Becoming a UX Designer
From being the kid drawing class-posters, being featured in the local newspaper ad contests, to being known as the class-shir- guy and college website guy. I'm a creative. Always have been. It wasn't until after forcing my way through a degree in mechanical engineering that I would realize it. As a typical college grad weighing the balance of a promising respectful career of a well paid engineer to the humble life of a broke designer being nourished on a diet of frozen pizzas and ramen. I wrestled and writhed and finally concluded that I'd rather be broke and happy than rich, respected, and dismal. And if I couldn't jump in head first, then it wouldn't amount to a real change. So I tossed aside the engineering career and headed full time into art school. Little did I know, years later the blend of technical and creative would actually amount to a brand new field of design more promising than I could've ever known. And I still rely on frozen pizzas and ramen as a source of nourishment.
Career Experience
My design career started of as a production designer for a couple Flash studios while also doing freelance for small businesses and marketing and click-marketing firms. I then broke into a much wider product scope and audience-range in search engines where I handled verticals such as maps and directions, business listings, and music. My focus then turned to applications as I worked on video recording and publishing from mobile to TV interfaces in both B2B and B2C. I then turned back to web in a support context involving databases of content includling user-contributed articles and videos and the world of support and learning for 100 different software titles with a 50 million user/month user base and forums and community with another 50 million/month. My experience continues with analyzing and creating universal navigation standards to unify a segmented landscape of different web properties for both desktop and mobile devices and joining different design teams together to work for a better collaborative environment.
Photography
As one of the earlier adopters of the first Canon Digital Elph to the revolutionary DLSR Canon Digital Rebel, I was an early adopter of digital photography. My gigs typically cover event and venue photography including weddings, holiday parties, and social functions. As a hobbiest, I seek ancient architecture or landscapes to cycle through my desktop wallpaper. I currently only consider photography jobs at special request.
A sampling of my photography work can be seen in the showcase.
Social
If you are here looking for information about social events in San Francisco, please connect with me on Facebook.
