Sarah Goldbaum, Web Designer & Developer

As early as I can remember, I wanted to become an artist. I was fascinated by Claude Monet and Henri Matisse during my third grade teacher’s “Artist of the Week” lessons. On vacations, while my mom wanted to see local landmarks, I wanted to check out the local museums.

At 10, I began my own newsletter, writing articles and arranging page layouts. I charged only for postage and mailed them out to my subscribing friends. Amazingly enough, the whole thing lasted for two years. During junior high, I worked on the school’s newspaper and continued journalism classes in high school. I began to consider a career in writing and editing.

My first brush with web design was during my freshman year of high school in 2001. The dot com boom was still under way and there were many new young designers putting together personal websites. After viewing sites like pure-essence.net, lalaland.nu, and the now-defunct sites dirtysideup.net and luvliness.net, I wanted to try my hand at web design. I sat everyday at the computer for a full summer, learning how to script HTML. My early site designs were amateur, and instead of doing my own illustrations, I used rights-free images. As I learned more advanced scripts and design software, my skills improved and as my skills improved, so did my passion to learn more. At the beginning of my freshman year, I had fully intended on becoming a journalist and writer. By the end of the year, I was set on becoming a graphic designer.

After two years of being hosted on an amateur designer’s domain (an honor in the early personal domain world), I purchased misty-blue.net in 2004. I took on minor web design projects at school, such as for the Latin Department, and gained experience in a print environment working on the school newspaper for three years in editorial positions designing page layouts, creating ads, writing and copy-editing, and dealing with the printer.

In pursuing a B.S. in Communications at NYU, I made the conscious decision to learn more about the theory behind not only design, but the media as well. Due to a program change at NYU, I took graduate-level courses to fulfill my Communications specialization in Graphic Communications and became one of a handful of undergraduate members within NYU’s Graphic Communications Management & Technology Association. In addition, I completed a minor in Creative Writing, focusing on Poetry and Creative Nonfiction. I graduated, with honors, within three years in September 2008.

In 2005 during my freshman year of college, I was hired as a Web Project/Management intern in the Marketing Department-Creative Services at Jazz at Lincoln Center to aid in the re-design of the website. Working closely with the sole web master, I furthered my software skills and team experience. In addition to web work, I worked with others in the Marketing Department on a college marketing initiative, blog project, and on copy-editing print materials. In January 2007, I was taken on as a part-time temp and remained in that position until May 2008.

Also during college, I began work on various freelance web design and development projects for small companies/organizations like ShopGopher, in addition to a branding/identity project for S.Baca Consulting.

On March 16, 2009, I launched Million Million Monkeys, a firm specializing in web design and development.

It’s pretty much safe to say that I grew up blogging, and this blog has grown up with me from a personal blog of incohesive teenage banter to a topical arts & culture blog. After all, I am a member of the first generation to have grown up on computers and the internet. I’ve met many people through my blog– fellow students, artists, designers, musicians, and many others. Blogging is really a love of mine, and I’m glad you’ve stopped by to visit!

If you would like to contact me, you can reach me via e-mail or through the professional network LinkedIn. I would be happy to discuss potential work, provide a quote on a job, or answer design-related and any other types of questions you may have.

View my portfolio for my resume, work samples, and services offered.

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