Philip J. Leitch

Employed, but looking...still

After a year of being unemployed I started working at Target. I love it. It's great. Great people. Great place. Can't complain, other than damn my paychecks got A LOT smaller. Uff da!

Things I Can Do

HTML5/CSS3, Web design, Web standards, mobile design/development, print design/production, user interface design, user centered design, user driven development, roller skate, user experience, organic and paid SEO development, Google Analytics, content management software, online ad serving, email marketing, ExpressionEngine, WordPress, Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, Microsoft Office, some JavaScript/jQuery/PHP

8 Years Working Remote (The Dogs Love Me)

I know how to work remotely. Office, we don't need no stinkin' office where we're going. When I enter my workspace I am fully in the work zone. People ask me how I can get work done at home. It's easy, there is work to do so I do it. It isn't that hard. I have no secret to working remotely other than it's my job so I do it. I wish I did have some amazing secrets to put into an ebook to sell on Amazon, that would be a sweet $13.56 montly revenue stream, but alas no secrets.

Jobs I've Had

Freelance Design and Production (2022-present)

The pandemic got me good. Covid put an end to working at Target so I have returned to the freelancer grind.

Extreme Noise Records, volunteer (2023-present)

This is the best job ever unfortunately it doesn't pay very well. It does allow me to get out of my house, meet new and exciteing people, lisetn to records r3eally loudly and get a discount on purchases. Also, the Friday night crew is amazing and we eat sandwiches together.

Target (2017-2022)

Working at Target really makes me want to do work in the UI/IA realm again as it drives me absoultely insane how some of the applications I have to use to do my job are designed. My role mostly involves backend logistics (working with incoming freight, pulling stock, back stocking, etc...), but I also perform "ship from store" duties which includes both picking and packing online orders but also picking instore pick-up orders. I am also now an experienced at implementing planograms!

Beyond the Fold (2016-2018)

Another two-person shop, this time with a longtime friend who also needs income while trying to find a new job. Check out nwwoodbox.com, the first client site we've launched. Currently working on a site for some cool hair stylists in Seattle, too bad I don't live in Seattle. We closed up shop in 2018 but still do some small web site projects here and there.

SundogWest (2008-2016) #rip

Email. Email. Email. Two-man shop doing (mostly) email design and development for accounting software juggernaut Intuit. First week in I had to unlearn my HTML/CSS and dig up my mid-90's HTML table building skills. We also did some print creative and a landing page here and there as well as the occaisonal not Intuit client. But yeah, I spent 8 years making tables inside of tables inside of tables and making sure it looked right in Outlook 2007... fun times! The upside of that is that I got extremely good at coding HTML email.

Unwound Design (2006-2008) #rip

My first foray into freelance work making websites for small business owners in the region. Ended when Chuck, whom I knew from Sundog (he was one of the founders), contacted me and asked if I wanted to work with him (see SundogWest above).

Sundog (1996-2006)

I started as a contracted HTML monkey and worked my way to running and managing the creative team (best crew of people I've ever worked with). Along the way I led the charge to update the company branding, kickstarted the SEO/SEM effort for clients, launched the first Sundog blog (which as a sidenote let me be Twitter user #10422 after writing a blog post about this new micro-bloggging thing called Twitter), arranged tons of amazing internal events like Octoberween (combining the admin team's Octoberfest celebration with the creative team's halloween party) that as far as I know they still celebrate, led the FargoWeb.com team (our attempt at a local portal type site — also my biggest failure, sad!), and got to see Sinbad when me and another employee went to an Apple QuickTime conference in LA.

My favorite achievement however was probably a tiny marketing site we did for ourselves called 1,000,000 hits... This was back when people still thought website hits meant something. We launched a site that when loaded would result in 1,000,000 hits so the hit counter was nuts. This was in reply to a competing company running billboards touting their ridiculous "hit" claims. I excel in snarky assholism!

Other jobs

I've also worked as a cook/doorman at a bar, made and delivered pizzas for Godfathers, Shakeys, and Tomicelli's (local dive, now closed but amazing pizza), baked bagels for a bagel shop, worked in the Vanity warehouse doing all sorts of things, was a janitor at the Cass County (North Dakota) Courthouse, was the night auditor at a motel, and cooked burgers and dogs for Mikes Burgers and Dogs (great name for a place that sells burgers and dogs).

In addtion to those "real" jobs I have written, edited and published a variety of underground (fan)zines, been in numerous punk rock bands, promoted close to 100 shows for touring bands passing through Moorhead/Fargo, screen printed a lot of t-shirts, built a web site to track the flood level of the Red River (but have since abandoned it since IT WILL NEVER FLOOD AGAIN), almost finished college with a fine arts photography degree (so close, so so close), and at any one time I will have somewhere between 3-11 personal web sites in various states of construction (currently working on Record Collector Scum).