To start off with the very basics, my name is Michael Ellis and I am a web designer (thus the site name, mjedesign). I am 23 years old, recently married, and very excited to be somewhat settling down and getting into a routine now.
A brief history of how I come to be where I am now, I suppose my first real experience as a designer came in the form of hacking the computer game Zoo Tycoon (in a good way, Microsoft actually encouraged it!). I taught myself how to create new animals, buildings, etc. for the game and then passed on both the new creations and tutorials onto others. I know that right before I had left for college (and the end of my Zoo Tycoon days) my designs had been downloaded over 100,000 times. In addition creating game objects, I started my own fan site and this is where I started to get my feet wet in HTML and CSS.
After High School I went to Messiah College as a Computer Science major. I stuck with that for 3 semesters but it just wasn't for me. I made a switch to Marketing and thoroughly enjoyed the courses from there on out. All 4 years, and 3 summers, on campus I worked in the Admissions office as a webmaster. It was much more of a maintenance role than a design role, but it enabled me to further immerse myself in the web and the design of sites.
After I graduated in the spring of 2008, I was employed as a web designer at a company that is a leader in check printing. My role was mostly to design marketing emails, advertisements, and update their many sites. In June 2009 I was moved to another department that was focused in a different direction, Identity Theft protection. In this position I was relied upon to design comps and then code these pages to meet many demanding deadlines. This period was very intense and required me to learn quickly and then deliver what was asked of me. Needless to say, my design and coding skills took an exception leap forward.
Ever since I went to college, I have been working freelance projects on the side and indeed I am still very active in that arena. I enjoy being apart of start-up projects and have several ideas for my own that hopefully will be developed someday. In the meantime I am more than happy to work with others on their projects and slowly build my skills along with it.
A brief history of how I come to be where I am now, I suppose my first real experience as a designer came in the form of hacking the computer game Zoo Tycoon (in a good way, Microsoft actually encouraged it!). I taught myself how to create new animals, buildings, etc. for the game and then passed on both the new creations and tutorials onto others. I know that right before I had left for college (and the end of my Zoo Tycoon days) my designs had been downloaded over 100,000 times. In addition creating game objects, I started my own fan site and this is where I started to get my feet wet in HTML and CSS.
After High School I went to Messiah College as a Computer Science major. I stuck with that for 3 semesters but it just wasn't for me. I made a switch to Marketing and thoroughly enjoyed the courses from there on out. All 4 years, and 3 summers, on campus I worked in the Admissions office as a webmaster. It was much more of a maintenance role than a design role, but it enabled me to further immerse myself in the web and the design of sites.
After I graduated in the spring of 2008, I was employed as a web designer at a company that is a leader in check printing. My role was mostly to design marketing emails, advertisements, and update their many sites. In June 2009 I was moved to another department that was focused in a different direction, Identity Theft protection. In this position I was relied upon to design comps and then code these pages to meet many demanding deadlines. This period was very intense and required me to learn quickly and then deliver what was asked of me. Needless to say, my design and coding skills took an exception leap forward.
Ever since I went to college, I have been working freelance projects on the side and indeed I am still very active in that arena. I enjoy being apart of start-up projects and have several ideas for my own that hopefully will be developed someday. In the meantime I am more than happy to work with others on their projects and slowly build my skills along with it.
Name: Michael J. Ellis
Age: Twenty-Three
Years of Experience: Six