AOL

I started at AOL in 1994. And though they'd contracted some graphics before that, I was the first in-house designer. Funny thing is I had absolutely no idea how to design for the screen. Resolution? Pixels? Bit Depth? I knew nothing. It was amazing.

One of the best stories I have of those days revolves around this sign-on sequence. Our software version 3.0 was set to ship, and I wondered aloud if we could change the tired old 2.0 sign-on sequence. I had this dumb idea of a lighting bolt. So, not knowing any better (and with the constant support of the Director of Interface Design), I designed this new graphic. Probably a wasted effort, but so what?

When it was done, I showed it to the developers and they smiled and announced they'd be ordering some pizzas for dinner... they were staying late to include this in the software.

AOL put this on folders and mousepads and on company presentations. It was everywhere for a while. And it almost never came to be.

After three years at AOL and hundreds of individual projects, some for huge parters and critical corporate objectives, this remains my most well-known piece of work from that period... and probably from my entire career.