ERIKA “MASALA” NILSFRED

pixel pusher tag mangler music maker hair splitter storysmith

Skill graph

    • CSS3 x-browser
      problem solving       WordPress customisation Customer service Design & graphics Animating things Regular expressions
    • PHP
    • HTML5/CSS3
    • jQuery
    • Git
    • WordPress
    • Drupal
    • SQL
    • Django
    • Sketch
    • Photoshop
    • COBOL
    • Usability
    • Designing
      things
    • Languages
    • Browser
      quirks
    • Steampunk
    • Maths
    • RPG
  • 9.7 years’ professional
    experience
  • BSc
    with     1st class
    Honours
  • 3 languages
    spoken
  • 30+ WP sites for major
    business customers
  • Designed for
    web since     1999
I enjoy discussing the subtleties of z-index and hacking up weird stuff in pure CSS, and have become the go-to person at work for questions like "but why did the padding-top go crazy when I changed the dimensions of the parent?"
Most of my work these days is on customised WordPress sites.
I do a fair amount of customer service, both in the form of spec discussions and tech support.
In my current role, I usually receive designs from clients and discuss and tweak the details with them.
You'll find some of my own designs from previous jobs in my portfolio.
XKCD - regular expressions
(xkcd.com)
I used to say I was as fluent in PHP as in French, but I spend way more time with T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIMs than with Francophones now, and I normally only need the PHP Manual to check the quirkier details.
This is pretty much what I breathe. I started writing HTML when I was twelve and CSS soon thereafter, and quickly saw the value in following web standards while aiming for backwards compatibility.
How did I cope before version control!?
Most sites I build at work are custom WordPress builds. I'm confident building custom plugins and working with the hooks and filters system.
I'm fluent enough in Drupal to find my way around with Google in the next tab over. I've done a few projects in Drupal in the past and use it occasionally for client sites.
I was "frontender-in-charge" on a major Python/Django project recently and learned the basics.
Most of the graphical work I do is in Adobe CS. I'm very comfortable in Photoshop.
Everything is meant to be used or interacted with, whether it's a text, a T-shirt or a web app. I love things that work frictionlessly.
Things = web sites, ball gowns, PC chassis, corsets, paintings, business cards, furniture, book covers, instruction manuals.
I speak three, understand the gist of a few more and tend to geek out over phonetics articles on Wikipedia.
I spend half my days on caniuse.com
My hat collection is amazing.
I have a Bachelor's degree in Pure Mathematics. The mindset I have when reading proofs is great for finding edge-cases and squashing bugs.
I play bards and characters high in Int. Strongly prefer WoD politics and Ars Magica over punch-monsters-for-XP systems.
Including my current job at The Farm Interactive and freelance projects for Maria Bohm, Patronka Sp. z o.o and others. I took up my current position in February 2014.
BSc (Hons) in Mathematics from the University of Aberdeen, UK, followed by a Post-Graduate Certificate in Information Technology and a term at Cambridge.
That's English, French and Swedish.
I've worked on projects for Helly Hansen, HgCapital, Axiell Media and Saltkråkan AB, among others.
Hopefully I've improved some since then …