Kashi

Sydney

web designer.

• The Short Version
• The Long Version

Kashi Samaraweera

23 years old / M / Sydney

Started/Finished school in
Adelaide/Sydney (respectively)

Completing a Bachelor of Information Technology at Macquarie University

Web Designer & Developer

Is currently looking for work in the realms of web design & development

Secretly loves essay writing assignments

Hates seeing people abuse the English language

Bonjour, je m'appelle Kashi.

Oui, je parle français, mais très, très mal.

Sadly, this is entirely half of what I can do with the French language, as beautiful as it is.

Unlike French however, I can work wonders with other languages - specifically, languages used to build the World Wide Web. There's a conscise list on my résumé if you'd like to know which ones.

The Short Version

I'm currently completing a Bachelor of IT with a software technology major so that my above claims can be substantiated by merely flailing my degree about; until then however, you're going to have to either click the portfolio link above or click "view source" and begin to scratch the surface yourself.

Most of my knowledge in graphic design and interactive development has been learned through studying media cultures and web usability at university; practiced as a professional web developer (see résumé) in previous roles or acquired through countless hours spent experimenting with PHP, JavaScript, X/HTML and Adobe's Fireworks, Flash and Photoshop over the last eight years.

The Long Version

I make websites, and I make them well.

I would tell you that I create great websites; but I'd rather have you experience them for yourself and come to an agreeable conclusion. I've always had a knack for code, which began at a ridiculously young age; messing about with Borland Delphi whilst I quietly wished I had a Sega Mega Drive to play with instead.

These days I still mess about with code whilst my PlayStation 3 sits idly by the TV, wishing it had an owner who cared more for gaming and less for coding.

2004: I want to be an Astrophysicist.

These were my sentiments when I was reading through the list of degree courses that I'd like to apply for in my final year of high school, and it got me into an Applied Physics degree at the University of Technology, Sydney.

2005: I don't want to be an Astrophysicist.

Turns out, no matter how fun you pretend mathematics is; it generally isn't.

I've always had a fascination for science. I think most of us do at a young age - I've just never seemed to grow out of it; and never stopped wanting to learn how everything works. I still read science periodicals, and from time to time I tackle the odd mathematics problem, but only in so far as establishing animation techniques, implementing basic cryptography algorithms or solving tricky logic problems.

If I were a better mathematician, I would invent a formula to divise the qunatity of real fun relative to the quantity imaginary fun encountered when doing mathematics, and then subsequently prove that they're both indivisibly close to zero. Instead, I put that physics degree on hold to figure out what I really wanted to do.

2006: I (sort of) want to be a programmer.

I'll admit that wanting to be a programmer is a flagrant lie. But it's exactly the kind of flagrant lie on which people make safe decisions every day. And this particular safe decision inspired me to enrol in Information Technology at Macquarie University - a decision that still I cherish to this day, albeit for slightly different reasons than when I began.

My appetite for wanting to create desktop applications died almost before I began studying. There's something about the way we use desktop applications (save for media authoring and video games) that makes them seem so unbearably mundane. Sure, the money's good; but I wasn't convinced about the reward.

Regardless, I did the work and kept my head down. I was far too busy playing around with Macromedia Flash and Fireworks to to be too concerned about my impending career in programming anyway.

2007: It's always the last place you look isn't it?

Thankfully; and right under my nose, the WWW matured into a richly interactive platform. And as if Ali Baba himself had whispered "open sesame", I could see where I needed to go. I began spending inordinate amounts of time building small web applications, animated web interfaces, PHP & MySQL driven sites, playing around with Flash and discovering the intricacies ActionScript 2.0.

I picked up more media and semiology subjects at uni than any of my core information systems and programming units and began studying the worlds' fascination with the new media - and more importantly - how I should go about developing and instigating such technologies.

It was an exciting time for the web. Adobe had rolled out some massive changes to its Flash platform, the dust seemed to have settled on W3C standards and web interoperability; and services such as Facebook and MySpace were growing at rates that would give bacteria a run for its' money!

2010: And here we are.

So indeed here I am, in the final three semesters of my part-time B. IT; having learned a wealth of industry knowledge from my previous role of Webmaster & Marketing Coordinator for a medium-sized business. I'm eager to find a new role that lets me do what I love doing - making interactive websites, and making them well.

Further Reading: About This Website

My first website was launched during high school in year 11 (2003), with web space purchased online using my (then) underage eBay account. At the time I didn't really know what I was doing. It was built on HTML, CSS and had a simple Flash-based MP3 player. It looked nice and I received quite a few compliments for it but it didn't have a purpose, so much. I essentially just built it because I could.

My first serious website was a full-Flash site launched in 2006; complete with event-driven JavaScript to feign cross-browser compatibility. It was a little buggy, and featured some animations that would have had usability experts cringe but it still looked, felt and interacted better than half of the websites on the WWW (in my humble opinion, of course).

In 2008 (after some very encouraging marks from the Media department at Macquarie Uni) I finalised a revision of my website to incorporate a custom-built (MySQL & spaghetti-PHP) blogging system that allowed me to journal my thoughts in [sometimes far too great an] expanse. If my media lecturers were convinced that I had a talent for writiting (or in fancy business terms - producing copy), I figured I shouldn't squander such a talent (no matter how small) and practise it as a hobby.

All the articles are still here today (some of which make me wonder what I was thinking); but the blogging system has matured incredibly; having adopted a lot of the methodologies involved in developing desktop software applications (now that I've done an equal amount of software and media theory). I built this website over the 2009-2010 summer and finally got around to finalising it in July in anticipation of finding a job to better suit my bolstered talents.