DJ Burgess
I majored in Visual Design, with a focus on Illustration at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. After freelancing as a visual designer, illustrator, and (at times) an animator in a number of industries - from gaming to print design - I launched into a career in UX/UI design .
I balance my day job with my personal creative work, like designing and building prop-replica lightsabers and miniature spaceships, I also continue to do illustration (largely for myself nowadays). While freelancing as a digital visual designer, I got requests to do the UI and overall flows for mobile games - which was my “first steps into a larger world”, as Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Luke. And, from there, I went running into the universe of UX design for web and mobile. This allowed me to work on other interesting and innovative projects, from emerging mobile platforms to current website branding updates.
My creative approach—no matter the medium—is to find points of tension behind the idea I’ve been assigned or am interested in. I do several iterations on each point and usually end up refining the one I find most useful and resonant (in a human way). Research has always been a part of my process - and I attribute the refinement of that largely to my time as an undergrad illustrator. Planning and research into your subject matter is key to a solid, resonant image - and it makes even more sense to approach UX/UI design in the same manner.
I’m based in Salem, Massachusetts, and I’m a self-taught UX/UI designer. I’ve worked with multinational companies in a variety of sectors - from BioTech to Telecom. My portfolio entries in this website are both showcases of some of my work and the documentation that accompanies the creative pieces, as well as general case-studies of the projects themselves. The name of my site “Musings in Four Dimensions” is a reference to the work itself - which is 2-dimensional, however, it tricks the eye into thinking it’s 3-dimensional. The 4th dimension, time, is in reference to the chronological journey of my projects - from some of the earlier work to today.