Meet James Sylvanus.

I write well-formed gibberish that glues designs together and makes them go.

I’m a rare designer-developer hybrid with emphasis on the developer half. The common element is functional problem solving.

I’ve been geeking out over code and carefully constructing systems to make computers do what I want for about 15 years now. The best moment when developing something is when you come up with the best solution for a problem, and that’s great for the web design industry, since it’s always changing and evolving. You never manage to collect all of the solutions before there’s something better.

It sounds frustrating, but it’s really fascinating to watch and participate in.

On the benefits of failure: I tried the entrepreneur thing and failed (as most do), and learned a ton about developing large scale projects, audience appropriateness, and feature triage. I learned a ton about UI/UX design and measuring results. I also learned that I’m a better developer than salesperson. I still think learning from failure is overrated; I’d rather learn from success.

On the things that aren’t computers: I paint (acrylics mostly), I dabble in music (bass and keyboards, and neither very well), and I dig science fiction books. I’ll be among the first in line to get a brain-machine interface stuck in my head. Bring on the future.