James Craig
This is me. I work on the web.
I wrote my first computer program in BASIC on an Atari 400 in about 1981. No, I did not have a cool handset modem like the one they used in War Games.
I was interested in computer graphics (possibly due to the Atari console) and fine art from a very early age. My high school electives were tennis, computer science, and as many art classes as I could take. Desktop publishing was common, but this was still before the web was a commercially viable medium for graphic design. At the time, I wanted to work on computer-rendered graphics and special effects for Hollywood movies.
I didn’t actually start working “on the web” until college, at the University of Texas at Austin in 1994. After much perseverance, I gained access to a job in the Studio Art Computer Lab, which meant I got after-hours access to the lab and spent many hundreds of hours working late nights on web or video projects. I was in the graphic design program, which was mainly focused on print design. Granted, my design skill was very immature, but I did understand the direction I wanted to take… Of the faculty members, only Katie Salen seemed to really understand where the future of design was headed. One point of curriculum was consistent though; all of the professors re-inforced the importance of attention to detail in the quality of craft. I took this idea with me into my first dot com job where I was the only designer working with four programmers.
My attention to quality of craft in design led to my attention to quality of craft in code. I knew HTML and CSS pretty well but, until then, hadn’t used JavaScript for anything more challenging than image rollovers. I started paying attention to web standards in 1999. Participation in email lists, like css-discuss and www-style, helped hone my craft and, as I discovered later, even got me a minor credit nod for CSS 2.1. I was heavily involved with AIGA, SXSW, and Knowbility’s Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR), which led to an invitation to join the WCAG 2.0 Working Group. Although I’m still relatively active in the WaSP ATF, contributions to the other groups have slowed in recent years due to job responsibilities.
I worked for a series of companies over the years, mostly notably frog design and Apple Inc. I left Texas for California in 2006. I live in the quiet San Francisco neighborhood of Bernal Heights and would only return to Texas for one reason. Luckily for me, she decided to move here instead.
Photo credit: YiMay Yang. YiMay works on the web, too.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookiecrook/1373388921/