http://nikolas.ws
503.680.5495
[email protected]
Portland, Oregon
I am a web developer, artist, and front-end system architect. For over 10 years, I have worked on web applications, design systems, and customer facing web experiences with fine artists, design studios, and technology companies. From marketing campaigns to commerce storefronts, client libraries and flagship products, Nikolas works to explore the edges of what's possible.
SmugMug & Flickr are the go-to products for photographers on the internet. I work as the principal developer for the marketing team, bridging the gap between marketers & designers and the engineering team. In this role, I've rebuilt the audience-facing marketing website for SmugMug to bring it up to modern industry standards, including major improvements to site speed, accesibillity, search engine optimization, and code maintanabillity.
- Develop & maintain the marketing website for SmugMug.com.
- Identify & develop key areas of improvement for technology on the marketing team.
- Identify & develop technical solutions to marketing problems.
Fuzzco is a design studio & creative agency in Charleston and Portland. Fuzzco creates brands, experiences, and websites for clients big and small. At Fuzzco, I led the development team — collaborating closely with designers, strategists, and clients to create end-to-end solutions for digital projects.
- Built systems for building efficient and resource-savvy digital projects.
- Mentor, teach, and review code for my team of developers.
- Work closely with designers, project managers, and strategists to ensure success on projects.
- Estimate and manage project budgets and timelines.
- Ensure world-class finish on web projects, and maintain graceful degradation across legacy browsers.
- Maintain and implement updates and fixes for a suit of over 100 past projects.
- Maintain and implement hosting processes and manage servers and DNS.
Department is a design & development studio specializing in digital experiences, printed matter, and special projects. Department works with artists, public bureaus, and other partners who are open to collaborative process and value art and design.
- Work with potential and current clients to meet needs and work through contracts.
- Design and develop digital solutions for clients.
- Run and maintain all aspects of a contemporary business.
- Create strategic technical plans to enable client goals for the smallest budgets possible.
- Ensure that public facing projects are completely accessible.
- Write, deploy, and manage payment APIs.
Lead workshop J608 Introduction to Web Design for Multimedia Journalism masters candidates. Course covers web development basics including an introduction to HTML, CSS, and Javascript along with industry best-practices using Github and Markdown. Primarily focused on strategies for communicating with a team about design.
- Teach students the basics of the contemporary internet.
- Work with students to understand and articulate web design critique.
- Enable students to create their own web projects.
Work closely with a small team ⇗ to develop and maintain a developer-focused web product ⇗ for ArcGIS. Work includes content strategy, information architecture, user experience & interaction analysis and development, graphic design, and implementation. Created and manage a brand framework for Esri & ArcGIS web properties ⇗. Produce exploratory and conceptually driven projects to identify current trends in web development & design in relation to map-based data visualization experiences. Current project is a complete UX/UI overhaul of the popular web product ArcGIS Online ⇗.
- Research and development of Web GIS APIs and best practices.
- Design and Development of a developer-facing Platform as a Service application.
- Design and Development of a full brand framework and design system.
- Design and Prototyping of a complete UI and UX overhaul of a flagship digital product.
- Design and Development of documentation.
- Design and Implementation of APIs.
- Create and maintain sample code and feature demos.
- Section 508 accessibility compliance.
Developed brand identity and web properties for Paris-based start up We Love Words. We Love Words focuses on both giving writers a social platform, and creating a marketplace for companies and brands to locate and hire copywriters. Work included designing and implementing strategies to meet both requirements.
- Design and development of the Web UI for We Love Words platform.
- Work closely with strategists and back-end developers to ensure efficient implementation of goals and outcomes.
Led small creative in-house design team for the University of Oregon. Responsibilities included working directly with clients, managing multiple high-priority projects across departments, working closely with printers, high-quality large format print production, and iterative development for web sites and applications.
- Design & development of projects for student groups.
- Work to understand goals and propose technical strategies.
- Mentorship of co-workers and junior designers and developers.
- 11 years working as a developer & designer, primarily in front-end JavaScript applications and site design & development.
- Experience in Research & Development, Geographic Information Systems, E-Commerce, Developer Advocacy, and Product Development.
- Extensive experience in JavaScript application frameworks like Angular, React, Vue, and Svelte.
- Extensive experience with ECMAScript 6 and building JavaScript applications without frameworks.
- Extensive experience with design systems and component-based UI architectures.
- Extensive experience in CSS & systemic SCSS architectures.
- Extensive experience with automation tools at every part of the development lifecycle.
- Extensive experience with industry best practices using Git and version control.
- Strong knowledge and understanding of API's and third party libraries.
- Experience working closely with designers and design teams.
- Experience working closely with clients and strategists to define, accomplish, and present goals.
- Proficient in Node.js server-side applications, including designing and implementing APIs.
- Proficient in unit testing methodologies and frameworks.
Studied under Charlene Liu ⇗, Margaret Prentice ⇗, and Rebecca Childers.