Sales Design

Objective

My objective is to find a position that will allow me to develop my skills and professionalism, specializing in commercial web design and development. I have over 4 years of commercial web design and development experience and an intense passion for computers, technology and all things web related.

I'm driven by success and the challenges that I'm exposed to within the web design/development industry. I am seeking the opportunity to advance my career within a well respected company which offers new challenges and ongoing development. I take ownership and pride in my work and look forward to working with other passionate designers and developers.

An easy-going and friendly person, I bring to the workplace a positive proactive attitude and a cheerful manner. I m always striving for the highest standards. I am quick to learn, confident in my abilities and not afraid to ask questions. I believe my strong interpersonal and communication skills, experience and eagerness to learn together with enthusiasm, the capacity for hard work and above all a good sense of humor are the key attributes I offer.Skills

Skill Matrix

I've rated my skill level on the below table with 1 being a brief understanding, 5 being able to do 80% of common tasks without research and 10 being able to perform advanced tasks without research.

NameRatingComments

(X)HTML 9/10 Structure, semantic markup and doctypes

9/10 Handcoding (preferred) or via WYSIWYG

ASP.NET & AJAX 5/10 Front end/design related coding

7/10 Mashups and some custom coding

8/10 Fireworks, Photoshop and Illustrator

6/10 Via PHP MyAdmin or MySQL Administrator

3/10

7/10

8/10 IIS/Plesk/Mail/DNS/Databases/etcSkill Details(X)HTMLComprehensive knowledge of the specifications for HTML4 and XHTML (transitional and strict)Extensive experience in converting website concept images and wireframes into well structured, SEO-friendly and progressively enhanced templatesKnowledge of semantic markup and microformatsStrong interest in the upcoming HTML5 specificationCSSExpert and proven skills creating cross-browser CSS stylesheetsUnderstanding of browser display differences/quirks and how to avoid themExpert at designing usable and accessible backend interfacesKnowledge and experience of Grid based design and various CSS techniques/frameworks (Eric Meyers CSS Reset, BlueprintCSS, YUI)ASP.NET & AJAXExperience working with the frontend aspects of ASP, ASP.NET 1.1 and ASP.NET 2 - repeaters, gridviews, form elements, etcCommercial experience working with (from when it was still called Atlas)Experienced at integrating animationsStrong troubleshooting skills and bug fixing abilitiesJavaScript FrameworksGood understanding of the differences between frameworks and their strengths/weaknesses -,,,,,, etcExperienced at both implementing community scripts/widgets and handcoding/mashups to meet specific requirements (ask about my unobtrusive form tooltips for the backend interface)MySQL/MSSQLAbility to Query, Import/Export and Modify MySQL databases via PHP MyAdmin and MySQL AdministratorSome experience importing and migrating data into/out of MSSQLGraphic Design5+ years creating Vector and Bitmap graphics for projects such as websites, business cards, logo design, business signs, etcExperienced with Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and FlashSearch Engine Optimisation (SEO)5+ years worth of experience in improving natural search engine results for websitesKey undestanding of tools such as Google Analytics/Adwords and how they can, along with user feedback, help improve the usability and search engine ranking of a websiteWebsite HostingExperienced with Windows Server Hosting using both IIS and Plesk (7 and 8)3+ years of experience in maintaining and troubleshooting domain name/email/hosting issuesExperience

This was one of the main sites I worked on while at Wiliam. The design consisted of some common elements (header, menu, footer, etc) and a 5 column grid of rounded corner boxes with dropshadows over a textured background - basically a slicing nightmare. I created a mini-framework of classes which would allow us to style a set of DIVs with various backgrounds, headings and the option of rounding the top and/or bottom corners. While the markup was a lot heavier than I would have liked, the ease of use allowed the developers to easily create new panels without passing it back to a slicer each time. One thing that impressed both the client and my boss was that my styling allowed the font size to be increased without the layout breaking - something Wiliam hadn't really focused on with previous websites.

Being an eCommerce website there was also a strong focus on SEO. My previous experience in designing, scoping, optimising and slicing eCommerce sites while at TechFlare came in very handy. So much so that when the SEO team audited the site there were only a couple of minor tweaks to be made.

The scope outlined a reasonably large amount of interactive functionality which would be done using JavaScript. I chose to use the jQuery JavaScript library due to the availability of plugins which would cover most of what was required for the site. Jquery is also the most commonly used framework, providing a familiar environment if anyone else has to work on the site in the future. Some of the functionality, nested partial state checkboxes for example, had to be hand coded. Some of the plugins came close to doing what was required but needed some slight tweaks - mainly to improve user feedback on actions (the product rating star widget is a good example of this).

The last thing I'll mention is browser compatibility. Progressive Enhancement is something that I've been focusing on a lot lately - pixel perfection across browsers is not really feasable anymore (well not once you put at least one form element on a page). Also due to IE6 lacking support for alpha channel transparency in PNGs, I implemented a conditional stylesheet and a secondary set of images for most images which had transparency. In some instances I made us of Fireworks' excellent ability to generate 8-bit PNG images with alpha transparency - basically providing nice transparent gradients to the browsers that support it, and GIF-like jagged corners to IE6 with only the single image overhead.

The Mongoose Framework is a custom built CMS framework designed by TechFlare over the past few years. It was developed from the beginning to leverage the power of ASP.NET 2 and AJAX. The back end interface had special care put in to make it easy to use and navigate. The framework's primary goal was to easily allow custom modules to be added on as 90% of TechFlare's client base required custom business solutions, from an eCommerce shopping cart, job system or a custom membership payment tracking module.

Mongoose Framework v3 is the most recent release of the framework and was used to power the latest release of the TechFlare website - albeit with a heft bunch of custom modules.

The TechFlare site is the most recent piece of work I've done. It's previous incarnation was replaced with the most recent version of the Mongoose Framework (see above). The front end of the website underwent a visual facelift and lots of care was put into improving the document structure and ensuring the site would play well with search engines.

Analytics and Adword campaigns were setup to monitor and improve traffic to the site and record conversion statistics for purchases through the online store. Product feeds for sites such as ShopBot.com.au and StaticICE were created along with a Google Sitemap in order to allow up-to-date pricing information and easy indexing of pages.

My role in the design and development of this site varied from creating the front/back end interfaces (html, css & javascript) to performing testing/bug fixing of the code. Myself and a developer completed the project in around 2-3 months spread over a 9 month timeframe.

Another large project which leveraged the power of the Mongoose Framework, the BNT website project was built to replace an antiquated ASP-based system. The new site increased the productivity of their online sales team immensely with the addition of a custom built mass upload function along with some custom reports to show the performance of their marketing campaigns.

The design of the site remained similar with newer graphics created and the page structure revised. Special focus was given to ensuring search engines would be able to index all pages of the site - something the previous version didn't do.OctopusTravel

Probably one of the largest and longest running projects I've worked on, the OctopusTravel CMS site for their Asia Pacific offices provided an excellent ground to provide an efficient custom solution. Another heavily customised Mongoose install, the "OctopusCMS" provides sales and reporting data on thousands of online bookings, a mass (50k+ emails) newsletter broadcast module and a Sales Rep Reporting module which allows both the Reps and their Managers to plan and monitor the coverage and support provided to the Travel Agents they deal with around Australia.References

Provided upon request.

Contact Details

Sean Curtis: 0416 163 317Email: **********@*****.**********:

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