Zach Minster

computer scientist / web designer / photographer / student

I do tech things.

I design web interfaces both for myself and for others. That which follows is a minuscule smattering of the veritable smorgasbord of designs I've tinkered with over the years (I've been coding for the web since I was ten!). I have no formal training; instead, I follow in the footsteps of the Italian Renaissance Humanists, learning from books and the veritable treasure trove of information available on the Internet. The designs below all have fully-functioning counterparts; these are just screenshots of working, scripted implementations (so yes, the registration screenshot actually works in its true form).

Click on the thumbnails to view larger screen captures.

Design Methodology

I work exclusively with XHTML 1.1, CSS 3 and Javascript/AJAX on the design side of things, and I code server-side exclusively in PHP (although I am well-versed in Microsoft's ASP). While I can and have designed with Flash and its counterpart Actionscript, I tend to shy away from using either, as Flash is not a universally-supported format and runs counter to the open web standards initiative. I use Ubuntu Linux servers (I even run one of my own in my basement!) with Apache HTTP Server and make liberal use of mod_rewrite, which is both a blessing and a bane =).

All of my designs are standards-supported, W3C valid for XHTML 1.1 and CSS 3, cross-platform, and cross-browser (or as close as I can get with Internet Explorer 6 - I try very hard!). I design most of my interface images with GIMP.