Olivier Lacan { web designer & developer }

Utility Belt

See the tools I use and recommend here.

Work in progress

Screencasting: Inspired by Jason Madsen & Code School, I've purchased a microphone and started creating screencasts for Roomies using a 5D Mark II and Screenflow.
CSS3: As part of my switch from TextMate to Vim I started designing a wireless Mac keyboard in CSS3 to create a visual keyboard reference to Vim (using CSS3 & JavaScript effects). The source is on GitHub.

Past projects

Roomies: A web app to helps roommates get along and get things done by making the tedious things a little more fun. Roomies is a Rails 3.1 application using a MongoDB database. Its first release was my final project at Full Sail University.
Full Sail Firehouse: Our solution to quick online ordering for restaurants, designed for mobile devices and the fastest flow possible. During its one year existence it has multiplied online orders by 150 at the Firehouse Subs location for which we created it. I worked on the concept, design & front-end on this Rails project.
Ruby Heroes: After meeting the folks at Envy Labs at FOWD Miami 2010, cleverCode was asked to redesign the Ruby Heroes website. I worked on front-end design and wrote a case study on our production process.

Experience

Envy Labs: Web Developer (2012)
Constant Variable: Founder (2011)
Intelity: Web Developer (2011-2012)
Rails application development, front-end development with CoffeeScript, HTML5 & CSS3.
cleverCode: Co-founder, Lead Designer (2009 – 2011)
Project management, back-end (Ruby on Rails, PHP) & front-end development (Haml, Sass, JavaScript), copywriting.

Education

Full Sail University: Web Design & Development
Bachelor of Science (2009 – 2011)
Paris 3 Sorbonne-Nouvelle: English Language, Civilization & Litterature
Associate in Arts (2005 – 2007)

Skills

Ruby on Rails: Used a dozen projects since late 2010 and as a lead developer on Roomies.
HTML5 & Haml: Used on multiple projects since late 2009.
CSS3, Sass & Compass: Used on multiple projects since late 2009. I created a Sass function called cleverButtons that outputs progressively enhanced CSS3 buttons.
JavaScript, CoffeScript, jQuery & jQuery Mobile: Used on Feedeater a client-side RSS reader, as well as numerous other projects like Rubrics, Roomies, and the Zackleys Mobile app.
Graphic Design & User Interface Design: Initially self-taught, I learned user-centered design theory from two great design teachers at Full Sail, Chris Burke & Gus Hernandez. They drove my practical focus on usability as I was discovering the work of Tim Van Damme, Ethan Marcotte, Doug Bowman, Aaron Walter and Mike Matas. Mere usability isn't enough, I focus on creating delightful experiences through typography, intuitive design and critical thinking.
PHP 5 & MySQL: Used to experiment and create a visual timeline for ABC's Lost among several other projects.
Speaking: I used to be very shy — tough sell for a Frenchie — and only started improving as I taught myself English by watching TV Shows illegally downloaded from IRC and by reading books (don't try Dune first, trust me).
The urge to reach out to English speakers is what helped me become billingual. Nowadays, I love to talk to people and confront well-formed ideas. I'm a scientific skeptic with reverence for sound logic and reasoned arguments.
Writing: I enjoy writing quite a lot, I'm sure you can tell. I've honed that craft during college in France as an English civilization major and during a brief stint as a column writer and editor. I practice writing on an unorganized array of topics somewhat irregularly.