From the first time that I played The Legend of Zelda as a child, I knew that I wanted to tell meaningful stories at the crossroads of art, design, and technology. Throughout my childhood, I became infinitely curious in the different ways to express oneself—from sketching cartoon characters for a self-published comic, to learning to code a website for a school dance, to building a make-shift electronic drum kit out of spare parts.
As my career has unfolded, I have been extremely fortunate to use a variety of these skills to help major companies—Microsoft, Amazon, ESPN, and Aetna to name a few—share their brand story with customers. My role combination of UI/UX Designer along with Full-stack Developer means that I am a utility player who can bring a unique perspective to projects, help out wherever I am needed, and bridge the communication gap between team members, teams, and departments.
Below this section is a selection of projects that I've had the pleasure of working on throughout my career. If you are interested in talking or feel that I would be a welcomed addition to your team, please feel free to contact me via email and I would be happy to schedule a call.
Out of respect for all parties involved, I will not be posting source code that isn't publicly accessible, but I am happy to share code samples from a project if requested. Screenshots of non-public projects have been taken from a local copy running on my work machine.
Note: GitHub does not allow for links to automatically open in their own tab. For a better experience, I would suggest opening each link in its own tab.
Notes: A long-form "featured article" used to celebrate the launch of Halo 5. Includes stylized photo borders, custom typographic elements, and branded photo carousels.
Notes: Created to showcase "the world's quietest room" where Microsoft conducts sound experiements. Website made with three.js and includes several interactive widgets that make the website feel similar to a museum kiosk. A screenshot of the website was featured in the "Weekend Update" segment of Saturday Night Live.
Notes: A hybrid "featured article" and microsite used to highlight Microsoft's advancements in machine learning and encourage recruitment. The collection of "sub-articles" was created using a Node.js-based static site generator/CMS that I created for the agency.
Notes: Helped to maintain, update, and upgrade website after agency hand-off. Focus was primiarly enhancing user experience design (UX) for both customers and internal staff. Introduced a WordPress-based page builder to increase production speed of new pages.
Notes: Allowed commercial sponsors of NFL events to review impressions receieved after the air of events, including: NFL Draft, NFL Kickoff, and Super Bowl. To help manage the final numbers and quickly turn-around results, I created a simple content management system (CMS), which I dubbed Touchdown. For my work, I was given a letter of praise—sent to the agency—from NFL corporate.
SAVES Club
Client: Safariland
Agency: Tether
Notes: Utilized several parallax techniques and a custom video-to-image video scrubber to showcase the internal features of Safariland's protective vest for law enforcement. Subtle animations are used in the background, as well, to give the site more visual interest. Click here to view a video of a local copy of the site for illustrative purposes only.
Amazon: reInvent
Client: Amazon
Agency: Tether
Notes: This project utilized a static site generator that I created using Node.js, allowing for a up-to-the-minute, consistent changes while maintaining the speed and simplicity of a static website.
Microsoft Design
Client: Microsoft
Agency: Tether
Notes: Created as a tool for Microsoft to showcase their current designers and recruit new designers.
ESPN Event Wrap-Ups
Client: ESPN
Agency: Mad*Pow
Notes: Hosted public impressions and ratings of ESPN events (X Games, ESPYs, Bowl College Series, NEXT) to demonstrate value and ROI to advertisers.
WelcomeToAetna.com
Client: Aetna, Inc.
Agency: Mad*Pow
Notes: Created to help new members of Aetna navigate and understand services provided by Aetna.
Projects: Favorites
A collection of my favorite non-traditional projects. While Operation: Silent Knight and the Philadelphia Zoo Kiosk were both public, the latter projects were not made public. I have posted them here with as much confidential information removed as possible.
Notes: A "video Christmas card" created in lieu of a printed one that is handed out to vendors each year. The video depicts Santa Claus participating in "flight training" using the suborbital flight simulator that Environmental Tectonics Corp created for Virgin Galactic training. The video was picked up by GeekDad, a blog hosted by Wired.com.
Snow/Amur Leopard Conservation Kiosk
Client: Philadelphia Zoo
Employer: Internship with UArts Professor Slavko Milekic
Notes: An interactive kiosk with several interactive elements that aim to educate children about the conservation of both snow and amur leopards. Program was completed in Flash using ActionScript 3.0. Along with contributing to the graphics and code, I was the sound designer and composer. Installed around 2007, the kiosk was still working when I visited the zoo in 2015 but has likely been removed.
Notes: A screenshot of an unused redesign. While this was created in 2011, I still wish that it went live. Although the code is now lost, getting the grass to scale and look natural was a very fun and rewarding challenge.
About & contact
About Nick
I am in the process of running a marathon in all fifty U.S. states (08/50).
I constructed my college major to focus around the intersection of sculpture and human/computer interaction.
I play catcher and outfielder for an amateur baseball league.
My work has been shown on Saturday Night Live.
My middle name is Kazmierz, which was the name of my Great-Grandfather. It is pronounced like the fabric or Led Zeppelin song.
React
Typescript
Django
Laravel
Facebook
Microsoft
Google
Alibaba
D3
Tencent