Mds

Matt D. Smith is the owner and Design Director at Studio MDS, a small independent design studio in Athens, GA. He created the Float Label Pattern for digital input fields, the Contrast app for checking WCAG 2.0 color contrast ratios, and Flowkit for creating user flows inside your favorite design tool. He's currently working on an intensive interfa... ce design course called Shift Nudge . He's a proud father of four and tweets about design and such under the handle @mds on Twitter. I graduated from the University of Georgia in 2005 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and the following year, interned at the UGA Wesley Foundation, a Christian college ministry. Illustration was my unofficial career path at the time of graduation, but as the world so quickly pressed me to make real money, I took a job as an in-house designer with a cycling component manufacturer just outside of Athens. It was there that I began to make many awesomely bad Flash websites, design product identities, and virtually anything else that was needed. Additional responsibilities included (but not limited to): filming, video editing, bobcat operation, construction, CNC machine operation, powder coating, laser cutting, and more. It was through those Flash websites, where I began to learn about object-oriented programming, interaction design, and animation. After a few years, I ventured into contracting for some larger digital agencies based in Atlanta, where I became engulfed in information architecture and user experience design. My eyes were opened to a new world and I began to truly feel at home in the professional community, with a newfound higher calling. More time passed and I contracted for nearly a dozen agencies, seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly when it came to project management, design culture, and general client services. Because of the nature of my transient employment as a freelancer and contractor, it was imperative that I adapted to each new environment and adopted the culture and political climate as quickly as ...Read More