| art direction | web development | graphic design | illustration |

Profile

Have over ten years proven experience in complex business and systems environments on market share enterprise sites in both agency and client-side atmospheres. Work with international cross discipline teams, management, and clients through all development phases. From concept to launch of complete redesigns, content migrations, new product design and integration, enhancements, implementation, research and testing.

Specialize in dynamic database driven web sites and application information architecture, interaction design and content management. Utilizing asset and content metadata for ecommerce, search and account management platforms.

Lead and manage small teams of permanent and contract user experience architects, usability specialists, copywriters, designers and vendors in Head of User Experience, Site Director and Art Director roles.

Veteran champion of user centered design techniques. Like to think of user experience as facilitation, mediation, and representation. Author and moderator of diverse contextual and observed usability studies, workshops and prototypes. Accustomed to working remotely in conjunction with international technology, business and design teams in methods resembling RUP, waterfall and agile.

Background includes graphic design and art direction in entertainment, games, and publishing industries.

Tenured instructor at Seattle's School of Visual Concepts.

Areas of pursuit:

• Editorial and broadcast media content web sites
  

Skills and Abilities

Web development

• Information architecture (IA) with a focus on metadata utilization, search engine and user account strategies
• Navigation, interaction and user interface (UI) design
• Business analysis (BA)
• Content management
• Usability study scripting and orchestration, analysis and final report authoring and presentation
• Special project development of business workflow web applications and initiatives for sales and financial reporting
• Authoring of charter, requirements, and functional specifications
• Creation of Unified Modeling Language (UML) schematics, use cases, flowcharts, site maps, wire frames and personas
• Production of screen mock-ups, templates, and final graphic files
• Quality assurance (QA) test script writing and support
• Hire and direct staff in QA, usability, site optimization, accessibility, legal, marketing, and technical copy writing
• Support throughout development and launch with staff and client training

Art direction

• Brand development
• Product localization
• License and franchise creative direction
• Artist recruitment and development, contract negotiations, art purchasing, vender relationships
• Content and asset management
• Outsourcing of graphic design, production, copy writing and printing
• Scheduling, budgeting, hiring, and staff mentoring
• Style guides and presentations

Graphic design and electronic production

• Online marketing design and development for new promotional features and functionality
• Print design for packaging, books, magazines, games, advertising, and marketing collateral
• Paper engineering
• Print production, pre-press, and press checks

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Tobias and Tobias
February 2008 > January 2010, London
www.tobias.tv

Head of User Experience March 2009 > January 2010
Manage small permanent team consisting of Usability Specialist and Sr. User Experience Architect. Resource planning and recruitment of freelance contractors. Review and mentoring on UE deliverables. Client facing support, preparation and presentation of pitch materials for new business development. Hands on information architecture and interaction design.

Sr. User Experience Architect February 2008 > March 2009
Information architecture and interaction design for blue chip financial services institutions and transportation client base web sites.

Projects Include:

• Fidelity International web 2.0 redesign
• First Capital Connect communication site for Thameslink Programme
• Leading UK investment bank (IB) SharePoint intranets and redesigns

Provide:

• Content and data audit spreadsheets and analysis
• IA and wireframes for new Endeca faceted search facility
• IA and wireframes for client and account management secure sites
• IA and wireframes for rail transportation communication site
• IA and wireframes with content management schematics for IB SharePoint Intranets

Tobias and Tobias is a London agency that provides full service design and build solutions for financial services, transportation and ecommerce web sites.

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LBi
October > December, 2007 London
www.lbi.com

User Experience Architect

• Designated to the Wealth and Health portfolio. Assigned to lead the design of a prototype for a large German investment banks intranet.

LBI is the leading European full service and fully integrated digital agency network servicing clients with marketing and technology solutions.

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Sr. Information architect

• Creation of UML schematics, flowcharts, site maps, and wireframes
• Navigation and interaction design
• New product development solutions in high fidelity page mock-ups
• User experience research and analysis
• Italian Sportsbook concepts and user testing prototype

Product launches include:

• Betfair portal redesign
• Multiples Bet Sporting Exchange product release
• Aggregated Football Zone product release
• Starting Price Bet Sporting Exchange product release

Betfair is the world's leading online betting exchange with 90 per cent of the world betting exchange market, a concept it has pioneered which allows punters to choose their own odds and bet against each other.

Betfair serves over 80 million page views per day on up to 3,000 different betting markets. Supporting 5 million transactions a day and processing more than 300 bets a second from 100,000 active users.

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LOVEFiLM
July > December 2005, London (freelance consultant)
screenselect.co.uk

UI and usability consultant for screenselect.co.uk

• Site behavior evaluations and competitor reviews
• Analysis of usability studies
• Assessment of works-in-progress prior to launch
• Provide UI solutions in Photoshop page mock-ups and reports

LOVEFiLM (then Video Island) delivers online DVD subscription services. Its ScreenSelect brand has merged into the acquisition of lovefilm.com. It provides a white label DVD subscription modules for the UK's largest national brands: Tesco, ITV, MSN and easyGroup.

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Getty Images
July > September 2005, image.net, London (fixed contract)
gettyimages.com
image.net
Media Manager details

Project Manager/Business Analyst

• User interface design of white label shopping cart feature for Getty Images Media Manager 5.4 product launch
• Business analyst
• Requirements gathering, flowchart schematics, and functional specifications authoring
• Project management

Getty Image's Media Manager is an on-demand digital asset management service that efficiently streamlines the creation, management and distribution of digital assets and marketing materials. I was contracted by image.net the London firm who develops the Media Manager product after Getty acquired Digital Vision where I was previously working.

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Digital Vision ltd.
October 2002 > June 2005, London, New York
digitalvision.com.

