Of sketching and cakes

Portfolio

Here are my main Web Development and User Experience projects:

SoundCloud App

First project at General Assembly

CoffeeShop App

Second project at General Assembly

TourCouch App

Final project at General Assembly

Gare Internazionali

Pagine Sarde

IA/UX

Amatori Booking

SF cover

design

Ducati shields

design

Comics Cover

design

Skills

After learning how to mediate between 3 different languages, I took a step further by mediating between user needs and code possibilities, adding to the whole lot my passion for good design and illustration.

IA/UX

sketching and wireframing, Sketch, Axure, Balsamiq, user testing, User Interface design, responsive design, agile project planning, cross-channel user experience, Information Architecture for physical and digital mediums.

Web Development

I'm currently working with:
Python and its framework Django, PHP and its CMS Wordpress and styling with Bootstrap; Squarespace; setting up pop ups with OpenTag and setting up email registration process on Adestra.

During Web Development Immersive I learnt and practiced:
Languages such as Python and Ruby; frameworks such as Django, Ruby on Rails; version control system like GitHub and Mercurial; HTML and its variant HAML; styling with CSS, SASS, LESS, using front-end frameworks like Bootstrap, Bourbon; security with Devise/Oauth implementation; lihtweight webapps with Sinatra; knowledge of Javascript/JQuery, Coffeescript; I can work my way around SQL databases and a bit of mongoDB; deployment on Heroku; and I'm used to work with agile web development principles.

Illustration

I'm self-taught in:
Photoshop, InDesign, Colour theory, graphic and product design, digital illustration with graphic tablets, manual illustration with pencils/paper.

About

Elena Mvk

I moved to England during my gap year to play some serious rugby and after perfecting my flat white skills I decided to pursue a different challenge. I always had an interest for coding - so I decided to enrol in the General Assembly Web Development Immersive bootcamp to complete my previous experiences in Information Architecture and UX. I have now a fair amount of google-fu under my belt; various web app already deployed and a much better understanding of the distance existing between good user experience and good code. I'm currently working as a jr web developer for Positive Luxury and studying everyday; but I also cultivate personal coding/illustration/graphic design projects in my spare time and play a lot of rugby on Sundays!

Studies and experience

I’m a web developer with a background in Information Architecture and UX, but everything is shaped by my desire to understand and be understood (hence my BA in linguistic mediation) in the most beautiful and clear way possible.

2009-2013

BA in Cultural Linguistic Mediation

@ Universitá di Bologna (SLLTI Forlì)
Dissertation on the differences between traditional and independent publication. Linguistic mediation and translation to and from italian, english, spanish and portuguese (2010/11: Erasmus in Portugal at ISLA Campus Lisboa)
Mar 2013 – Jun 2014

Workshop in Comics techniques

@ Mestieri d'Arte
Comics creation’s workshop: script-writing, illustration, colouring and lettering. (Have a look at my final project)
Jun 2013 – May 2014

Master in Information Architecture

@ Università Per Stranieri Di Perugia
Curses on, among others, UX, UID, IA, wireframing, prototyping, benchmarking, card-sorting
Jan – Apr 2014

UX/UID Internship

@ E-xtrategy
A three-month internship during my master in IA and UX (Discover my projects on Behance)
Mar – May 2015

Web Development Immersive

@ General Assembly
A three-month coding bootcamp where I learnt Ruby, Sinatra, Javascript/JQuery, HTML5/HAML, CSS/SASS, SQL, PostgreSQL, Heroku, Github amongst others. (Discover my projects on Github)
Jul 2015 – Ongoing

Jr Web Developer

@ Positive Luxury
Full-stack web developer working with python/django, php/wordpress, and completing my coding education with senior-mentoring.
To be continued