Greetings! Welcome to Varghus - design with bite. What is Varghus? It's Swedish for "House Of The Wolf". And what is this scrolling thing? Well, it's my representation of something that was very common in the Amiga and Commodore 64 demoscene back in the 80s and 90s - the ubiquitous scrolltext. My Javascript skills are good, but I haven't quite worked out how to do a proper sine scroll, so this will have to do for now. Ah yes, the demoscene. That's where I learnt my trade. If we compare computers to music, people with degrees in computer science would be what I might class as "classically trained", whereas, those of us who came up through the demoscene are basically the punk rockers of computing. And it's served us well. So, another thing you always got in the scrolltext is credits. Everything you see here was done by me, Russ. Graphics, code, everything. Apart from the authentic Amiga music, by my old friend Tomas Dahlgren, also known as Uncle Tom. I also do music, but it wouldn't fit the vibe of this website! Another traditional addition to the scrolltext is greetings - in a demo, that's usually a list of codenames or handles, but, in this case, it'll just be peoples' names. Greetings to my wife Gwen, my three kids, Jackie, Mark and Joe - my friends and musical colleagues in Earthbound AD, Jolyon, Max, Ben, Den, Steve C, Steve M, and everyone else who knows me. If you've made it this far, congratulations... now, might you consider sending some work my way? Hopefully I've done enough to convince you that I'm pretty good at what I do. Maybe you've had a click through the sites - hope you like them. There's various other sites I've worked on over the years that I was very proud of, but, as is the way, some of them get replaced or the company goes out of business. There was a great site for GCHQ, there was all the HTML5 animation stuff for the old version of Pottermore, there was an ambitious crowdfunding website, and plenty more. Maybe I'll make a gallery of some of that stuff. Is it the done thing to post links to the Wayback Machine, where you can actually see some of this stuff? I dunno. Anyway, if you've read this far, congrats, I must be doing something right! Maybe you're looking at this because I applied for a job somewhere, so I hope this has gone some way to convincing you that I can do it!

"varg-hus" (swe - var-ee-us) - home of the wolf

Creating web experiences with personality.

My name's Russ. I'm a web developer, designer, creative technologist and musician, based out of Byram, NJ, USA.

I design and develop websites, applications and interactive experiences. You won't find too many people who have been building websites for over 25 years! I've worked across a wide range of industries - corporate IT, pharma, marketing, gaming, government, recruitment, art and media, and almost everything else. I've lived and worked in the UK, Ireland and the US, and have UK, US and EU citizenship.

Here's a few sites to show you what I've been up to.

Thumbnail image of Gap Inc website

Gap, Inc

Fashion and retail giant.

Tech: Kentico CMS, SCSS, Next.js

Thumbnail image of Sullivan & Cromwell website

Sullivan & Cromwell Inc.

Large legal firm.

Tech: Next.js, Crownpeak CMS

Thumbnail image of National Grid US website

National Grid US

Utility supply company.

Tech: HTML5, CSS3, JS, Crownpeak CMS

Thumbnail image of GCHQ Careers website

GCHQ Careers

Want to work for the British signals intelligence service?

Tech: DNN, HTML5, CSS3, CSS/Canvas animations

Thumbnail image of Francis Bacon website

Francis Bacon

Website for the estate of the late figurative artist.

Tech: Drupal, Wordpress, Angular, WooCommerce

Thumbnail image of JHA website

Joseph Hage Aaronson

London-based law firm.

Tech: Wordpress, CSS animations

Thumbnail image of ADP Workmarket website

ADP Workmarket

Website for ADP's Workmarket independent contractor management solution.

Tech: Next.js, Contentful CMS

Thumbnail image of Margenza website

Margenza

Site for a breast cancer medication.

Tech: HTML5, CSS, Drupal backend, Salesforce omnichannel integration

Thumbnail image of Bafiertam website

Bafiertam

Site for a multiple sclerosis medication.

Tech: Vue.js, Salesforce omnichannel integration

Thumbnail image of Bafiertam website

iMedia

Site for a NJ-based digital agency

Tech: Wordpress, Salesforce integration

Thumbnail image of Gimoti website

Gimoti

Site for a diabetic gastroperesis drug.

Tech: Next.js, Salesforce omnichannel integration

Thumbnail image of Micro Strategies website

Micro Strategies Inc.

Company website for a New Jersey IT services company.

Tech: Wordpress, helpdesk integration

From The Archives

As a web developer, it's inevitable that some of your work will end up being replaced or retired at some point. So I've dug a few of my favourite old projects out of the Wayback Machine. I did a load of Flash-based stuff back in the day too, but I haven't included those here since it's no longer supported!

Thumbnail image of GCHQ Careers website

GCHQ Careers (previous version) (2014)

The interactive content and animations were nicer in this version!

Tech: DNN, CSS/Canvas animations

Thumbnail image of GCHQ Careers website

Funding Tree (2015)

Crowdfunding site for small businesses. No longer active.

Tech: Full custom PHP engine, CSS, HTML5, Angular

Thumbnail image of Kens Autos website

Ken's Autos (2016)

Site for a UK garage chain.

Tech: Custom PHP booking system, with DVLA API lookup

Thumbnail image of Magic Town website

Magic Town (2012)

Kids' storybook application. Loved this, and so did my son!

Tech: CSS/Canvas animation, Flash-to-HTML5 migration, JS, jQuery

Thumbnail image of Sosius website

Sosius (2007)

Innovative (for the time) collaboration and co-working application suite

Tech: HTML, CSS, custom .NET-based CMS and application

Thumbnail image of BT Marketing Services website

BT Marketing Services (2002)

Suite of applications for British Telecom's internal marketing division.

Tech: HTML, CSS, Classic ASP-based application