Shannon Marie Brown - hey, that's me!

I grew up surrounded by the arts (creativity in the bloodline), and studied fine arts in school. However, being the child of an artist/musician makes one acutely aware of the negative financial aspects of pursuing the arts as a career. So, I kept the creativity on the private side of my life and went about making a living. I've worked in various sectors, and plenty of "jobs" worthy of a few laughs at the pub, before it all started to click together.

In the mid-nineties, I was working in fraud investigations for a large national bank, and helping with training and monitoring of those less experienced. I began to notice a natural ability to "catch on" to the technical aspects of training others, and that encouraged me to move on to work for a large communications company in the Northwest. A few months later, and I was programming, providing tech support, and supporting the techs out in the field. I had a grand ole time learning new coding languages and constantly being challenged by advancing technology.... but the creative side was begging for attention.

I decided to start teaching myself web design, so that I could meld those two sides, the geek and the artist. The seed of a new career was planted. It didn't take long before I was ready to do this full-time.

After moving to Philadelphia, I spent four years building and running the entire web department for an association management firm. This was design, maintenance and server support for approximately two dozen associations. It wasn't always the most creative work, but it was a great learning environment, and helped me to build my skills in database integration and board meetings. Educating the non-technical executives on the endless possibilities and constraints of budget, without being overly technical with the jargon or discouraging with the limits of time and money became a whole new art form. As much fun as all that was, I wanted a more direct connection with my clients, more power to decide which projects to involve myself in, and more freedom with my schedule.

I moved back to the West coast in March of 2004, and have been 100% freelance since. I have done some exciting design projects, including the design and implementation of an email newsletter for a prominent orange county city. I've taken on some challenging database/software projects, and provided tech support to small businesses and individuals.

This brings me to you. I would love to hear about the project you have in mind, and let you know what services I can offer.