our story

Freelance Graphic Design and Web Development

Designworx Studios is the brain-child and freelance work of Michael Webster. Currently operating under Michael Webster Services Inc., Dworx is the culmination of over 15 years of creative services in my private and professional life. Dworx is not only a service based initiative, but also a showcase for the work I have done for both clients and corporate employers throughout my creative and professional journey. In most cases the work you will see is client-based freelance work that I have completed during my career, but in some cases I mixed in corporate based work that I did while employed for different companies throughout my career. By no means am I offering any of that work for sale on this website, nor am I claiming it was done for my clients, but rather I am just trying to give people a well-rounded view of my skill set in the case they want to reach out to me if they like my work and would like to work with me on their projects. A little background on where Dworx came from. I started Dworx many years ago with the mission to provide graphic design support services for individuals, many of whom were friends and family. I had never worked with small businesses during my teenage years but my creativity was always flowing into projects...sketches, graphic design, anything I could put my mind to and create something from. From that small beginning I gained a following and have since been lucky enough to work with many small businesses and clients in a variety of industries. In the beginning many of my clients could not afford or did not know how to go about finding a firm to create advertising materials for them. They appreciated my help and I was wiling to help them with their design needs for a fraction of the investment that they would have to make somewhere else. That is where my current mission came from. The mission to provide small - midsize businesses with the design services they can only find from a larger, more expensive design firm. And just like that, Dworx was came to be. Out of that need Dworx was born as a free-lance web and graphic design firm with the mission to provide design services to those who needed it. At first we specialized in logos and print work, mainly because in my early years that was most of what I did. My background in promotional products and printing gave me the confidence to help customers who were looking for business cards, promotional flyers and more. As my skills progressed in the graphics field I began to start integrating my graphic design into websites. I began designing websites and handing off the finished designs to a partner developer who would then code the sites. In many cases this is still the process I follow but I am now entering a brand new phase of my career where I am both designing and coding websites on my own. The website you see before you is a culmination of my growth as a designer and developer into that role as a website developer. My story is one that follows the trail of a graphic designer moving into a web-designer with a little user experience / user interaction mixed in. My journey into this field began over 15 years ago when I was a Junior Graphic Designer for a B2B promotional product and marketing company that had large corporate licenses. I was tasked with designing print ads, catalogs, and promotional products. During my early years I was lucky enough to work with some very large brands such as MillerCoors and Corona where I quickly learned the importance of brand identity and brand guidelines as I was forced to work within those guidelines. It was a great opportunity to learn from senior graphic artists who taught me specialized techniques in photoshop and illustrator that I still use today. I had not learned anywhere near what I was learning during all my art classes in college and I was hooked. For a young kid who is eager to learn this was a perfect place to do it. As my career developed I began working directly with the promotional product factories overseas and locally to create graphics that were used on our products and shipped to clients around the country. This experience gave me deep insight into the print and production processes that all promotional products are developed using. Working with the factories gave me a unique insight into the industry and helped me better serve our customers with designs that worked for their products. My interest in promotions / marketing grew to a point where I wanted to learn more about the industry on thus pursued a new angle to learn more about the industry - Sales. There is no marketing without sales, just as there are no sales without marketing. I was lucky enough to be able to spend the next 8 years of my life working directly with marketing managers and corporate clients throughout the country in a sales executive role. I view this time as one of the most important periods in my professional life even though I was not always 100% focused on the creative side. The ironice thing was that my creative skill and graphic background actually became the driving force behind what differentiated me from the normal 'graphics' only individual. I was now working directly with the clients to fulfill their needs and facilitating large scale production orders for the products I had once designed. My creative background helped me gain a competitive advantage over competitors because I could fulfill the role of both salesperson and creator. If a client needed a mockup of a product, I could provide that instantly and move the sales process forward faster. I also enjoy the time spent with people that is not always available when you are working behind a computer everyday. But while I enjoyed this role, I didnt feel it fulfilled my desire to create. I yearned to be developing my creative skills further and learn other aspects of marketing, especially as I wathced the web industry explode in popularity during that same time. I knew what I wanted to do and where I needed to be. So I stepped back into the creative field once again and dove straight into an email marketing design and development role for an up and coming online retail organization. This was a great opportuntiy to blend my design skills with my budding web skills and begin to learn and entirely new side of the marketing universe. I was happy to be learning and developoing my craft once again in a way that I could see near limiteless poteintal. This opporutnity gave me unqieu insights into new platforms and tehcnolgoies such as ISPs, ESPs, CRMs and other ecommerce related technologies while dipping my toes into bug management and scrum. After spending several years with that compnay they were purcahsed by a larger organiztioana and I saw yet another oppporutnity to move my craft to a new area of immense potential -- ECOMMERCE. I began working with an old yet solid company that sold a staple product with huge yearly sales but not a great web presence. My time with that company was a great learning experience in web based techology where I was thrown deeper into CRMs, Web Frameworks and new email marekting tools, as well as as host of other tools for communication and productivity. although I am not currently in that exact role I am still very active in the ecommerce world and developing my skills further and further in the web, ecomm and email worlds. At the same time I have re-dedictated myself to learning my craft and engaging in productive learning experineces in coding and website technology. i have been lucky enough to take classes and learn from highly educdated and real world expereinced teacher in C#, javascript, jquery, css, html and more. That learning has catapulted me to where I sit today. All this makes me who I am and makes Dworx what it ultimately is...