Frank - Designer / Instructor

I am a creative individual with twenty+ years of full-time teaching experience seeking a new position, even if it involves a change of field unrelated to academics. In my career as an instructor I always sought new diverse ways of presenting material, whether through vivid example, memorable analogy, interactive module, video, demo or application exercise. I have detail-oriented organizational skills; web/UX design, code, and illustration skills; and writing and proofreading skills. In addition, I am skilled at acting, improv comedy, and vocal mimicry, contributing to my effectiveness as an instructor and speaker.

Until recently I was a full-time instructor at Pittsburgh Technical College, a career school in Pittsburgh, PA. I was a key contributor in the school's Web/UX, Graphic Design, and Software Development programs, and taught all manner of classes from design to web languages to portfolio class. I typically worked 45-55-hour weeks trying to devise better and better ways to teach my students to create web sites, and giving detailed feedback about how to improve their work. I am highly organized and took pride in explaining material clearly and developing effective grading rubrics. I was amazed at how much our students progressed in their brief time with our school, and I was proud to play a part in that. I earned a Masters of Science in Multimedia Technologies at Duquesne University in 2007, studying various media but focusing on web design and web languages. And of course I learned a lot in my 20 years of teaching full time.

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Before that I was a freelance web designer and illustrator, a career which continues intermittently to this day. Though I enjoy being an instructor, I also like doing illustration, design and/or coding to suit a client's needs. I have equally enjoyed experimenting to create effective, suitable graphic impact and wrangling with code to develop a functional project.

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Before that I worked in the video game industry for nine years, most of that time at the now-defunct company DreamForge. I started as a 2D artist and animator and later became a game designer. I produced a high volume of artwork and animation, tackling all manner of subjects from fantasy, horror, and sci-fi genres. Later, my organizational skills blossomed when I wrote and managed the design documents to record each game design our team would concoct. I was frequently the member of the team who could best explain the concepts and answer questions.

Before that I worked as an artist in a t-shirt shop for a year or two. And before that I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University, with a major in illustration.

And before that, I was in Columbus, OH, growing up on Marvel Comics and MTV and wondering what I was capable of.