Justin Petersen

Creative Technologist

Justin Petersen

I like working with smart and creative people to make interactive products that users find entertaining, beautiful and useful.

Featured Projects

These are my favorite recent projects from my time at AKQA. As Associate Director of Creative Development, I was responsible for development and engineering for leading brands including Anheuser-Busch, Activision, Audi, Xbox and Target.

AudiUSA.com

I oversaw front end development of the AudiUSA.com site redesign, especially focusing on the car configurator and global UI components. The site is fully responsive and includes several integrations with Audi's global data partners.

Client

Audi
Agency

AKQA
Role

Technical Manager
Technologies

Adobe CQ5, Adobe Scene7, CoffeeScript, Bootstrap, Backbone.js, Jenkins, Predictive Analytics
Highlights

Managed a global front-end development team; interfaced with Audi data partners in Germany.

Experience with test-driven development and continuous integration pipline.

Site contains complex Adobe CQ5 and Scene7 integration.

Site uses predictive analytics to optimize content for the user.
Recognition

Webby Awards Official Honoree: Mobile Sites & Apps: Best Practices

FWA Site of the Day

FWA Mobile Site of the Day

Dance*Cam

I managed creative development of the Dance*Cam iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7 app for Dance Central 2. The mobile app ran Adobe After Effects in Microsoft's Azure cloud to add special effects and "auto-tune" the user into their very own music video.

Client

Xbox
Agency

AKQA and Fuzz Productions
Role

Technical Manager
Technologies

After Effects, Azure, Windows Phone, Android, iOS
Highlights

Managed mobile development through an external development partner.

Users can challenge each other to dance battles with videos posted on Facebook.

Music videos are generated in the cloud, using Adobe AfterEffects running on Microsoft Azure.
Recognition

ONE SHOW Entertainment Bronze

Cannes Mobile Shortlist

NEXT Mobile AICP Shortlist

Remember Reach

The Halo "Remember Reach" site used an automobile assembly robot with a laser pointer to create a monument from 60,000 points of light. Each user could select a single points of light, which would in turn be illuminated by the robot and composited into the scene. The activity of the robot was live-streamed over the website for the duration of the campaign.

Client

Xbox
Agency

AKQA and Autofuss
Role

Technical Manager
Technologies

Silverlight, C#.NET, After Effects, Kuka Robotics, Live Smooth Streaming
Highlights

Site used Microsoft's Smooth Streaming video technology to live-stream the robot activity.

I designed the algorithms for users selecting points of light and the constellation fade routine.
Recognition

One Show Interactive Silver, One Show Interactive Bronze, Tomorrow Awards Gold, London International Awards Gold, ADDY Gold, BIG Star Awards Best Online Creative, New York Festivals Gold, Art Directors Club Awards Merit, Webby Awards Official Honoree

More Work

Here are more projects that I did as a Senior Creative Developer and Creative Development Manager at AKQA and EVB.

Kinect Me

The Xbox “Kinect Me” site was created to complement the Kinect for Xbox 360 global tour. It was featured in the 2011 Communication Arts Interactive Annual.

Role

Technical Manager

Recognition

Communication Arts Interactive Annual

Mi6 Most Creative New Product Announcement

Webby Awards Official Honoree

Alan Wake

The Alan Wake "Reveal" take-over ad allowed users to use their mobile device as a flashlight to reveal scenes from the game in a web ad.

Role

Technical Manager

Recognition

Mi6 Bronze for Best Online Take-over

Webby Awards Official Honoree

Halo 3: ODST

The Halo 3: ODST website was one of the first examples of Silverlight Smooth Streaming video technology, which enabled the nonlinear video navigation and multi-dimensional storytelling.

Role

Technical Manager

Recognition

Mi6 Award for Best Online Advertising Campaign

Best Online Advertising Campaign

Gears of War 2

I was the lead Flash developer of the Gears of War 2 Flash site.

Role

Front-End Developer/Architect

Recognition

Bronze CLIO

One Show Short List

Mi6 Gold

Target Weekly Ad

I was the Creative Development Manager for the online Target Weekly Ad in 2010. The site allowed users to share, comment on and "love" products, set up email and SMS alerts and explore product recommendations based on Facebook "Likes."

Role

Technical Manager

Target Black Friday

I led development of Target's "Giftacular" augmented reality sweepstakes. The user could spin the wheel of gifts with their Target print ad in order to win coupons for Black Friday.

Role

Technical Manager and Front-End Developer

Criss Angel

Nearly three million people visited and sent the customized Criss Angel video prank. I developed the PHP back-end service that assembled audio and video snippets into a cohesive video that seemed magically created just for them.

Role

Full-Stack Developer/Architect

Adidas Basketball

I was the lead frontend developer for the adidas "Believe in 5IVE" site.

Role

Front-End Developer/Architect

Recognition

FWA Site of the Day

San Francisco Silver ADDY

Orbit Friends of Bright

While at EVB, I was the lead developer of the "Friends of Bright" site for Wrigley.

Role

Full-Stack Developer/Architect

Recognition

FWA Site of the Day, FITC Toronto 2007, San Francisco Silver ADDY, Cannes Lion Finalist, SXSW Finalist, Adobe Site of the Day

Work History

Google (via Synergis)

Web Developer

Oct 2017 - 2019

Apple (via PRO Unlimited)

Front End Developer

May 2017 - Sep 2017

Google (via Synergis)

Web Developer

Feb 2015 - Mar 2017

AKQA

Associate Director of Creative Development

Feb 2011 - Mar 2014

AKQA

Creative Development Manager

Feb 2009 - Feb 2011

AKQA

Senior Creative Developer

Aug 2007 - Feb 2009

EVB

Senior Creative Developer

Jan 2006 - Jun 2007

Ham in the Fridge

Interactive Developer

Sep 2005 - Dec 2005

Olson

Junior Interactive Developer

Sep 2004 - Sep 2005

Primary Technical Skills

  • Experienced with front end web development using JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS3
  • Comfortable using JavaScript libraries/frameworks (React, Polymer/LitElement, Backbone.js/Marionette)
  • Comfortable with database design and NoSQL fundamentals (Firebase, MySQL)
  • Working knowledge of package managers and front-end build tools (NPM, Gulp, Grunt, Yeoman, Bower)
  • Comfortable with source control software and workflows (SVN, Git)
  • Experienced with UI libraries and helpers (Bootstrap, jQuery)
  • Experience with preprocessors, mixins, partials (SASS, CoffeeScript, Jade/HAML)

Additional Technical Skills

  • Hosting and cloud platforms (Google Cloud Platform, Azure, Heroku, WordPress)
  • Test-driven development (TDD) and unit testing tools (Mocha)
  • Tracking and data science using Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics (Omniture), predictive analytics
  • Champion of project management/collaboration tools and processes (Asana, JIRA, Confluence, Google Docs)
  • Design patterns such as Model-View-Controller (MVC) and Object-oriented programming (OOP)

Conceptual Skills

  • Experienced at developing high visibility, customer-facing websites for global brands
  • Strong technical ability combined with a creative eye and focus on user experience
  • Passion for communication and relating complex ideas to a non-technical audience

Hobbies and Interests

  • Value honesty, humor, kindness, reliability
  • Lover of animals, running, exploring nature, and minimalism
  • Volunteer gardener with Nature in the City and SF Parks & Rec

justin@justinpetersen.com