Hi there. If you're here on business, it's this way to my resume.
My name is Kai Conragan. I am a professional graphic designer and front-end web developer. I have over eight years experience designing and developing websites. Additionally, I’ve worked as a print designer, photographer, photo-compositer, and more. If you would like to learn more about me professionally, please take a look at my resume.
Personal Bio
I grew up along the Northern California coast in Half Moon Bay, a what-used-to-be small fishing town about 20 miles south of San Francisco, which has now become a popular residence for Silicon Valley yuppies. At the age of 12 I was bitten bad by the surfing bug - which I outright blame my Dad for - and spent the years since in constant pursuit of waves.
After graduating from Half Moon Bay High School, I attended Foothill College on a partial academic scholarship. At this time I began experimenting with computer graphics, as well as getting my feet wet in web development. I managed to score a couple excellent jobs in college, working as a contractor for the Interactive Media department at Oracle and later as a web designer with Network Associates. After two years at Foothill I transferred to San Francisco State University and graduated magna cum laude in with a B.A. in Industrial Design with an emphasis in Graphic Design.
Throughout college I tinkered with an interest in photography. I got some lucky breaks while photographing a big wave in Half Moon Bay called Mavericks, and gained some early exposure as a sports and documentary photographer. My photographs have been used for cover shots, editorial spreads, and advertisements in publications such as Surfer Magazine, The Surfer’s Journal, Transworld Media, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, and many more.
Post-college, I joined several excellent partners in founding a design and sports marketing firm called Crux Studio. There I helped manage and run the company, leading the web projects as well as acting as co-creative director on the print projects. Additionally, I acted as in-house photographer for a number of our projects, traveling throughout the United States to photograph professional athletes on behalf of our clients. After four challenging yet satisfying years I felt an itch to go see the world while I was still young. Thus, I stepped down in good standing in my role at Crux Studio and spent eighteen months living and traveling in Asia.
Highlights of my trip in Asia include tea trekking in China, volunteering as a divemaster in Borneo, organizing reef clean-up projects in the Philippines, surfing in Indonesia, street food in Thailand, gaping in awe at the immense buildings in Hong Kong, and many, many more.
I have since returned to the Bay Area, where I am currently working as a web design consultant.
Colophon
Site Summary
No reason to reinvent the wheel here. Plain and simple: this site is a shoebox for my digital lifestyle. I have aggregated various bits of content I publish elsewhere on the internet—photos, links, etc.—into a single place. The goal is to provide a visual summary of my activity on the internet. The site also provides me a soapbox when the desire so strikes. And lets be honest, it’s a way to promote myself professionally. On to the fun stuff…
Design & Development Process
I work exclusively on a mac—it’s just more fun that way. Specifically, this incarnation of the site was designed on a Macbook Pro running Leopard The entire site layout was developed using Adobe Illustrator. This site was coded entirely by hand. Texmate is my editor of choice for everything except CSS, at which point CSSEdit is a thing of beauty. Transmit is my favorite FTP client, but SVN plays a key role in keeping this site nice and tidy.
The website is powered by a custom-built content management system developed using Python and the lovely Django framework. If you haven’t already, give Django a look—it is simply awesome. The CMS is hosted at Webfaction, but static files are served on a separate account with Dreamhost
Web Standards
I am a strong proponent of Web Standards. If you are a professional web designer and/or developer and you are not currently using Web Standards, pleased do your part and jump on board. The Web Standards Project is a good place to learn how to get started, though there are numerous on and off-line resources available to you.
With that stated, this site is coded in XHTML 1.0 Strict, and all presentation is provided via CSS. This means cleaner code, shorter download times, increased accessibility, and peace of mind for yours truly the next time I want to make some site updates.
Get In Touch
Please feel free to download my vCard for easy inclusion in your address book of choice.
Send me an email:
kai [at] conragan.com