State of Genius

The purpose of this site is to showcase my work and attract new clients and contacts. I've been doing freelance web & media design for 7 years now and this site includes things I've done when I first started to things I worked on this afternoon.

I also hope to have my portfolio showcased on a few web/css inspiration websites. It'd be pretty awesome for designers all around the world to have a look at my work!

Take a look at my work and my qualifications and if you'd like to get in touch, hop on down to the contact section and shoot me a message. Hope you like my work and enjoy your stay here at State of Genius - The Portfolio of Eric Atha!

Matt DeAraujo Website Launching Soon

Matt DeAraujo is a 3D Animator that recently graduated from AIP. He needed a website that put his work first, displaying primarily videos of his animations. A functional resume section was also important to him.

The site is very dark themed to compliment his "eclipse" logo. It has a custom flash player and javascript slider to organize the video. The resume section displays his resume as clearly as possible and allows it to be dowloaded in both pdf and doc formats. The navigation features a javascript styled fader.

Overall this website has been a success and allows Matt's work to be displayed in a very captifying manner. Check it out and tell Matt I sent ya.

Sean Brice Website Launching Soon

Sean Brice is a Character Artist and Game Designer that recently graduated from AIP. Sean wanted a site that was grungy and distressed and similar to the games he is used to playing. He needed a section to display his Demo Reel as well as a section to display still pictures of his character models and other work.

I used the jQuery Library extensively, implemented a lightbox type display mode, and built a system to display and allow the downloading of Sean's resume in different formats. The inspiration for the website was a mine shaft, and like an elevator the navigation moves up and down the page with you on tracks, allowing you to get to where you're going no matter where you are on the page. The navigation also features a neat little lighting effect on rollover.

A Bit About Me

I'm a 22 year old Web & Media Designer from Pittsburgh, Pa. I'm currently attending the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for a Bachelor's Degree in Interactive Media Design. When I'm not in class or designing something, I'm probably with my friends or browsing reddit.

I've been creating things all my life, but I didn't start designing websites until 2003. Since then I've learned so much about design, development, project planning and information architecture. I've done everything from in-depth interactive projects, to short films, to print design, to 3D modeling and animation. I've learned so much about myself and I honestly don't know what I'd be doing if I couldn't create. It doesn't matter what medium or what tools. There's nothing I love more than to take nothing and turn it into something. Something that has a purpose. Something that makes a point. Something that changes someone's perception or alters their thinking.

I love what I do. And I mean it. Let me do what I love for you.

The Story Behind State of Genius

State of Genius was born during the .us domain suffix craze. I wanted something ending in .us that I could add clever subdomains to, so I purchased stateofgeni.us, ofgeni.us and stateofgenius.com. The first couple subdomains were things like constant.stateofgeni.us, creative.stateofgenius.com, but eventually I decided that doing things that way was to difficult for clients/people to remember, so I cut it down to State of Genius and ran with it.

A lot of people think it's an egotistical thing; it's not. I know I'm good at what I do, but I don't really think I'm a genius. It's just supposed to be clever branding and a memorable name.