Ryan Karpeles

What I Do

In short, I make stuff sound good, look pretty and work smoothly. In business lingo, I specialize in web design, copywriting and marketing strategy. In technical jargon, I work in CSS3, HTML5, PHP and Javascript/jQuery.

Who I Am

I'm a husband, father, designer and writer. Most of my time at work is spent in Photoshop, Notepad++ and combing the web to learn new skills. I love what I do and I'm grateful that I get to do it. Designing and coding a site isn't easy, but it's a joy and a gift to make it all come together.

I currently work as the lead designer and copywriter for Meeting Tomorrow, a nationwide audio visual services company. We are undergoing a comprehensive rebranding effort at the moment, as well as updating our site to a more flexible, responsive design (i.e. "mobile first"). My job is design each page for a variety of users - those who may be viewing the site on a smartphone, laptop, desktop, tablet or other device.

In addition to designing the user interface, I am also responsible for writing the majority of copy throughout the site. This combination of copywriting and design allows for a more integrated approach to creating the site, as words, images and icons are packaged together from the outset of the project.

For this position I worked closely with 2 other members of our staff in order to redesign the entire company website. My job was as the designer and front end developer, using CSS, HTML and jQuery to improve the visual layout as well as the overall user experience.

Our goal in redesigning the site was five-fold: (1) to reposition the company as a provider of audio visual services, rather than simply an AV rental shop, (2) to convert more traffic from browsers to buyers, (3) to upgrade the look, feel and interactivity of the site, (4) to improve the credibility and readability of our copy, and (5) to bring all the web development work in-house.

After less than four months of intense work, we completed the site and released it into the wild. The finished product was received extraordinarily well by our clients and our employees. The site can now be edited on the fly by our in-house team, and improvements are constantly being made to the copy, design, navigation and overall usability.

Collaborated with technical staff and Marketing department to implement and maintain over 2,500 new SEO-optimized web pages, complete with content, video, images and interactive social media components.

Performed writing and editorial activities, such as quality testing for consistency, spelling, grammar and syntax, which enhanced the value and readability of the site for both prospective students and in-house employees.

Reviewed and published site content, ranging from academic articles and community newsletters to course information and detailed program descriptions.

Managed overall site architecture, URL construction, meta variables, content acceptability and link structure for optimal search engine ranking and increased business development.

Composed, edited and oversaw content creation for entire company website, including product descriptions, marketing copy, how-to articles, and industry collateral.

Designed and constructed user-friendly Quick Start Guides for all in-house equipment, which drastically reduced tech support call volume, customer setup time, and user error.

Wrote and produced detailed promotional materials, used to win large accounts with medical and pharmaceutical clients throughout the United States.

Developed, revised and implemented targeted SEO strategies, resulting in a 1,470% increase in organic search engine traffic between 6/2007 and 6/2008; and a 98% increase in organic traffic between 6/2008 and 6/2009.

Worked directly with president of the organization to plan, orchestrate and launch new marketing campaigns, social media efforts, and long-term website modifications.

Continuously collaborated with sales, warehouse, vendor and accounting departments in order to generate intra-organizational copy and editable forms.