Andy Knight: Professional Resume

Philosophy

On Life

Life is not my story. It is God’s. God is SO BIG. I am so small. I am humbled to play even a teeny tiny part in His grand story. Life is about communication…with God and others. The Christian Life is not hard to live. It’s impossible to live…apart from Christ living His life through you. My identity is not determined by what I do, but by who I am, or actually by who God says I am. Grasping the depth of God’s grace is the most effective motivator in life. And lastly, God is creative, and so am I.

I wish I lived according to this philosophy 24/7. Some days I live it better than others. Isn’t that the way it is with a lot of the things we believe in life? I mean, I believe in eating healthy, but I also believe in not passing up a Krispy Kreme when the “Hot Doughnuts Now” sign is on. God, save me from my contradictions.

On Web Sites

I believe that compelling content is the most important element of a successful site. Period. I can’t make you a successful web site if you’re not going to regularly fill it with good content. A site is never done. A site is born, but you have to feed and nurture it to keep it alive.

A well-designed site will cause your visitors to think more about your message than how your site looks, how it works, or how to find something on it. I want the site to disappear so that the visitor feels they are interacting with you, not your web site. I care deeply about the end user’s experience.

Professional Experience

2005-present

Contributing Author- Godbit.com

Just launched in late 2005, the Godbit project's goal is to nudge the Church to web excellence. The site contains interviews with Christian web designers, articles, tutorials, and examples of good design. GodBit doesn’t just encourage designers to build pretty sites, it also encourages Christian designers to adhere to the standards, guidelines, and best practices as set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium.

2002-present

Freelance web consultant

Designed and developed several database-driven, template-based, standard-based websites for churches and ministries.
Managed projects using Basecamp software.
View my portfolio: andyknight.com/portfolio

2000-2006

Lifetime Guarantee Ministries - Electronic Communications Manager

While there, Lifetime.org traffic grew from 60K hits/month to over a million hits/month.
Engineered 2 major site redesigns of Lifetime.org
Ruthlessly adhered to web coding standards: valid XHTML & CSS, clean URL's, Accessibility
Organized more than 700 pages via a PHP based templating script and a MySQL database of content.
Designed and built a PHP/MySQL content management platform for the frequently updated portions of the site.
Managed the development of an online Bible study community called eLumiNations.net
Started two HTML newsletters, each now having about 6,000 subscribers
Designed miscellaneous graphics for website, book covers, presentations, etc.
Ensured that our network of computers remained operational
Played the “go to” role for anyone with computer questions or problems
Authored about 40 devotional articles that were sent in weekly e-newsletters

2006

Fellowship Church- Web Designer/Developer

Worked with the awesome FC Web Team to design and develop CreativePastors.com.
Maintained and cared for fellowshipchurch.com together with the FC Web Team.
Designed web site graphics and HTML newsletter

2006-present

Right From The Heart - Web Director

Organized, designed and maintained rightfromtheheart.org and rightfromtheknees.org
Designed and developed foreign language of web sites in Polish and Spanish.
Designed, coded, and delivered HTML email campaigns
Design and Layout of printed full-color newsletter using Adobe InDesign.
Wrote copy for portions of the web site.
Managed Volunteers who assisted with the web.
Reported stats and trends to the executive director.

2008-present

Lifetime Guarantee Ministries - Executive Director

Guide the ministry in key decisions
Report to the board of directors
Communicate and direct the agency who maintains our web site, lifetime.org
Write a monthly letter of spiritual encouragement.
Write a weekly column in our Lifetime Weekly newsletter

Tools of the Trade

Coding Skills: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Prototype, PHP, mySQL, PostgreSQL, XML/RSS, APIs, AJAX

OS Preference: Mac

Apps: Textmate, Transmit, iTerm, Photoshop, InDesign

Need to know more?

References, portfolio samples, and writing samples are available upon request.

Web Designer & Developer

Personal

Objective

Education