Ken Hawkins' CV

📧[email protected] 🐦 @khawkins98 🌎 AllAboutKen.com 📇 Online problem solver

Ken Hawkins' CV aka, my longer resume

My career and interests revolve on common points: distillation of unorganised information into clearer communication.

Professional experience

Areas of expertise: from concepts to technical

My time tackling problems spans 20 years: beginning with printing presses, continuing through graphic design, information graphics, architecting startups and now centres on web publishing and design systems.

Structuring the unstructured
- Maximising content for discoverability and context-aware content
- Reusable content structures
- Storytelling through visualisations
- Utilising social media as a tool for content creation, collaboration
- Tooling abstraction for content editors
- Utilising the fundamentals of web technology and structured content (HTML)
- Documenting systems
Project leadership
- Content and project governance over time through abstracting content, actions and goals
- Stakeholder consultation and expectation management through roadmapping
- Feature prioritisation and sprint-based project planning
- Training and fostering web content creation from the general public to experienced developers
Web expertise
- Managing geographically distributed projects with, GitLab, GitHub, Kanban and Slack (and similar)
- HTML, CSS/Sass, JavaScript, browser consoles, Handlebars, D3.js, Mapbox, PHP, Apache, npm, Gulp, Browsersync, Markdown
- Bonus: Strong Web CMS knowledge: Drupal configuration and development, Eleventy, WordPress
Contemporary techniques Design systems, component and pattern libraries, controlled taxonomies, prototyping, user stories, user research, user-centred design, principles of visualization and graphing, system governance, Kanban, Agile, Google Analytics custom events, responsive design and progressive web apps
Versatile desktop publishing skills Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, from Google Docs to Microsoft Office, Linux, Mac, Windows

Professional work history

Lead web design architect, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL)

June 2018 – ongoing Heidelberg, Germany

Continuation of my role for the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)
Grow, evolve projects from EMBL-EBI into pan-EMBL solutions
Information architecture and component tooling for EMBL web content, design systems
Architecting abstracted web content platform, navigation
Facilitate collaboration between UX, developers and content teams
Foster design system growth, adoption by coordinating with development leads

Related writing

Major technical tooling and processes: HTML/JS/CSS, Sass, GitHub, GitLab CI, Visual Studio Code, Google Analytics, Gulp, npm, Eleventy, Fractal, Drupal, Continuous integration, Kanban

Web design architect, European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)

July 2015 – June 2018 Cambridge, UK

Lead information architecture and design tooling for EMBL-EBI web content, design systems
Facilitate collaboration between UX, developers and content teams
Foster design system growth, adoption by coordinating with development leads
Drive for reusable patterns in web interfaces
Close gap between web analytics and content effectiveness
Improve intranet information architecture to focus on user activities

Related writing

Major technical tooling and processes: Content modelling and architecture, HTML/JS/CSS, Sass, Adobe Creative Suite, Atom, MapBox, Google Analytics, GitHub, Gulp, npm, Jekyll, Foundation Framework, Drupal, Travis, Continuous integration, Kanban

Web developer and information designer, DRS Technical Solutions

February 2011 – June 2015 Stuttgart, Germany

Manage user-focused efforts (UX, research, metrics) for company web projects
Website project lead for a Drupal platform to support more than 150,000 user accounts, provide e-commerce tools
Information architecture and infographics for business proposals, strategic planning
Numerous intranet-style websites to manage contacts, resumes, documents by consuming JSON and XML feeds for custom dashboards and processing
Create and implement software projects with multi-company team members in the U.S., Europe and Middle East

Major technical tooling: Drupal, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bitbucket, Agile, Amazon EC2, Route 53, Google Analytics

Technical and editorial lead, TheDigitel

May 2008 – February 2011 South Carolina, USA

Co-founded TheDigitel.com to advance newspaper methodology in the age of websites
Lead team of eight staff and an array of freelancers and volunteers to report, market and implement web features
Lead community editor outreach with physical, online, podcast events
Help our students grow through our intern partnership with the local college
Pioneer use of Twitter hashtags for local media community reporting
Dynamic Advertising: a new advertising model powered by social media
Speak at events for the creative community about code, reporting, startups
Refine Drupal UX, content editing experience for community collaboration with staff editors
Raise funding, manage investors, expand TheDigitel to three cities

Major technical tooling: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Drupal, LAMP hosting optimisation, daily briefing newsletter automations, reverse proxy caching, Adobe Creative Suite, Google Analytics, Google G Suite admin, A/B testing, Google AdSense and AdWords, podcasting

Graphics reporter, The Post and Courier

March 2006 - May 2008 South Carolina, USA

Newspaper infographic design and reporting
Produce daily deadline-driven information graphics based on news reports
Create interactive HTML and Flash information graphics for the Web
Process geographic data to create maps (GIS)
Design and produce newspaper pages
Photo management and copy editing

Major technical tooling: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, QuarkXPress, Flash, ArcGIS, Modo 3D modelling, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Mac OS

Graphics reporter, The Beaufort Gazette

May 2003 - March 2006 South Carolina, USA

Newspaper infographic and page design
Produce daily deadline-driven information graphics based on news reports
Help lead the visual design of newspaper pages
Work to educate staff on photo cropping, type kerning, general principles of visual structure and directing the reader's focus

Major technical tooling: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat, QuarkXPress, Mac OS

Production manager, The Daily Journal

May 2000 - April 2003 South Carolina, USA

Newspaper pre-press production, advertising
Pre-flight and technical management of daily newspaper pre-press production
Lead production of in-house creatives for advertising clients
Manage pre-press team of 4 individuals

Major technical tooling utilised: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, QuarkXPress, Mac OS

Education, collaboration, speaking

Clemson University, Bachelor of Science in Graphic Communications, May 2003
Charleston Drupal meet-up and co-working
Co-founder of Fuse843 networking and business development group
Speaking events: Charleston PechaKucha, Charleston Drupal user group, Create South conference, Startup Stuttgart, various others