Dan Sheerman, Curriculum Vitae

Work and Experience

Headscape

Technical Lead / Front-End / UI Developer (2011 – Present)

Working closely in conjunction with our designers to oversee transition from wireframes, initial design ideas and designed mockups into fully responsive, custom modules, page templates, and more recently component libraries in HTML / CSS / Sass / jQuery, either to be delivered to clients as a static template package/framework for outside CMS integration, or integrated with systems such as Drupal, WordPress or PHP (or occasionally legacy .NET) projects in-house. Liaising with project managers and back-end development team to ensure consistent quality and smooth project progression, whether working in-office, remotely or from home. Co-working with other development team members made easy with tools such as Slack, Basecamp, Jira and of course, Git (currently via Codebase) for source control.

Have been involved in a long list of projects for a diverse range of clients such as Macmillan English, Palgrave Macmillan, Nestlé, various universities, communication specialists, and some US based law firms.

Working with designer Ed Merritt, I was responsible for the complete redesign/development and merging of the Boagworld and Headscape sites in 2014.

Storm Consultancy

Front-End Developer / Designer (2010 – 2011)

Transforming the Photoshop templates crafted by our creative lead into functional, compliant, optimised markup, and ultimately working sites. Experience with learning an in-house CMS based in C# .NET, some exposure to Ruby on Rails, and also developing extensions and integrating in other CMSes including WordPress, ExpressionEngine, Magento and vBulletin. Involvement with writing copy, wireframing, and creating user interfaces for client-facing admin areas. Liaising with our creative lead, project managers and back-end developers to ensure smooth progress and handovers for project stages, use of source control (SVN/Git) for collaborative input.

Carsonified

Placement Opportunity (2010)

A placement (partly for my university course) of two weeks working primarily alongside Keir Whitaker and Mike Kus, including furthering back-end programming knowledge in PHP/SQL, designing new logo for Think Vitamin Radio, and formatting and publishing content for Future Of Web Design and Future Of Web Apps London 2010 sites. Also assisted the team at the FOWD London 2010 event, and FOWA London 2010.

O2

Sales Professional/Technical Specialist/'O2 Guru' (2006-2010)

Including day-to-day customer service, solving technical issues, working both with other members of the team and independently to meet store and individual sales targets. Also use of design knowledge to create temporary in-store POS material, promotional flyers and internal communications as required, and achieved consistent results at the top of sales indexes in store spanning several quarters, and also top individual sales index for our store's area for a quarter.

Sheer-Design.com

Freelance Work (2005-2010)

Working on a number of projects for clients ranging from individuals, clubs and small businesses to a County Council, including but not limited to front-end development, design from concept wire-framing through coding in standards-compliant (X)HTML/CSS, graphic brand identity and design for print jobs.

Skills and Knowledge

I've ample experience with HTML / CSS (Sass). I've been using them both since animated GIFs , the <marquee> and <blink> tags... Actually, they were never cool were they, strike that were cool. I'm interested in debating the semantics of markup to the point it's probably a little bit weird, but hey, that's a good thing... Right?

I'm a keen (and fast, I've been told) learner. Everyone says that, but really, I am. My Computing A-Level gave me insight into basic programming concepts (some of which I even remember) and the chance to build a killer little shopping cart app in 'old flavoured' ASP Classic (which was out of date even when we were being taught it *sigh*), which I really enjoyed, after which I went to do a creative degree, which I regret a little having not taken a Comp/Sci course, but has given me a taste of several diverse areas of design and digital media and some great foundation principles and knowledge, the opportunity to explore both my creative side while keeping up my markup skills, and get back into bits and pieces of more programmatic development wherever appropriate or required since working full-time in industry.

My knowledge and experience with JavaScript (like everything else, I suppose) is growing all the time on the job; while I categorically wouldn't consider myself a JavaScript developer, it's largely only because the projects I've worked on haven't required me to be, so my knowledge hasn't really developed much from JS for 'presentational' use. I'm yet to find something that I haven't yet been able to whip up when needed for a project and compel to work, I especially love my jQuery. I can, generally speaking, poke around code in any language I've come across thus far and deduce what's doing what to a level that enables me to grasp the language's basic syntax to edit things, update things, and make new things happen. I've been exposed to PHP, C#, and Ruby on Rails in the course of my day to day work, I'm confident building from scratch in WordPress, have some experience with integrating Drupal templating, and a little with ExpressionEngine, Magento and other PHP systems, and would be keen to attempt to learn some more in-depth JavaScript, PHP, or Rails in the future if required/desired of me.

Once something's explained to me by someone, I tend to pick it up fairly quickly, though admittedly I'm not excellent at jumping straight into deep-ends with no prior experience or guidance as the industry can sometimes demand.

Software experience with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Final Cut Pro and Motion, to name things that might be slightly relevant off the top of my head. My coding app of choice is currently Coda Atom PHPStorm.

Education and Qualifications

Bath Spa University (2008-2010)

FdA Digital Design, Photography and Motion Graphics (Pass with Merit)

The College of Richard Collyer (2006-2008)

  • Computing (A-Level, Grade A)
  • Graphic Products (A-Level, Grade A)
  • Photography (A-Level, Grade A)

Tanbridge House School (2001-2006)

10 GCSEs (3 x A* Grade, 7 x A Grade)

Personal Interests

Keeping current with all kinds of tech, tinkering, diagnosing (and normally solving) technical issues, driving (especially nice deserted country roads at night), photography, television and film, gaming, anything involving something with an Apple logo on or near it. Always keen to try new things.