Thomas Maiaroto - Graphic Design Portfolio
Print Design
LifeStyle Magazine
The very valuable role as Art Director at LifeStyle Magazine was like jumping off a diving board into the deep end of a pool. I was a little nervous, but more than eager and came out swimming. Here is where I learned constantly and was able to put to use many of my graphic design and production skills. First, I was responsible for re-designing a magazine from the ground up. Then each month I had the added responsibility of the entire magazine design while overseeing production of advertisements.
View print design done for LifeStye Magazine
School of VISUAL ARTS
The School of VISUAL ARTS, in Manhattan, is where I learned extremely valuable graphic design and layout skills. I took a high concentration of typography classes and was fortunate enough to work for the Visual Arts Press under a wonderful Art Director that helped push me into a strong typographic direction.
View School of VISUAL ARTS print design
Tungsten Design
Working for myself has the added benefit of being able to continue my graphic design research, without many interruptions, while at the same time build my portfolio. While many of the local businesses in my small neck of the woods have their own tastes and aesthetic culture, there will always remain a technical end of the process that should never lose quality or integrity.
View print design done under Tungsten Design
Web Design
Development & Design
I took some computer programming classes in high school and almost went to college for it, but I decided that I'd rather stare at images for hours than lines of code. So I've always done web design with a graphic design approach. None of my education at SVA taught me about web design, but my internship at SVA did. However, it wasn't until after college did I dive back into programming and learn about web programming.
I experimented with many PHP content management systems on the market and image galleries. First to satisfy needs for my own use in displaying my portfolio, then later in side projects, and then ultimatley for professional sites. I went back and re-designed LifeStyle Magazine's site using a PHP content management system which I modified to suit the needs of the magazine and to optimize for search engines.
Ultimatley this lead to my education in PHP and the creation of my own content light-weight management system, Minerva. Since then, I've learned more about objet oriented PHP programming and advanced design patterns. I now use CakePHP almost exclusively, due to the type of work I do. I like to say that I "develop" or "produce" and not program. While I will program, or script, what I need and when I need it, I usually tend to find the most effective solutions by combining various existing pieces of technology. I don't like to re-invent the wheel, but I do like to improve and modify it to fit the needs at hand.
View my web design portfolio
Photography
Digital Photography
I primarily shoot with a Canon 20D DSLR camera and since first using it, I've never looked back. The wonderful advances in digital cameras and printers have helped me continue my hobby inexpensively as well as contiue to learn and grow as a photographer.
Traditional Black and White
I could only do my black and white photography while at college because I didn't have a darkroom. Ultimately that is what lead me to the digital photography. However, I was very happy to take some courses in traditional black and white photography as it helped me take better digital color photographs.
View my photography portfolio
Resume
Thomas Maiaroto Jr.
Graphic Designer
Education
Bucks County Community College Fine Art (2000-2002)
School of VISUAL ARTS BFA Graphic Design (Graduated 2005)
Work Experience
Visual Arts Press Intern Print/Web (2003-2004)
LifeStyle Magazine Art Director (2005)
Tungsten Design Self-Employed (2006)
ExpandTheRoom Web Developer/Designer (2007)
Computer Knowledge
Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark, GoLive, Dreamweaver, Aptana/Eclipse, Flex, Flash
HTML/XHTML/DHTML, XML, CSS, PHP, CakePHP, MySQL, Javascript, AJAX, YUI, jQuery, and so on.
Some Flash and Actionscript 3, AMFPHP flash remoting.
Links
Friends
Support
Phirebrush
School of VISUAL ARTS
Other
Doogle
My Custom Google Search Engine (Doogle for lack of originality), contains many of my bookmarks and any excellent site I find along my travels for graphic design, web design, web development, photography, and more. The logo was created in 2 minutes, used Garamond because I don't know what copyrights I would be infringing by using Google's logo, etc. Yes it's their site but whatever, better safe than sorry...And the name? Well what the heck do you call a Google search engine for design? Suggestions anyone? Just use it, it works!
More links...