You're probably a lot less interested in who I am then you are in what I do. So, here we go.

I am a front-end web developer at McKenzie Wagner, a small advertising agency in Champaign, IL. I used to write a lot of back-end code and custom content management systems, but now, everything is pretty much done in Drupal or Wordpress, but mostly Drupal.

I want to stress that my work, isn't 100% my work. Whether the agency is McKenzie Wagner or another one, the projects were collaborations with a designer or creative director, and the client. I wrote the code. For Drupal sites, I'm usually involved from the planning stage. Site map, user experience, functionality, prototyping, etc. I install and configure Drupal and it's many modules, sometimes using custom modules. I then theme the site and customize the admin portion of the site, Then, I train the client's content administrators, and launch the site. Git is my version control of choice.

Besides building Drupal, and occasionally Wordpress sites, I also create eblasts (yes, it's like going back in time), I also configured (apache, mysql, apc, ssl, etc.) and remotely managed a dedicated ubuntu server via SSH. It's tuned for Drupal.

If I wasn't a developer, I'd probably be a mechanic. I am good at, and I enjoy, solving problems. I like building things, and fixing things. I honestly believe that these qualities make me better at what I do. I see each new project as a new set of problems that need to be solved creatively, efficiently and effectively.

If you want to know more about me, try these links:
Twitter // Drupal.org // Nearly Inactive Github // Flickr Photos

email me here:

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Client: Mid Illinois Concrete

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal 7

Every web site should serve a purpose, and MIC's website is all about their image during their bid process.

Like most projects built in Drupal, the purpose is to make the site as easy as possible to manage and maintain. There are probably as many custom views making up the admin portion of the site as there are that the site's user sees.

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FB

Client: Fletcher Bright

Agency: High Tide Creative
Category: Drupal 7

Fletcher Bright is a real estate company located in Chattanooga, TN. This site handles their commercial leasing part of their business. It utilizes a lot of contextual filters, and locations.

The main goal of the site is to make it as easy as possible for the client to manage their listings, and for an end user to find and inquire about a listing.

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SCB

Client: Soy Capital Bank

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal 7

Banking websites are always interesting because of the regulations they're required to adhere to. Their previous site had poor organization, so the goal was to bucket the information in friendlier kind of way. The site's content is separated based on audience. Defaulting to what 90% of their site traffic is there for, consumer information and account access.

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CIA

Client: Central Illinois Ag

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal 7

Nothing extremely complicated about this Drupal 7 site except for the product listings are imported from their equipment listing site using the feeds module and a CSV file, and a folder full of images.

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RPP

Client: Research Press

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal 7

Drupal Commerce project. A case study can be found here.

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GCAP

Client: Greater Community AIDS Project

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Wordpress

Pretty standard Wordpress site.

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Mw

Client: McKenzie Wagner Inc.

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Wordpress

I have worked for MW since June (I think) 2010. And for a couple of years before me, a new site was in the works. Countless changes in direction and a new identity contributed to delays. And lets be honest, client work pays better. Placing a hard deadline on ourselves finally brought it into reality.

Several custom templates, custom wordpress loops, some core Wordpress functions, and a hefty dose of jQuery.

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Bell Racing USA

Client: Bell Racing USA

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal

Bell Racing is one of the largest manufacturers of auto racing helmets. Their drivers range from Friday night dirt track racers to some of the biggest names in the racing world.

This is a Drupal 7 build, built using Drupal Commerce to handle the products, and contextual filters for efficiency.

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Creativore

Client: Creativore

Agency: Creativore
Category: Roll Your Own

Creativore is a new, small agency in Springfield, MO. They're big idea people, with the core of their company having previously worked on projects for some of the biggest companies in the world.

When I say "roll your own", I simply mean hand coded, no CMS. Even without having to bend a CMS this was a project full of problem-solving. Lots of javascripting, lots of CSS classes.

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Bromley

Client: Bromley Hall

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal

If there is such a thing as a straight forward website in Drupal, this would be it. The "trickiest" part being the galleries, which are a separate content type. I choose to add the necessary classes with jQuery, but the same could have been done with a Drupal pre-processor function.

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Theshizzlesauce

Client: The Shizzle Sauce

Agency: High Tide Creative
Category: Roll Your Own • My Big Commerce

The marketing portion of the site is just hand-code, nothing crazy. The e-commerce portion is My Big Commerce.

As for the SEO text well below the footer, well, that wasn't me. As a developer, I can't really support or condone it. It's probably considered "grey hat", and I completely understand why they did it.

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Gigglebellies

Client: The Giggle Bellies

Agency: High Tide Creative
Category: Wordpress • My Big Commerce

I'm not sure how you measure success, but these guys are definitely carving out their spot in their niche. 2011 marked the release of their second animated feature, which quickly sold out.

This site has two parts, the marketing side, and the e-commerce side. The marketing portion of the site is Wordpress, the e-commerce portion is My Big Commerce.

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Mcfayden

Client: McFadyen for Judge

Agency: High Tide Creative
Category: Wordpress

Wordpress, straight-up, quick turn-around.

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Prn

Client: Prairie Rivers Network

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Wordpress

I did not build the Prairie Rivers Network website, but I did re-theme it.

The images at the top are randomly pulled from a directory using php, and then javascript is used to randomly fade them in.

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Wellons

Client: The Wellons Group

Agency: High Tide Creative
Category: Roll Your Own

This is another hand-coded, roll your own CMS site using HTML, CSS, javascript, PHP, and MySQL. It was done in early 2010, but in my opinion, the design is still very much relevant and subject appropriate.

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Wrenchinc

Client: Wrench Inc.

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Wordpress

This is another site for my employer. It's a DBA type of thing to have a more masculine look and appeal to a more masculine client. It's not that we don't enjoy working with all different types of clients, cause we do, but we love working with clients that market to the type of people we associate with.

Much of the design and functionality is closely related to those of the McKenzie Wagner site.

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Onecavo

Client: One Cavo

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal

I included this site because it was built using Drupal 6. I think it was the last project I did using that version of the CMS. It's pretty basic.

The point I want to get across though, is that pages in Drupal don't have to look like pages built in Drupal (if that makes sense). You can use contexts, and you can define regions in your templates, and use taxonomies and custom content types to create unique layouts and elements.

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Fasteners

Client: Fasteners Etc. Inc.

Agency: McKenzie Wagner Inc.
Category: Drupal

Drupal 7, but nothing really special here. There are a lot of textured backgrounds, but from a code standpoint, it's pretty basic.

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