To look at me one would be hard pressed to label me as a traditional geek. I am not male, I don't wear glasses, crew necked t-shirts or a pocket protector. I have both a sense of style and fashion having worked as a couture bridal accessory designer for the past 10 years and in womens apparel retail sales the decade before that. Yet my tendencies towards geekiness are undeniably there.
Let's start at the beginning... As a child I was a bit of a social outcast. My sister used to call me a nerd art student in high school. I was creative, quiet, and painfully shy. I was completely obsessed with creating art that, for lack of a better description, could only be described as mind numbingly detail oriented. Tell tale signs that I possessed some geeky qualities, sadly, looooong before it was cool to be a geek.
For years I resisted owning a computer. I was happy with my little electric typewriter and thought I was the only one who hadn't been suckered into the crazy computer and internet phenomenon occurring everywhere around me.
FInally, after much resistance, I purchased my first computer in 2002. It was a cute little grape iMac G3 DV. To have called me technology phobic would have been an understatement. Yet after dabbling with my 5.0 LE (limited edition) Adobe Photoshop program for a few years, somewhere along the way, I became a Photoshop aficionado. My boyfriend once called me a Photoshop maven... I 've often called myself a Photoshopaholic.
If you are wondering when I decided to become a web designer... The epiphany happened in May of 2005 when I created my first website, for my couture bridal accessory busines The Flirty Bride.com, and was shocked when people began asking if they could hire me to design websites for them.
With the "can do" attitude I encourage everyone to have, I plunged headfirst into this strange new world and began learning more about how to "speak geek." Words and letters like html, java script, meta and dns.... What did they mean? What did they do? So I learned and continue to learn in that obsessive way geeks do. I read websites and books. I talk to geeks. I even started dating one! He's the best. Hence the name "Girl goes Geek" is a double entendre.
I've come a long way from being the girl who once called Epson to tell them my new printer didn't work. After waiting on hold for 20 minutes (Duh, on an international call to Canada) I found out it was because I had neglected to plug it in... Into the wall... So that it had electricity. Now I'm being hired every week to create a new website or logo and the appreciation and referrals from my very satisfied clients is what has driven GIRLgoesGEEK to become an overnight success! That is how far I've come.
Being a business owner myself I am passionate about bringing to my clients effective designs that assure them that their marketing dollars are being well spent. All of my experience doing custom design work with brides now allows me to offer my clients the ability and willingness to listen to and design for them, creating essential elements in both marketing and branding their business' that are all too often overlooked or completely ignored.
I am living breathing proof that it's never too late to go geek!
