I'm a French Dane living in the USA who used to be a designer and who now likes to code.
Typing away, every day
As a kid, I spent hours on Microsoft Paint, until I discovered Photoshop (I had a totally valid licence). I learned some code to customise MySpace pages, and eventually made my own websites. I even paid for domains and hosting, and proclaimed myself "webmaster" before I even had zits — the hubris. After graduating, I studied graphic design for 4 years, then did some freelancing, juggling between design work, video editing, and code for a few years with neat clients, before focusing on web development.
Writing code and having a thing show up on the screen felt (and still feels) a little like magic. Currently, I work at MOJO PSG as a senior front-end dev with a wonderful team, striving to make accessible and performant web pages, and learning new things in this constantly evolving field.
I have contributed to a few open source projects, but only in small ways; if it counts, this little VS Code extension of mine called VisuBezier to preview CSS timing functions is worth a look. And I've been lucky enough to be published on sites like CSS-Tricks and Smashing Magazine, if you can believe it!
Still creative, on occasion
When inspiration strikes, I like to create designs that might look good on a t-shirt — still getting those creative juices flowing! You can check all those out in the Designs "Shop" if you're interested; it's got lots of dev-related designs, and a few '80s aesthetics (my favourite!). I also enjoy movies and play video games from time to time, so if you want to make my day, try a movie quote on me. You might want to know that I've created a few typefaces — I consider myself a font nerd and will (try to) recognise the font used for every logo until my last breath.
They used frickin’ Helvetica again! They can’t keep getting away with it!
Surprise, I like music! I listen to a lot of things, however, my playlists are largely (post-)rock and electronica flavoured. Chronoise is a project for my mediocre musical musings that I haven't actively worked on in a while, but maybe in 2024. It's relaxing to play a little bit of guitar, and I find experimenting with synthesisers incredibly fun. Seriously, try it:
Hold the Shift key to shift octaves
French… Dane?
My English accent is weird and kind of all over the place. But it's not French.
I grew up in Lyon, France, born to Danish parents. Australia was also my home for a year as a kid, speaking English with a Down Under accent, and I even held a baby koala. So if I blurt a word in French, sorry, three languages just keep blending in that bald head of mine. I do know a decent amount of Italian but lose all composure speaking to natives — che peccato! I took Japanese in high school, but didn't apply myself, so I'm not good at it, but DuoLingo is trying threatening to help. Anyways, I find languages fascinating!
Profesh A.F.
I am a professional, as proven by the fact I have a LinkedIn profile that I ignore. I can write in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL; I favour the Jamstack for static sites, like Eleventy or Hugo, but I'm equally comfortable with a WordPress setup, neatly tracked in a repository. You'll also find that the Adobe Creative Suite is dear to me; my usual suspects are Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects. Oh, and I'm a French/Danish dual-citizen, and a US "Green Card" holder (yay, paperwork!).
Fancy a chat?
If you feel like reaching out to me, you can send me a message @chriskirknielsen, or email me if needed at chriskirknielsen!
Unknown phone numbers give me anxiety.