And now for something completely different…
tl;dr
Starting September 19th, I will be the Senior Interactive Architect for CrowdCompass and I am pumped.
The Backstory
6 years ago, after having freelanced for a couple months in Chicago post graduation, I received a phone call from someone saying he was starting an agency and was looking for an art director. That someone was Chris Shaw, and that agency was Central Coast. It was a leap of faith and trust for both of us, but I would like to think that it paid off tremendously. In the 5 years and 9 months that I worked for Central Coast, we went from a two-man team working out of Chris’s basement to a full-service shop with some of the best clients around.
While at Central Coast, I worked on everything from branding and identity for startups to package design to motion graphics to websites to print campaigns to catalogs to event marketing and probably a million other things in between. It was a fantastic position to be in and I feel like I learned something new everyday.
I worked with some great people too. Michelle, Maggie, Eric, Kelsey, Tina, Vivian, CWilk, Kelly, Michael, Jesse, Ed, Tess, and probably many others I am forgetting at the moment. And then of course all of our clients. Anyone who knows me knows that I am one of the lucky ones who loved waking up and going to work every single day and it’s because I got to work with all of them. Thank you all.
The Transition
Over my last few years at Central Coast (including the past year in Portland), my focus had been more and more on interactive design, user experience, and development work. I love to push myself in new directions and this type of work seemed to be an limitless resource to explore and develop in.
Unfortunately, I felt that trying to focus solely on this type of work while being at a full-service agency made it difficult for me to grow how I wanted. As a result, my own opinions and wishes for the company’s direction veered left while everyone else was pushing right and in the end I decided it was best to forge ahead on my own and see what was out there.
After years of changing sproutworx.com from a blog to a portfolio site back to a blog, I went ahead and formed Sproutworx, LLC this past July and began the life of an independent freelancer.
I’ve been lucky enough to team up with some great people and have been doing some pretty exciting projects that will continue on for the next few months. Going on your own can be a very scary undertaking, especially having a mortgage to pay…but fortune seems to have been on my side.
However
While I love having the freedom of being an independent worker, less than 60 days later, I have been given an opportunity to work with an incredibly talented group of individuals. So starting on September 19th, I will be the new Senior Interactive Architect for CrowdCompass.
CrowdCompass creates mobile applications for conferences and trade shows that allows for better connected and more successful events.
It’s an exciting niche. It’s an excellent opportunity. And I am thrilled that they are willing to have me on their team.
