The portfolio of front end developer Mike Byrne
I have 15 years experience specialising in building semantic, accessible, pixel perfect websites, using and pushing todays best practice methods. I seek to produce graceful, pragmatic solutions to solve interface problems presented to me. Over the years I have developed a reputation for straight talking, working very quickly, adaptability, being client friendly and leading both developers and whole teams towards a successful project.
Primary skills:
- CSS/SCSS
- HTML, xHTML and HTML5
- JavaScript
- FE architecture
- Browser compatibility
- Browser performance
- Mentoring
- Prototyping
- Responsive websites
Experience with:
- JSON, XML, SVG
- PHP, Ruby on Rails
- Presenting/teaching
- Source control in SVN and Git
- Task runners - Gulp and Grunt
- SEO
- Localisation
- Accessibility
- UX
Key Engagements
ESPN
July 2013 - August 2014, AREA 17AREA 17 were engaged by ESPN to help redesign their website which receives up to 80 million visitors a month and handles 8,000 new pieces of content a day. Initially I was involved with redesign ideas generation - giving advice based on my experience as a developer with a keen interest in browser performance. This moved on to creating prototypes to demonstrate and refine ideas.
Ultimately this led to being embedded within the ESPN developer team in Bristol, Connecticut, to help guide and direct realising and develop the new designs from the front line. This involved integrating with the FE team lead by David Ashton, the BE team lead by Keith Lam, the design team lead by Dan Benshoff and the product team lead by Jarrod Schwarz and Dheerja Kaur.
The relaunched ESPN looks fantastic and I'm really warmed to still be able to spot my influence and my code within its pages.
Charlie Rose
April 2016, AREA 17The video archive of the now disgraced Charlie Rose, an American talk show host who had been interviewing people for 25+ years and appeared on America’s most popular morning TV show. Known for his frank interviews with celebrities and politicians, and now, sadly, the sexual harassment of some of his employees.
This site was a personal favorite as I was the lead front end developer on the project; my involvement spanning from design, to build to post launch support and site maintenance. And now it sits in a peculiar place. We cannot deny his body of work but also we cannot condone his actions.
The biggest shame was his team of dedicated employees, who, from my experience, where smart, creative and thoroughly professional and in all honesty, a total pleasure to work with. Shouts to Xarissa Holdaway in particular.
Some stand out interviews for me are President Obama, George W. Bush, Tom Cruise, Daniel Craig, the late Niki Lauda and my hero, Lewis Hamilton.
This relaunched version of charlierose.com had double the traffic and people stayed four times longer than the original.
Apple
August - October 2014Working within the Apple marcom team in Sunnyvale, California and Cupertino, California supporting 2014's biggest Apple product launches. Within my team I established a reputation for going beyond the required, doing whatever it takes to deliver and being very designer friendly. I like to think I brought energy, enthusiasm and some much needed British humor to the group.
The key challenges here lay with adapting to working within marcom's (at the time) new responsive web strategy, whilst simultaneously also working on legacy marketing sites with frequent direction changes and a tiny timescale. Quickly becoming familiar with their internal methods, bug tracking systems while all the time maintaining a very high attention to detail.
Whilst there it was my great pleasure to meet and be inspired by Andrew Hedges, Abraham Velázquez, Ludwig Wendzich and many others.
Other Engagements
- Maison&Objet and more
April 2016
AREA 17 - The Webby Awards:
People's Voice (FE rebuild)
April 2016
AREA 17 - Arré
(technical direction)
April 2016
AREA 17 - Library of America
(technical direction)
November 2015
AREA 17 - Dering Hall
September 2015
AREA 17 - Havard Art Museums
(technical direction)
October 2014
AREA 17 - Apple
September 2014 - Samsung: Derby
September 2014
AREA 17 - The Webby Awards:
People's Voice (reskin)
April 2014
AREA 17 - Advertising Age
(technical direction)
February 2014
AREA 17 - Ten Stories
February 2014
for Facebook's 10th Birthday - Design Connect
February 2014
AREA 17 - NY Media Center
January 2014
AREA 17 - 2013 Year in Review
December 2013
Facebook - Facebook Stories
November 2013
Facebook - The Webby Awards: Winners Gallery and Archive
April 2013
AREA 17 - Billboard
January 2013
AREA 17 - Billboard Biz
January 2013
AREA 17 - New Year's Midnight Delivery
December 2012
Facebook - America Votes 2012
November 2012
Facebook - CBX
October 2012
AREA 17 - Facebook Stories
August 2012
Facebook - Google Chrome
April 2012
Google - Jay Z's Life+Times
March 2012 (javascript re-write)
AREA 17 - Unpakt
January 2012
Pivotal Labs - Stalkr
December 2011
AREA 17 - Coroflot
November 2011
AREA 17 - Dering Hall
October 2011
AREA 17 - Société Perrier
August 2011
AREA 17 - Theyskens Theory
January 2011
AREA 17 - Made by Fudge
January 2011
Fudge - Universal Music: Give Music
December 2010
Fudge - Doha Film Institute
October 2010
AREA 17 - Face of Blue Inc
October 2010
Fudge - Sustainability
August 2010
AREA 17 - Creative Islington
February 2010
Fudge - Technique Retreat
January 2010
thirteentwelve - Creative Times
January 2010
Fudge - Digital Bury
September 2009
Fudge - Creative Capital
August 2009
AREA 17 - Humanity United
July 2009
AREA 17 - Canal+
July 2009
AREA 17 - Own It
December 2008
Fudge - Vice Magazine: Motherboard.tv
November 2008
AREA 17 - Vice Magazine: VBS.tv
September 2008
AREA 17 - AOL Lemondrop
June 2008
AREA 17 - AOL Digital City
June 2008
AREA 17 - AOL Tour Tracker
4+ million unique a month.
March 2008
AREA 17 - AOL Weather
January 2008
AREA 17 - AOL Asylum
2+ million unique a month
October 2007
AREA 17 - The Way Ahead Group
December 2007
Fudge - Warp X
June 2007
We Love The Web - Mr Scruff
December 2004
We Love The Web - Evolution Print
Design by The Designers Republic.
We love the web
Written pieces
- .net magazine
Get your JavaScript in order
October 2012 - .net magazine
How to structure your css
August 2011 - .net magazine
Link swipe tutorial
January 2011
Teaching
- Technique Retreat
CSS teaching
March 2011 - Technique Retreat
CSS teaching
February 2010
Personal
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