My personal branding class had the experience to tour Evolve Digital Labs. Evolve is located in the cozy St. Louis suburb Maplewood. They have a small, but powerful team of around 20 employees. The Evolve office is an open floor layout with huge windows and high ceilings which creates a bright and friendly environment. They even have cool office perks like a pinball machine, snack bar, and large comfy lounge chairs. Evolve specializes in delivering growth to companies through research and data. Evolve are experts in the telecom and healthcare industry. Some of their clients include Charter, Merrick, and SSM Health Care.
Since I’m an interactive media and web design major, I had the opportunity to talk with the Evolve web developer, Jesse Kemper. Jesse creates custom PHP developments, data systems, and frameworks for each client. He also works on creating landing pages to help their clients web pages optimize better with search engines. Depending on the client, Jesse will make between 50 to 100 different niche landing pages or micro sites.
Tips for upcoming web developers
Jesse Kemper gave our group some tips for upcoming web developers. Whether you’re a front-end or back-end developer it’s important to understand both backgrounds because it makes the hand-off and communication easier. When creating a website, graphic designers and web developers will use a wire frame (sometimes referred to as a screen blueprint). It is very important to understand how to use, make, and work with wire frames because they are the visual structure of a website. It is important to learn the life cycle of a project. Depending how long a project will be it’s smart to always plan extra time in the timeline at the end to build revisions.
Break away from the norm
When looking for a job, being able to use WordPress is knowledgeable because almost all websites are built through WordPress. However, to impress companies you have to break out from the norm. One way to do that is by building more custom unique applications or frameworks that are based on more individual availability. Another way to break out is by learning two or three syntax languages. Besides learning the obvious HTML and CSS, also get educated in angular JavaScript, PHP, and jQuery.
Final advice
To wrap up our one hour meeting, Jesse told us his secrets to being creative and his daily resources. First, his main source to everything is coffee. He also jams out to rock music throughout the day. In the morning, he listens to podcasts relating to web development, entrepreneurship, or web agency. It helps get him interested in coding and start thinking in that mind set. His last advice is to step it up and always keep learning. Continue to round out your skill set and expand your knowledge to other areas.
Thank you Evolve Digital Labs for teaching us more about the industry!
