Don’t Imitate. Understand.
My mission is to continue growing in development and design. I work diligently to produce a product effectively that not only I can be proud of but something that my clients would be happy to showcase. Culture is key and building relationships with honesty and transparency are a must. I focus on allowing time to grind, to learn, to practice, and to rest. Fail fast so that I can learn faster and produce at the best of my ability.
Eleven Fifty is a 12 week Coding Bootcamp where the focus is not only on teaching the fundamentals of code (in my case, JavaScript), but also how to learn and research the world of coding languages. The experience helped me focus on the aspects of logic that is required when attempting to solve problems that not only exist but may potentially exist within a project. I chose to go here not only because they are a non-profit academy but also for the guide rails in selecting a language to learn and provide goals to accomplish. Goals were provided and sweat was required. I actually wrote a short blog about the overall experience. Feel free to check it out here.
This project allowed me to work within Node and React for the first time. The function for this project was to create a working app that passed all CRUD functionalities. My initial goal was to make this a mobile first app that I could potentially use later and I did my first wireframing utilizing Adobe XD. Here is the Link for that wireframe. I did create it as an interactive wireframe with canned images. In order to meet deadlines, I was focused on the functions and making it presentable. I still plan on recreating this project but under a different light.
The goal of this project was to build something small and fun to both practice utilizing general DOM manipulation and fetching information from a simple API. The inspiration came from the need to come up with a lesson plan to help introduce students to Googles Firebase Deployment platform and show them how to create a project that they can then showcase in their profolio. For further notes on my project, please see my Github Repo.
With this project, the focus was calling on an existing set of data and displaying in a new, small app. I chose to display a quick meal utilizing the Edamam API. This also was the first time using Firebase.
In practicing CSS methods, we were challenged to make a “creature” within CodePen. I chose to make Spider-Man. My main focus was to work with triangles as it seemed like something that would push me. Although I probably wouldn’t buy a comic in this art style, I had a lot of fun making this.
This project was my first attempt at working within a group dynamic. We utilized Angular 8 as our framework and dipped into a bit of Typescript. The interesting aspect of this project was the fact that we were tasked not only to work within a team, we were to learn a whole new framework from scratch utilizing only the tools of the internet and the documentation within Angular. The backend was developed in Node and everything was deployed to Heroku for presentation. Curious about my original wireframe vs end product? Feel free to check it out here.
Along with the CSS Creature during the first week of my course, we were tasked to select a known site and rebuild a static layout of that site. This challenged me to focus on the requirements of what the “customer” was needing. In this case, for the varied tool sets to be laid out in a particular way while utilizing HTML and CSS.
I am a husband and a father of two beautiful girls. I am from Indianapolis but have enjoyed living in Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia (where I met my wonderful wife). All are nuts in their own way, but so am I in a house ruled 3 to 1.
I mastered digital print production working under quick deadlines. I was able to develop skills working through the Adobe Suite and gaining an eye for detail. As much as I enjoy creating, I felt like the print industry had provided me as much as it was capable and I wanted to push myself a little bit more in another avenue of the design world.
As a hobby, I really enjoy playing board games and am actually in the process of working on a game in my free time. I find that this helps me process the “problem” of creating mechanics that work within a limited area. It pushes the concept of design in a way that excites me and I hope that it’s an area that I can eventually mesh together with my growing understanding of creating applications.