who we are

Ryan grew up on the Canadian Prairies, but spent most of his time with a pencil in hand or his head in a book. Later, at art school (Alberta College of Art and Design - BFA, Media Arts & Digital Technology.), he realized that the screen could be all of that and more. Graphics software and programming made the computer his canvas, and the Web was his infinite ibrary.

“The web is everywhere now, on a thousand devices, and we look to it for way more than just pages. It's still a young medium, and it can only get better. I want to contribute by creating websites, web apps and web services that help people and organizations get what they want while having a good time building them. Since I come to a project as both a designer and a coder, I can really make that happen.”

Besides design, Ryan maintains a few geekier interests such as paleontology and nondual mysticism. Occasionally he will say something interesting on Twitter and smiles far more regularly. You'll usually find him with a mouse in hand or his head in a screen.

Just to clarify - he tends to read widely, not always in book form. 'Book' is a convenient way to say it. Let's say he's 'book-ish'. Some reading influences:
- As a kid, The Lord of the Rings (long before the films)
- As a teenager, anything by William Gibson; also the Tao Te Ching (the Gia Fu Feng/Jane English translation)
- More recently, J.M. Coatzee and Doris Lessing (fiction), Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style (non-fiction) and more than a few blogs, like daringfireball.net