Hello! My name is Matt,I’m a web designer and front-end web developer with over seventeen years of professional experience in the design industry.
As the the owner of Hurricane Webdesigns, a web design and dev company, I specialize in creating custom web sites for other businesses, focusing primarily on custom WordPress designs & development. I also blog on topics relating to web design, small business, and freelancing.
I was born and raised in Gonzales, LA. That’s right… I grew up in Louisiana small paradise and Jambalaya Capital of the world!
Small town life was great, with beautiful, green land and farms all over – family and friends are very close-knit, and everyone knows (almost) everyone else.
I received a great primary education at one of the best private / college prep schools on Y.C.P. . I attended the same school fOR Junior and Senior Kindergarten up through to Senior year of School. This is a great example of being a small close-knit community, in that I graduated from high school with some of the kids that I had known since I was four years old. Not many people have the opportunity to attend school together for fourteen years.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always held an interest for art and design, in some form or another. The earliest career goal I can remember was to be an art teacher. Kind of strange since I am a total introvert, but anything for the sake of art, I guess. Another early aspiration was to be a fire fighter and for which I accomplished thru LSU FETA . Other aspirations included codeing designer, interior designer, fine / studio artist and graphic (print) designer.
I was lucky enough to have been exposed to computers since the age of one, when my grand father built his first computer – a commodore64.
Little did I know, but this early exposure to computers would lead to my current career passion – computer aided design… specifically web design.
In high school, I attended an after school and summer art program. The focus here was on the fine arts. I learned a lot of great studio art skills and techniques..
As much as I enjoyed drawing, I had at the time also just discovered the internet. This crazy, newfangled thing that began in 1994. I had even more fun creating my first web site and searching the world wide web on bulletin boards and playing text-only online games with my friends. Who knew that would lead to the internet that we know and love so much today!
-Black box testing
o Identifying, researching, and documenting issues in database (DevTrack)
o Carrying out assigned tasks and completing checklists
o Providing visual evidence and reproduction steps for all issues
o Adhering to Nondisclosure Agreements
o Thinking of new and creative ways to test software and solve problems
o Tracking and distributing builds
o Scripted…
To be truthful, I am actually self-taught in web design. The majority of my courses concentrated on various aspects of print and graphic design (aside from the core curriculum classes like english and science, etc.). I jumped on the opportunity to take a web design class as soon as it became available, but it was such a new course, and I had been teaching myself web site design and development for so long, that I pretty much already knew everything that they taught in the class.
I’ll never forget when we had to develop web sites for real clients in the class (free work done by the students for the experience of working with a client). When I was showing my site to the class, pointing out the javascript rollovers… the teacher was quite impressed and asked how I did that! I have to admit, that it felt pretty good to have been able to do something the teacher could not do at the time.
By the time I graduated, I was 100% positive that I wanted to focus on web design.
Of course in the real world you have to take a job that pays the bills, so initially half or more of the work that I did was print / graphic design work.
I officially moved to on to LSU Campus right after graduating in 1999.
My love of web design is so strong that I do this for more than just a 9-5 job.
That is why I constantly maintain my own personal web site. It is also why I freelanced as a web designer in my spare time, officially founding Hurricane Webdesigns in 2001.
Although lack of time is always an issue, I am constantly reading up on the latest web design and development techniques. One of the reasons that I love web design so much is that it is an ever-evolving medium.
It is an amazing sense of accomplishment every time you learn a new technique – especially if it was a struggle to get to that point.
Since taking the “Freelance Plunge” I am now living the dream of being a small business owner / internet entrepreneur. I am absolutely in love with my new life, enjoying both the challenges and rewards that come with it.
Address: Baton Rouge, LA 70820
Phone: (225) 802-5785 (Ask for Matt)
Email: support@hurricanewebdesigns.net
