Schmitt ProfiTools, a small industrial software and catalog company in St Louis, MO, was the first company to take a chance on me as a designer (1999 - 2001). I went to interview for a different position and after speaking with them they ultimately wanted me to be their designer, a replacement for someone on their way out.
It was a great opportunity, a small enough company to feel like a family, but with plenty of opportunity for me to develop within parameters.
One opportunity was help innovate ways to create front ends for their eCatalogs. They were distributed on 650 MB CD's and, when I got there, were using Adobe Premiere and making .avi openings. The .avi files were HUGE for the time and I was able to utilize my interest in Macromedia Flash and develop interactive openings for the CD's and fraction of the size.
The interactivity was exponentially more valuable as was the vector format that allowed the scalability to any size monitor.
Another example of an eCatalog intro.
At the time all the motion taxed the computer I had to create it on.
A collection of some of the marketing print work I did.
One of the better examples of how I was able to incorporate interaction with the front end. Each location was selectable and would give more information. I was also able to include a print feature.
My time here was a crash course in a lot of things and a realization of my limitations, but it was one of the best times I've had at a job.