“This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well.
Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy.„ ~ Susan Polis Schutz
My Background
"Make a living out of doing what you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
Vital Stats
For a little over 12 years now I've been gaining tons of commercial- and agency design experience in South Africa, the USA and England designing and producing websites, with a particular interest in website usability. My skills include the usual -- Photoshop, Macromedia Flash & Studio MX, meticulous (X)HTML and CSS hand-coding, AAA Accessible design- and code. I have a passion for making sites accessible to search engines and people with disabilities and am a real nerd about adhering to the strictest web standards. I have designed and produced front-ends for a number of content management systems and the sites they in turn produce, and have the front-end ASP and PHP skills needed to achieve the full visual range needed for a gorgeous website.
Bleh bleh bleh...
My name is Olivia - I'm a wanderlusting South African originally from Cape Town I have always followed my nose towards things that makes my heart beat. I am a US Resident now after travelling the US for the past few years. I love exploring this beautiful country!
As an established freelance web designer with over 12 years experience, I make a small living on the go, via my heavy old laptop, data card or WiFi, as and when I need the money to travel. I'm happy with just enough money to get by reasonably comfortably and explore. So for some places I live in I can get by comfortably on $800 a month and other places I'd spend triple that, but then I'd have less time for exploration while I work to earn that. My schedule is worked out depending on how many projects I have running at a time, and how much I need to get by in the places I'm living.
I can be spotted moving to and from some of my favourite homebases - Austin TX, Pittsburgh PA, Boulder CO, Bisbee AZ, Marathon TX, Portland OR and Ometepe Island, Nicaragua. I like to stay in places for at least long enough to get involved at a local level, to really get the full flavour of the unique culture, hideouts and get to know some of the wonderful local characters. I've found working from coffee shops is a great way to meet some really interesting people pretty quickly in a new town, though I did have to learn how to come out of my shell a lot over the past few years and be the first one to say "hi". At first it was dauntingly hard but now moving to a new town and starting over gets easier the more I do it. In fact its become a bit of a thrill! The secret to this of course is to pack lighter and lighter each time. Moving with a ton of furniture is never, ever, a good time.
Client Testimonial
Designate
"I have worked with Olivia on and off for nearly five years now. Olivia is fantastic to work with. She is quick and bright, and seems to always gets the brief spot on first time. Her designs are reliably usable, accessible and attractive - she is never over protective of them and understands clients’ needs. She is extremely fast and reliable, and will pull out all the stops if she knows I am in trouble with tight deadlines on a project!"