Site Director/Web application design specialist

• User interface design for ecommerce web site and new backend web application tools
• Redesign and launch of ecommerce web site supporting three currencies, six languages, and three digital asset types
• Information architecture, annotated wireframes and page mock-ups
• Requirements gathering, flowchart schematics, and functional specifications authoring
• Business analysis, work directly with senior management in establishing and authoring business charters and requirements for new development
• Content management and localization
• Usability study design, recruitment, orchestration, analysis and final report presentation
• Conduct of contextual usability interviews with in-house end users and key account clients
• Evaluate and provide solutions for improved user experience, client services and data integrity
• Project management
• Outsourcing and staffing of QA testing
• Introduction of production methods, procedure tools and documentation systems
• Staff and client training
• Oversee small web design team and online marketing presentation and tools

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Getty Images
September 1998 > June 2002, Seattle
gettyimages.com

Information architect / user interface designer II 2000 > 2002

• User interface design and implementation of new features and functionality on ecommerce web sites and proprietary backend web applications: user dashboards, custom online discounting tool, and financial sales reporting
• Information architecture
• Use case business requirements analysis and authoring
• Creation of flowcharts, site maps, scenarios, personas, and functional specifications
• Production of screen mock-ups, templates, and final graphic files
• Provide integrated support and solutions to usability studies and reports
• Support to software engineers and QA specialists throughout the development cycle
  

Senior web designer: 1998 > 2000. photodisc.com (now retired)

• Oversee all marketing design and development for new promotional features and functionality
• User interface design and implementation of site localization
• Design and delivery of all online advertising campaigns
• Redesign of online CD store
• Design and HTML for stand alone e-newsletters
• Design and preparation of templates and final web graphics
• Print design for marketing and brand product collateral, and trade show displays

Getty Images is the leading provider of imagery and film to communications professionals around the world. The first company to license imagery via the web, moving the entire stock photography industry online. gettyimages.com serves an average of 2.3 million unique visitors each month. Nearly 100 percent of the company's visual content is delivered digitally.

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Unapix/Miramar
1998, Seattle

Art Director

• Art direction for home video and CD product line packaging, advertising and marketing collateral
  
• Outsource of all graphic design, illustration, copy writing and production for over 95 titles
• Budgeting, scheduling, and staffing
• Supervision of small in-house production staff
• Worked within strict licensing guideline directives from third party providers; PBS, The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, and United Airlines
• Strategic development, team formation, art direction, IA, UI, graphic design, production, and specifications for film ecommerce web site launch thehorrorshop.com (now retired)

Unapix/Miramar was a small film and music publisher and distributor which licensed titles from independent TV producers such as the Discovery Channel and PBS.

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Wizards of the Coast
1995 > 1998, Seattle
wizards.com

Art Director / Senior Graphic Designer

• Art Direction of over 1200 illustrations for their leading brand,
  Magic: The Gathering trading card game
  
• New brand development
• Intellectual property concept and development
• Product localization
• License and franchise creative direction
• Artist recruitment and development, contract negotiations, art purchasing, vender relationships
• Content and asset management
• Scheduling, budgeting, hiring, and staff mentoring
• Style guides and presentation
• Graphic design and production of game packaging and components, marketing collateral, event displays, print ads, logos, and books
• Managed a team of graphic designers, copywriters, and production staff
• Prepress, print production, and press checks
• Art direction for photo shoots, advertising campaigns, and product shots
• Magazine art direction, design and production

awards
• Selected Juror and awarded Art Director for the Fourth and fifth Annual Spectrum International Competition for Fantastic Art, 1997, 1998
• Best overall Collectable Card Game Art, Reader's Choice Award, SCRYE Magazine, 1996
• Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game, 1996 Origins Award

Wizards of the Coast, Inc., now a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., is a worldwide leader in games and entertainment products. Their premier trading card game, Magic: The Gathering, has several billion Magic cards in circulation, available in 70 countries and nine languages. Their popular Pokemon franchise from Nintendo proved a mass-market success.

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instructor

School of Visual Concepts
1998 > 2002, Seattle.
svcseattle.com

• Tenured instructor in QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator,
  Electronic print production
  
• Class curriculum and source material creation

Univ. of Washington certificate program -- 2001

• Instructor for Graphic Production for Print and the Web, QuarkXPress

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Awards

• Selected artist from the juried competition, DPI (Digitally Propelled Ideas) exhibition at Kellogg Univ. Art Gallery, CA St. Polytechnic University, Pomona, 2000.
• Selected Juror and awarded Art Director for the Fourth and fifth Annual Spectrum International Competition for Fantastic Art, 1997, 1998
• Best overall Collectable Card Game Art, Reader's Choice Award, SCRYE Magazine, 1996
• Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game, 1996 Origins Award
• Best Cover Design, 1996, The Seattle Arts Festival
• Addy for typography on Santa Fe Trails Metro ID, New Mexico, 1992

Applications

• Photoshop
• QuarkXPress
• Illustrator
• BBEdit
• HomeSite
• Axure
• VisualSourceSave
• Microsoft Office
• Visio
• HTML
• CSS
• Macintosh and Windows platforms

Past Associations

• American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA)
• Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI)
  

URLs

fidelity.co.uk, Sr. Information Architect, 2008-09

UK wealth management, Sr. Information Architect, 2008-09

UK investment bank, Sr. Information Architect, 2008-09

thameslinkprogramme.co.uk, Sr. Information Architect, 2008

betfair.com, Sr. Information Architect, 2006-07

screenselect.co.uk, UI and usability consultant, 2005

jivamuktiyoga.co.uk, webmaster, site design, 2004-07

digitalvision.com, Site Director / web application design specialist, 2002-05

gettyimages.com, user interface designer, 1998-2002

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