Design in the gift

Hi! I'm Vermont-based designer experimenting with working in the gift economy.

Wes smiling on a mountain-top with a baby on his chest.

Hi, again. My career has focused on bringing value through design. I apply design to make fuzzy concepts coherent. For 15ish years, I’ve helped hundreds of smallish organizations organize their chaos. Now I’m at the enterprise scale with Red Hat .

My interest in the gift economy stems from a desire to challenge the conventional business-as-usual practices. This alternative model emphasizes reciprocity over receipts. Trust over contracts. I envision a world where more aspects of life are free from the grip of money.

I enjoy blending on and offline pursuits. I apply permaculture learnings to my design work. Observing-before-doing. Practicing thrift. Thinking holistically. The local ecosystem of my 1-acre yard continues to teach me about cooperation in the digital landscape.

Work samples

🌳 Web design

Check out 17 online presences I spruced up. For personal projects, I code and design them; otherwise, it’s collaborating with devs.

✂️ Research

Orchards require pruning. Websites require maintenance. Read a few examples of user research I contributed to.

Work status

Currently

Red Hat: Sr. UX designer specializing in hairy, system-based projects on redhat.com like navigation. Also, ux research and ops.

Before that

iMarket Solutions: 1st designer at Vermont startup. Designed 200+ sites for HVAC & plumbing companies. Spearheaded design ops and research initiatives.

Way before that

Brady People ID: Where I cut my teeth in typography, color, layout, and print.
Fidelity: Where I leaped from print to the web design & dev.
⚔️ Freelance: Where I dove deep into web work with agencies and clients directly.

Previous, local collabs: AALV (Association of Africans Living in Vermont), Pine Island Community Farm: A Farm for New Americans, Green-up Vermont, Burlington’s Code for America brigade.

Lists of note

Cultural inputs

John Steinbeck | Andy Shauf | Wendell Berry | Joe Sacco | Charles Eisenstein | David Wain | Neville Goddard | Jeffery Lewis | Studio Ghibli | Whitney | Protomartyr | Please dont destroy | David Graeber

Edible perennials in my yard

Aronia | Apple | Beach plum | Blueberry | Cherry | Cranberry bush| Currant | Gooseberry | Elderberry | Native plum | Pawpaw | Ramps | Raspberries | Rhubarb | Sun chokes | Winterberry | Witch hazel

Web homages to books

Radical comics library | Wobblies graphic novel: timeline | A People’s History of the US: CSS book cover | Be Here Now: CSS book cover.