All About Joe Lakatos...
I consider myself a renaissance man of web and graphic design.
What does that mean? Well, it means that I can do a multitude of things
with regards to web design and graphic design.
Whatever the client wants is what I try to provide, either through personal
knowledge or reading, researching, and learning. I am constantly reading
computer books and magazines in order to learn expand my current skill
set.
I have been a graphic designer for 19 years and a web designer for the
last 9 years. I create anything that caters to a businesses' needs. I
utilize many computer programs and methods to achieve the desired results.
I lived in Ohio for most of my life and even attended college there.
It wasn't until October of 2005, when I moved across the country to the
west coast with my fiance and our son and ended up in Southern California,
or more specifically, Orange County. Since arriving on October 1st, 2005,
I have designed and developed 4 live websites: JoeLakatos.com,
MarinePowerandWater.com, SOS-Treatments.com,
and
SittinPrettyFashion.com.
I have redesigned 2 live websites: InsureDirect.com
and Cheap-Auto-Insurance.com.
I have designed and developed 2 websites that are no longer
my design or live: Onchemie.com and SanClementeCottonCo.com.
I am currently designing and developing 2 websites that will hopefully
be live very soon: StudioINTV.com and QuestCapitalFunding.com.
I have started a web hosting and web design company, CharitiesHOST.com,
with a partner. Along with my fiance, we started up our own interactive
online travel, entertainment, and more booking website, iTRAVELandMORE.com,
in August 2007. I did also work full time as the Senior Project Coordinator
and the Assistant Manager of the local FedEx Kinko's while building my
business and working freelance and as an independant contractor as a
web designer & developer and graphic designer. I guess you can say that
I stay busy but I like it that way.
Recently, I have been interested and drawn to social networking websites
such as Facebook and LinkedIn and
their open source code aspect. I also like the widgits and mashups and
will soon be developing my own. If you want to become a friend or a connection,
please do not hesitate to check out my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
If you are interested in contracting me for a job, please feel
free to get
a quote or send
me an email.
My Graphic Design Story... 18 Years and Counting!
My graphic design story starts during my freshman year at Marietta
College. My advisor was in charge of a annual
arts and literature magazine,
"Confluence ", which was published in Washington County, Ohio.
I was asked if I would assist in the formatting and publishing of pages
using Adobe Pagemaker and Adobe Photoshop and I ended up working on this
annual project all four years of my college career. I guess you can say
it was my oficial start into the graphic design world and I have my advisor,
Mr. Valdis Garoza to thank for that. Thanks Val!
With the experience I achieved while at Marietta
College, I landed a job after graduation working for JB Dollar
Stretcher Magazine, Northeast Ohio's largest coupon advertising home
mailer working as a layout artist and advancing to the Layout Coordinator
in less than a year. I then moved on to Porath Print Souce and Minuteman
Press, both traditional print shops, where I was the director of the
computer production department and the direct mail department and trained
new employees in those skills. It was during these years that I started
working freelance on projects for family, friends, and any business
that needed my services.
It was at this point in my development that I started an interest in
the Internet and Web Design...
My Web Design and Development Story... 8 Years & Still Going Strong!
My web design story begins in the mid-1990s, when I first realized I
wanted to conceptualize, create, and build web sites for a living. I
have always enjoyed graphic art and it was a natural progression to advance
to where I am today. I started out enjoying and taking many art classes
at Maple Heights High Schoool and majored in Art For The Professions
(Commercial Art) with a minor in Mass Media (Public Relations, Radio,
and TV) at Marietta
College. It was at Marietta where I was exposed to computers and
the ability to create digitally.
After college I advanced my skills by working freelance, for traditional
print shops, and for internet companies AmericanGreetings.com and ClevelandHITS.com.
While working at AmericanGreetings.com,
I created animated postcards for the web, static and animated graphics
for in-home cd programs, and I trained all new potential hires with a
100% sucess rate of hire after my training. I also had a friend in the
flash animation department so I was inspired to take a Flash 4.0 - Animation
for the Web course at a local community college because I saw the potential
and excitment of this one program.
At ClevelandHITS.com, an internet radio station, I was
the Director of Promotions and Content as well as an On-Air Talent. This
is where I started to combine all my skills into one job, creating optimized,
online graphics, creating actual HTML web pages for the station's promotions,
events, and giveaways, creating the daily email newsletter to 30,000+
subscribers, and assisting the Webmaster, my good friend to this day,
Marc Majers, and Information Technology Director in the day to day web
operations. While still at ClevelandHITS.com in
2001 and ending in 2003, I expanded upon my desire for the internet and
web design by taking a Web/Graphic Design & Internet course load
at New Horizons Computer Learning Center and learned new skills: HTML,
JavaScript, XML, Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, FrontPage, and PowerPoint
as well as updating my skills by learning the current versions of PhotoShop,
PageMaker, Excel, and other programs related to web design and graphic
design.
In October of 2005, I moved from Ohio to sunny Orange Couonty, California
and immediately started doing freelance work for anyone and any buiness
and more recently, in June of 2006, I partnered up with two wonderful
collegues and we started CharitiesHost.com,
a web hosting and web design internet venture, and in August of 2007,
along with my fiance, we started our own online travel, tourism, leisure,
entertainment, and more booking web site, iTRAVELandMORE.com.
It is at this point in my development and career that I
still constantly crave for new skills to learn and new challenges that
will further advance my skill set in the Web Design & Development
and Internet industry...
