Resume

Nikolas Wilets
112 Broad Street, Augusta, GA 30901
e. nik.wilets@gmail.com p. 706.284.8458

Experience

Creative Lead/Senior Interaction Designer, Voce Communications, San Francisco, CA / 2011 – 2018

Creative Lead:

Worked with teams to create communications and marketing concepts and shepherding clients through the process of creating visual assets.
Playstation.Blog, Sony’s official news site
- Worked with game studio assets to create original artwork for the sites for six years.
- Functioned as a product manager and creative director to help advance the functionality of the site.
BTN.com
- Directed the creative and user experience during their transition to a “Mobile First” site.
- The site saw an overall increase in mobile traffic. It was 55% mobile within the first year of the mobile-first design.
Disney Newsroom and Disney Parks Blog
- Worked with the editorial production team to successfully add features and functionality for two years.
Center for Disease Control
- Creative and content lead for the multi-award winning “Watch Me” training microsite for the Centers for Disease Control.
- Re-trained the staff on how to create content for a web audience.
Encompass Health Newsroom
- Assisted the communications team in creating an experience that easily allowed media professionals access to the latest news and assets from the medical company.
- Set and led the creative and user experience direction, managing another designer as the work progressed.
- Worked with an accessibility expert to make sure the project met WCAG 2 AA compliance.

Senior Interaction Designer:

Created the social media campaign assets for the DC Comics rebranding for the New 52 release. Voce able to sell additional consulting to them due to the success of this work.
Designed the branding and materials for Voce Platforms, Voce Communications’ website design and development brand.
Worked with major brands, creating both print and digital assets. Brands include: McDonalds, Western Digital, Warner Bros., Workday, Citrix and Zelle.

Senior Front-End Developer, Voce Communications, San Francisco, CA / 2009-2011

Built and redesigned Wonderopolis.org, named one of Time Magazine’s 50 Best Sites in 2011.
Helped move The Carter Center and TED Blog to the WordPress VIP platform.
Managed and coordinated projects using both Agile and Waterfall methodologies.

Senior (ii) Designer/Developer, Innovation Developer, Morris Digitalworks, Augusta, GA / 2007-2009

Served as User Experience lead for the company.
An early proponent for the use of open source software, open API’s and social media for the company.
Built prototypes for new business ideas.
Consulted with product teams to help them improve user interfaces and product interactivity.
Led FAST (Search) user interface development, including user research, prototyping and implementation. Created a modular template system that shortened deployment time to newspapers to one week.

Research and Development Lead, Morris Digitalworks, Augusta, GA / 2005-2007

Creative director for the SavannahNow.com website redesign – one of the first enterprise news websites using an open source CMS platform. This site won Most Innovative Visitor Participation of the Year (2007) from the Newspaper Association of America.
Built prototype news/RSS aggregators to educate the company on the power collecting news feeds throughout the Internet using open source software.
Researched, prototyped and created the web video strategy for the company.
Managed a staff of interns and employees.

Senior(ii) Designer/Developer, Morris Digitalworks, Augusta, GA / 2003-2005

Led and assisted Jacksonville.com (Florida Times-Union) in designing and building their Super Bowl site for Super Bowl XXXIX.
Designed Augusta.com, the Augusta Chronicle’s Masters site. This design won Best Design and Site Architecture of the Year (2006) from the Newspaper Association of America. The site received accolades from numerous blogs and the Poynter Institute; due to this work, I received an invite to TED in 2004.
Designed for and consulted on the Poynter Institute’s Eyetrack study on website and advertising use. This massive study was the first eye monitoring study.
Managed and led numerous other website designs and Flash development projects.

Multimedia Designer/Developer, Morris Digitalworks, Augusta, GA / 2000-2003

Designed and built VaticanExhibit.com. Though dated now, this design was an Edgie finalist for Newspaper Web Site Design of the Year from the Newspaper Association of America.

Additional Experience, 1993-2000