Portfolio
Journal
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Tilly Dyson (Starbit’s latest recruit) interviews Jonathan Stevens (CEO and Creative Director) on the eve of the company’s 5th birthday to get an insight into where Starbit came from and where the team are going next.
Team
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We are a small but firmly established company, with specialist in-house design and development teams.
Our collective skills span digital strategy, brand identity, graphic design, full stack development and hardware provisioning.
Jonathan Stevens
CEO & Creative Director
Jonathan provides project management and creative direction for all of our client work. He is an experienced digital designer with more than ten years worth of multimedia projects to his name. He founded Starbit with the launch of their first website in 2005 and formed the limited company in 2011. Throughout the evolution of Starbit, his pursuit of design innovation in the digital space has remained the lynchpin.
Jonathan is extremely proud of the outstanding team of designers and developers who have joined him along the way to make Starbit what is is in 2016. Day-to-day he likes nothing better than throwing new challenges at them and witnessing the plethora of great ideas that get bounced back.
Jonathan holds an MA in Business Management (from St Andrews University) and an MSc in Environmental Sustainability (from Edinburgh Napier University). He is a keen cyclist and was delighted when the Company was recently recognised as a Cycle Friendly Employer.
Kevin Falencik
Lead Developer
Kevin takes responsibility for heading up our development department. He is an experienced full-stack developer, able to tackle almost any coding conundrum. Very little seems to phase him and somewhere up his sleeve there would appear to be a solution for everything. He ensures the development stage of all projects are taken care of, pulling together contributions from the rest of the development team as well as the design department. He also looks after our clients in a support role, fixing things super quickly when issues arise.
Kevin studied IT and Web Application Design within the Technical Department at the Complex of Communication Schools in Gdansk. He has previously worked as a web developer in Poland, where he gained several years experience in Drupal 6 & 7 development, both in building sites from scratch and converting existing HTML sites. He is committed to improving his skills on a daily basis and is always enthusiastic about adopting new tools and ways of working. He ensures that the company’s development resources are allocated in the most efficient way possible and makes sure the rest of the team don’t get lost along the way.
Kevin loves coding innovative digital things. He also likes travelling, creating (and listening to) music and tattoos.
Carine Pic
Web Developer
Carine is a full-stack developer with several years of experience working both as a freelancer and for various web agencies in France. She comes from the mountainous region around Grenoble, home to a thriving tech and start-up scene. On moving to the UK to further her academic studies, she joined Starbit and decided to stick around.
Carine possesses a versatile digital skillset spanning HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript/jQuery and MySQL. She has a French diploma in multimedia (2 year HND equivalent) and a BSc in Computing with distinction (from Edinburgh Napier University) covering user experience and web technologies. She is both curious and ambitious, never resting on her laurels and always seeking to improve as a developer. She also likes helping others and has a real interest in teaching web technologies. Her goal over the next year is to take on more project management duties to make the best use of the full gamut of her personal skills.
Carine has recently started a vegan way of life, part of which is motivated by her sincere love of animals. She takes care of four cats in France and misses them a lot. She is also fond of the countryside and cycling with many years of experience in managing a French cycling association and organising competitions.
Hantian Zhang
Graphic Designer
Hantian is a long-standing member of the Starbit team. He is a graphic designer with an eclectic mix of high-level software skills, encompassing the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After-Effects) and Blender (for 3D work). He specialises in brand identity development and user experience (UX) design for our digital projects. He also takes responsibility for digital product testing, working closely with the development department at every stage of a project.
Originally from Nanjing in China, Hantian built the foundations of his interests in graphic and digital design during his undergraduate study of Fine Arts in China. Following this and two years worth of commercial experience in a Chinese creative studio, he came to the UK to study a masters degree in Design & Digital Media (awarded with distinction) and is currently taking this further with a PhD in Mobile UX at Edinburgh College of Art. He believes that user experience is all around us, and that all forms of design need to be understood by all relevant stakeholders. Hantian is always seeking out new creative ideas to make each design different, iconic and self-explanatory. He loves working collaboratively with clients and the rest of the team and has a strong conviction in the best results coming from the maximum possible level of cooperation.
Hantian loves browsing Pinterest for new design ideas and reading books about UX theories. He is also a big fan of audio novels, badminton, music, guitar playing, tech devices, museums, travelling and photography.
Tilly Dyson
Graphic Designer
Tilly is the newest addition to the Starbit team. She is a fully qualified graphic designer having just finished her honours degree at Edinburgh College of Art. She works on brand identity, print layouts and digital concepts, utilising the full power of the Adobe Creative Suite. Going forwards, her focus will be on UX design for digital projects.
Tilly has a strong interest in human-centred design thinking, social innovation and prototyping. She is fascinated by interaction design - looking at design in the context of how people interact with others and their surroundings. She has a firm conviction in the importance of designing with, for and by the people at the heart of the problem. Her final college project incorporated the design of an app for those dealing with the impact of dementia on a friend or relative. Her work was shown in the D&AD New Blood Festival 2016.
Tilly is a competitive triathlete and is currently learning Swedish (10% fluent when this was written).
Adrian Vazquez
Web Developer
Adrian completes our development team. Originally from Spain, he brought with him diplomas in MTA Windows Server Administration, MTA Networking, MTA Security, ComTIA Network+ and Linux. Over the past two years, he has been undertaking an HND in Interactive Media which he is looking forward to taking further with a BSc in Web Design and Development, starting in Autumn 2016. A strong IT background and a hunger to constantly improve his skills, makes Adrian a real asset to the Starbit team.
Problem-solving is what Adrian likes most, always with his music on. He has a real determination to reach the next level in each aspect of his development role and sometimes can be so focussed that he needs a good nudge to break the spell. The web technologies jQuery, HTML, CSS, MySQL are his tools and Wordpress his favourite CMS.
As well as working for Starbit, Adrian enjoys travelling and playing football. The football is something he not only looks equipped for but actually something he must be quite good at - his team recently won the SFL Edinburgh Cup.
