Design Philosophy

I design towards simplicity. I feel that the design that conveys the most is the design that distracts the least and so I strive to remove superfluous detail whenever possible. Design serves content and ought to ease and enhance conveyance of it rather than compete with it.

In terms of tools and methodology, I strive for semantics above all else. Design goes deeper than what people see and experience. The structure of code is integral to the use and longevity of content. As such, I write code by hand and adhere to standards not with dogmatic but pragmatic diligence.

The Michigan Daily →

The Michigan Daily has been my largest project to date in terms of time, energy and exposure (3.2 million pageviews per year). In the two years that I was involved with the Daily, I took part in two major redesigns and two incremental design updates. In the summer of 2006 I executed a ground-up redesign on my own using CSS, XHTML and a proprietary CMS language provided by the content framework which I had to learn. I completely redesigned the visual appearance of the site, completely rewrote all XHTML and CSS behind the site, restructured the site’s organizational scheme and retrained the online content publishers in the new system. Since then, I’ve updated the design once and am currently in the process of another update with the upcoming designer.

Another important aspect to this redesign was that of applying all of the above to the Michigan Daily blogs of which there are 7. Each of these WordPress-powered blogs needed to be completely redesigned and brought into close visual relation to the primary Daily’s site while still providing unique branding. Additionally, each blog was incorporated not only with the others, but with dynamically generated material on the Daily’s primary site itself.

In addition to design duties, I served in four positions on the Online staff. I came in as a designer but from there became an Assistant Editor, an Associate Editor and the Managing Editor. In performing all of these rolls, I had to handle project planning and management, staff training, day to day operations, pay roll and the normal duties of web design and maintenance. October 2005–April 2007 · Visit site

The Ann Arbor Crier →

The Ann Arbor Crier was started by a group of friends and myself as a project for our last semester at the University of Michigan. We wanted to create a vibrant online magazine that focused on culture and life in Ann Arbor to provide useful and interesting information for students. I worked with another designer in sketching the site while constructing the pages on my own. The site uses a custom-written PHP backend that binds together dynamic content from Movable Type, weekly custom CSS and a dynamic XHTML template that changes both on a weekly basis and due to which page is being viewed. For this site I taught myself the basics of working in Flash to create weekly slideshows. Additionally, I wrote a PHP parser to display events from another student created site, Eventivore.com. I wrote and designed a custom PHP page for emailing articles to friends along with adding the overhead needed to support posting articles on popular sites like Digg, Facebook and Newsvine. January 2007–Present · Visit site

Dokas Photos →

I designed this site for my father’s large-scale photography business. Knowing the client so well allowed me to make a site highly tailored to his tastes while at the same time causing me to work with him at all stages of development.

In this project I created the entire design in CSS and XHTML, using a number of uncommon techniques such as pure-CSS image drop-shadows. I used Movable Type to maintain all content and taught the client how to use the publishing platform for site updates. Furthermore, I wrote PHP adapters to allow customers to purchase prints directly from this site. Summer 2004 · Visit site

Jetless Heights →

Throughout high school I was an avid blogger. Jetless Heights was my stomping grounds and this was the final version I ever put time into. I wanted to create a site that felt less like a structured website and more like a fluid narrative. As such there’s no discrete navigation and instead I tried to create a flow through the site by way of carefully placed links to related content.

My interest in public blogging has since waned, but when the mood does strike me I still use the site which has since been redesigned. January 2000–Present · Visit site