the rest of this entry »
May 31st, 2011
On Tuesday, May 24th I went to the Chicago Hacks/Hackers meeting to brainstorm ideas for the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership innovation challenge. After brief introductions and food in a conference room in the Chicago Tribune tower, we split into groups and embarked on 30 minutes of intense brainstorming. Our prompts were one of three topics:
My group tackled the third issue and came up with some really great ideas which I (hopefully adequately) presented after our time was up. Phillip Smith of Mozilla walked around taping everybody and then uploaded the videos. Well, here I am:
May 18th, 2011
I attended the Milwaukee Web Design Meetup May event which featured Dale Sande of Getty Images talking about Object Oriented CSS and modular web design. It was really an incredible event for me as Dale’s history and current topics mirrored my own experiences and it was great to hear from someone else who thinks along the same lines that I do. OOCSS is something that I sort of figured out on my own as it was first starting to appear as a term, and it was great to hear it discussed as a fully-fledged concept. The CSS metalanguages Less and SASS tied perfectly into the OOCSS and modular concepts, and are definitely something I’m going to start using. Overall, it was one of the most informative 2 hours I’ve spent.
May 3rd, 2011
A few weeks before Thanksgiving I was brought on board a brain-storming team as the lead designer for the next big thing the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was working on. The idea at the time was very nebulous, but the basic premise was completely overhauling JSOnline’s entertainment section and launching it as a new site. I was eager to work on the project, excited for the opportunity, and had no idea what I was in for. Read the rest of this entry »
December 30th, 2010
Where did that term come from, “look and feel”? When has anybody felt a design? It’s become such a meaningless term now, a ubiquitous favorite from lowly advertising interns to corporate figureheads.
September 21st, 2010
(Latest release, v2.0 on 10/07/2010)
Instant validation provides users with immediate form validation errors, correcting user input as soon as it’s entered rather than waiting for form submission. The appearance and position of the validation error messages are easily styled through CSS and plugin options. Currently available validation types include required fields, email addresses, phone numbers, zip codes, and numbers, but more will be added!