About Jeremy

Welcome to my corner of the Internet. This site has been around a number of years and you have most likely arrived here from a Web Site I designed and managed to work a “designed by” link into or maybe you ran across smallTransport on one of the numerous design communities gracious enough to feature it. Whatever your reason for dropping by, welcome and do come again.

You continue to read this page therefore I can only assume you are curious about my background, work experience, influences and the like. If your reason for inquiry is to consider my consulting on a project do contact me with details as I am happy to speak with you in detail and to share work samples I am otherwise unable to publish publicly. Should you be a young and/or aspiring Designer with hope to discover a morsel of inspiration, direction, or enlightenment from my experience I will tell you the most valuable assets for all Designers to value, cultivate, and develop are curiosity and perseverance. With curiosity you will remain inspired and continue to learn about the world around you and perseverance will drive you through the learning curves, challenges, and failed experiments you will undoubtedly encounter.

I am a self taught Designer which is to say I have no formal education in Design. For most, if not all areas of study University provides an unmatched opportunity to be immersed in and learn about a domain. It is not however absolutely necessary to be successful in Design and is second to passion, curiosity and persistence.

I am a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin where I earned a degree in Violin Performance. It was not until after graduation from college that I began to explore Design, Design processes, technology and the like which was inspired by a desire to gain enough of an understanding of technology to bend it into role outside of which it was originally developed. Electronic musicians, digital artists, interactive video and art with electronics were a burgeoning movement and caught my attention and piqued my curiosity in a major way.

I spent a lot of time reading everything I could get my hands on related to designers who inspired me and their craft be it architecture, fine art, programming, furniture design, etc. In time I was awarded a job as technical writer and designer of software manuals for a company in Austin which shifted my focus and study of Design from a purely aesthetic or experiential perspective to thinking about how technology as a tool can be effective and liberating to its user. I also discovered how most devices and interfaces fail to achieve their intended purpose by introducing complexity into a process rather than making it simpler or more catered to the user’s goal.

A couple of years into my introduction to Design I had gained experience designing Web Sites and software interfaces, and managed through features on Web Design award sites to capture the attention of MAYA Design in Pittsburgh where began what I think of as my graduate degree in Interaction Design and development. MAYA Design is a remarkable firm with remarkable minds and talent. What is unique about MAYA is its organization as a small Design consultancy that powers internal Design Research. Many of the MAYA Design practitioners work in both commercial Design consulting as well as Design Research giving way to rich cross-pollination of real world design and technology challenges and deep Design research and thinking. The result is an extremely rich environment rife with big ideas and experienced designers working together to enrich the present and build the future.

During my tenure at MAYA which was roughly 3 years, I worked on everything from design for high-level business challenges to Information Architecture, interface design, interaction design, print and graphic design, hardware and software prototyping and a slew of other projects. I both managed and worked on projects for large consumer electronics companies, startups, the National Academy of Sciences, and numerous other for-profit and non-profit entities. MAYA provided me the confidence and opportunity to expand my understanding of Design and the world in ways I will carry and apply for the remainder of my life. Though I am not currently working with MAYA, we will cross paths again (aren’t you curious?).

In my seemingly short Design career of about 6 years I have been fortunate to design an incredible variety of things including washing machines and other consumer electronics, software interfaces, automotive technology and interfaces, trade show experiences, Web-based software interfaces, Web Sites, a few short video documentaries, and I feel as though I have just begun. My passion and curiosity about the world continues to inspire me and I will continue my efforts to learn, create, and do my part to make the world a bit of a better place.

Now you know far more about me and my experience than I had originally set out to share. May you find it interesting and will hopefully relate to my experience and be inclined to get in touch to maybe share some of your own passions, visions, or ideas that keep you up at night.

10 Minutes of Fame for this site

This site and other of my works have been featured by the following design and Web Standards focused resources. Thank you all.