Ning

Ning is an online platform that allows people to create, customise and share their own social networks. I was its lead designer from January 2006 to October 2007.

In addition to interaction design and front-end development on the company’s initial suite of applications, I was also responsible for the company’s branding and product marketing. Later, I worked alongside David Warner on the development of what became the company’s primary product: “Your Own Social Network”.

Paul is hands down the best web designer and CSS craftsman I have had the pleasure of working with. From overall user experience to the smallest, pixel-tweaking details, Paul is exceptionally creative and thoughtful.

Paul and I worked closely together for a year as the two people responsible for the design and HTML/CSS code for Ning. Paul is a very gifted graphic and interaction designer who works hard and quickly. He is also one of the strongest HTML/CSS coders I’ve ever worked with. He cares passionately about his work and it shows: high quality and attention to detail.

Paul gave Ning its look: from its distinctive Clarendon logo to the HTML and CSS undergirding Ning’s 150,000 social networks. Working with Paul’s semantically rich CSS designs is a pleasure. With the simple addition of a CSS class like response, amazing things would happen to an HTML element: the avatar would shift to the opposite side, the speech bubble flip on its vertical axis, the colors change subtly. He writes of his passion for web standards and attractive design – it certainly shows in his beautiful work.