About

Me

How I work

I only work on projects I believe in. If you don't believe enough in your project to give me what I need to successful, then we shouldn't work together.

Preposterous you say? Everyone thinks they believe in their project, but here's some signs you might not: You think a great website can be bought for less than the price of a great computer. You think a designer is just a human extension of Photoshop/Dreamweaver with you at the wheels. You think you don't need to be actively engaged in the design process, signing off on milestones and providing input. You want me to turn around your project in a month. You think it doesn't matter what's under the hood as long as it looks okay. You think an icon that takes 3 hours of my time should cost less than 1 hour at my hourly rate. You don't want to sign a contract. You're interested in using comic sans.

I don't need your money, I need you to love what you're doing.

If that all sounds good, you can hire me to design a website or icons. You can also hire me to audit your current site (or just part of it) and provide recommendations to be implemented in-house or by a third party.

  1. discovery

    Discovery

    You supply me with reference materials (sites or icons you like, context, brand guidlines etc.) and your project specs (how many icons, scalable, sizes, uses etc.)

  2. proposal

    Proposal

    I give you a detailed proposal based on your requirements. For a website the proposal includes a sitemap, both icon and web proposals include a timeline of milestones and a statement of work agreement with a complete list of deliverables. When you sign off I proceed with the project.

    3. flow diagram

    Wireframes and Flow Diagrams

    The wireframes will demonstrate the layout of your site; the placement of content as well as functionality on pages. The flow diagram is a visual breakdown of how users interact with your site.

  3. prototype

    Prototypes

    If your site is especially complex I may provide prototypes or clickable versions of your wireframes.

  4. visual treatment

    Visual Treatment

    For an icon project I do a completed version of one of your icons in this step. If you sign off on the treatment we go forward to the sketches. For a web project I propose a visual style for your site, with design ideas for common page templates. This is repeated as necessary based on your feedback. At this stage we start thinking about color, contrast, typography and imagery.

  5. sketches

    Sketches

    If you've comissioned me for a set of icons I provide an initial draft of sketches, sometimes with multiple iterations of an icon for you to choose from. This step is repeated as necessary based on your feedback.

  7. code

    Code

    I build your site; markup, CSS, CMS etc. If you have highly complex back-end requirements I may recommend a contractor to suit your specific needs.

  8. acceptance

    Acceptance

    You approve the finalized version of your site or icons. Upon approval and final payment your deliverables are released. Design = beautiful and functional. Code = clean and semantic. Site = usable and findable.

    9. Every project is completed in a series of scheduled steps requiring clients sign off to continue. Each project is unique, and as such may require few or all of these steps.

    Let's discuss your project.

    Other considerations not described include: maintenance agreements or retainers, content adding or populating, image scanning, document repositories, blank templates, in-house developer support, tracking, metrics or analytics, SEO assessment and recommendations, pattern libraries, type licenses, usability, personas, ethnographic research and competitor analysis.