I AM A WEB DESIGNER AND FRONT-END DEVELOPER WITH OVER 5 YEARS EXPERIENCE. I CREATE STANDARDS COMPLIANT AND SEMANTIC HTML, CLEVER AND CONCISE CSS AND UNOBTRUSIVE JAVASCRIPT.

• CASE STUDY #1 ROBERSON WINE MERCHANT ECOMMERCE & CMS

  

  The project for Roberson was to create an online shop for a specialist wine merchant based in High Street Kensington, London.

  Roberson have had a high-street store for many years but required the ability to sell their entire range of over 1,500 wines to customers online.

  Working alongside an external design agency and remote developer my involvement in this project was to code the entire front-end in HTML, CSS and Javascript based on the templates provided by the designer.

  The design asserted a very strict grid not only vertically but on a baseline as well and as all pages had not been designed there was also a requirement for me to design the layout of some additional areas in keeping with the new branding.

  This project was interesting because it posed a few challenges. The first was that the completely new design was to be applied to an e-commerce system that we had built previously and to which I had coded the front-end. The second was that because an e-commerce site was already online a careful transition to the new design and functionality was essential because any broken pieces of functionality had the potential to result in customers not being able to purchase.

  Where possible I maintained my original HTML structure but coded the CSS again from scratch. As ever cross-browser compliance was imperative and a methodical approach to implementing all of the new changes and testing them throughly was essential. The re-launch went incredibly smoothly and the reception from the client, designer and customer was excellent.

  Project done whilst working at Talking Pixels

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• CASE STUDY #2 IEEP CAP2020 & BIRDLIFE MICROSITE

  

  For the IEEP CAP2020 project an integration of a temporary system for gathering feedback on a document was required.

  This system needed to slot into the current website maintaining cohesion with the current branding whilst also appearing to be its own entity. An administration system was required so that responses could be reviewed and published easily.

  For this project my involvement was in all but the backend development. I had to gather the requirements and brief, formulate a proposal and quote, plan, wireframe, design and code the front-end as well as manage the project and developer. The deadline for the project was tight and inflexible due to the website coinciding with the production of a document so everything had to be done quickly but thoroughly. On top of this there was a budget in place which forced me to make sure I designed a system which was as streamlined and simple to build as possible.

  The challenges of this project were not in its implementation because the project itself was fairly simple but that the entire process had to be compressed into a very tight time frame. Good management of the client was essential in gathering requirements, obtaining answers, gathering feedback and pushing through each step of the process.

  One challenge was to provide a very simple process for the review and publication of responses. The CAP2020 site is already built upon a CMS but the new administration section would have to be self contained and therefore could have required additional roles for authentication and the development of a separate CMS. Instead of doing this I decided to use email in order to manage new responses, slightly augmented view templates to allow the previewing and publication of responses and authentication would be in the form of tokens in the URL to prevent the need for login.

  Project done whilst working at Talking Pixels

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• CASE STUDY #3 ENSOFT COMPANY WEBSITE

  

  For Ensoft a re-branding excercise and new website was required based on content from an old site. A complete transformation in terms of look and feel was required to attract young, graduate software developers to the company.

  For this project my involvement was in the entire project lifecycle from start to finish. Requirements had been gathered already but my job was essentially to take an old website, reorganise and re-prioritise content, rebrand whilst maintaining the logo and create the static website.

  The subject of network software engineering can initially appear pretty dry but you can draw on some pretty interesting ideas from things like network visualisation, hardware components and the Internet as a whole.

  For this project the design processes led me down a few different avenues but the idea that came out on top was bourne out of images of ethernet cable schematics and interesting photographs of the cables themselves. What drew me to them was not only the colouration of the cable and internal wiring but also the way the crossover was drawn in schematics. Further to this the Ethernet cable harnesses the idea of data travelling from A-B in a virtual as well as physical way.

  I decided to use the cable as the crux of the design itself which led to an interesting and abstract depiction in the final design. The colours have been adjusted to be even more vibrant and energetic and the crossover features prominently to create a strong graphical device. I also decided to make the cable illustrate the dynamic and ever changing origin and destination of network data by having the cable appear and end in different places when changing sections. I feel that this idea really achieves what Ensoft were looking for in terms of creating a modern, vibrant and interesting website whilst also having a keen underlying reason for being there, which I feel is extremely important.

  Project done whilst working at Talking Pixels

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A few other websites I have worked on...

• IEEP EIS Document Repository

  

  The IEEP required a privately accessible website called the European Intelligence Service. This site is constantly updated and accessed by various organisations with a CMS system to manage document uploads and organisations.

  My roles in this project were to project manage the build process, create the front-end in HTML and CSS, design some parts of the UI and manage the client relationship after launch.

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• Dominick Tyler Portfolio

  

  Dominick Tyler is a professional photographer who required a portfolio to display his commercial work online.

  My role was to convert the design into HTML, CSS and Javascript run with some simple PHP.

  A particular highlight and the most important part of the portfolio was the customisation of a JQuery photo gallery plugin so the interaction could be just as we wanted.

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• Jo Wood Organics Shopify Ecommerce

  

  For the Jo Wood Organics brand a new ecommerce website was required. To launch quickly it was decided to utilise the Shopify ecommerce platform.

  My role was to create the Shopify site, with some portions requiring some clever workarounds. After launch I continued to maintain the site, design new areas, create and send e-shots, manage Adwords campaigns and generally manage the relationship.

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• Talks for Londoners Events Aggregator

  

  Talks & Lectures for Londoners is an internal Talking Pixels project built in Ruby on Rails which automatically aggregates events from various organisations across London.

  My role was in the conversion of the design into HTML, CSS and Javascript as well as the design of some UI. The design was modular and so the CSS was created in a similar fashion which created an even more organised stylesheet.

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