Changelog · 1994 — 2026
One designer.
Five eras.
Two decades of making things for the screen — from hand-coded pages in San Francisco to agentic builds in Binghamton, with every version of this site preserved along the way. Scroll the decades.
First hardware test 😉
Stuck a paperclip in a socket in kindergarten — my first hardware test. (Survived to tell the tale.)
Dr. Brain, Thinkin’ Things & SimCity
Built and swapped parts on several computers. Learned basic programming from Castle of Dr. Brain — programming a robotic arm through a maze — and Thinkin’ Things, where you choreographed a marching band halftime show one command at a time. SimCity opened a world of emergent programming — which is why it’s the GOAT 🐐
theawesome.tk
Built my first website at theawesome.tk — a curated collection of the best and coolest things on the internet, so I could share them with my friends. Because that’s what you do with websites, right? That, and crunchy cringey 90s GIF art. Also learned Photoshop along the way, and attempted to download all the world’s music and movies and burn them all to my own personal CD & DVD collection — brilliant! #agedlikemilk
University of California – Davis
Studied Landscape Architecture and Electrical Engineering — design thinking and systems thinking, side by side.
Moved to San Francisco
Moved to San Francisco to work for my first start-up — the Bay Area chapter begins.
Joined PiCycle
Head of Operations & Web Design at PiMobility — the striking single-arch electric bicycle that hits 2000 MPGe. Ran the shop, assembled bikes, produced promo videos, and designed & built PiCycle.com from scratch.
Onward Electric Cycles
Founded Onward Electric Cycles LLC with my dad — the first company I built from scratch. We invented a hydraulic e-bike drive system that thought completely outside the electrical box, iterating until a pedal-powered pump hit 10–15 PSI.
City CarShare / Carma
Designer & EV Tech at the nation’s first carsharing company — managed a ~50-vehicle PHEV & BEV fleet, handled repairs and maintenance, and launched a pilot electric bikeshare, one of the first in the country. Also contributed web design, mobile app UI concepts, photography, and promo video.
TechShop fabrication
Took 30+ classes at TechShop — wood, metal, and 3D fabrication, CNC, 3D scanning, and 3D modeling. Learning to make things with your hands, not just pixels. Favorite tool of all: the lasercutter — from an “I’d cross the bay for you” card to client signage down the road.
UX Design Immersive at General Assembly
Completed the UX Design Immersive at General Assembly in San Francisco — research, prototyping, and human-centered design, formalized.
Safe Harbor wins Global Entrepreneurship Summit 🏆
A weekend hackathon at the GES for an app helping victims of domestic abuse find shelter — research, pivot, prototype, and a win on the global stage.
Safe Harbor Case Study →Nuanced Design Founded v1.0
Officially founded in 2017 — though the freelance years and first paying clients on the West Coast began back in 2015. Every line typed by hand in San Francisco, back when that’s what “building a website” meant. jQuery, Featherlight lightboxes, and a Creative Commons badge in the footer.
Cost Plus World Market
Contract web developer in Alameda — built store-opening pages, promotion pages, navigation, and custom layouts for WorldMarket.com. Unified their style guide and fixed broken layouts; design chops meeting dev chops across a cross-functional team.
v2.0 — “Hi, I’m Ben.” Version
Peak-jQuery internet: a full-bleed splash photo, a time-of-day greeting script, and one big hello. The web was a front door, and this one stayed open for years.
Visit v2.0 →Origin Materials
Corporate website for a sustainable-materials innovator — Craft CMS build, front-end design, and close collaboration with their marketing team through launch.
LoanPal
Enterprise web work for LoanPal — now GoodLeap — one of the largest home-improvement and solar-financing platforms in the U.S.
Trendgraphix
Full redesign and custom-coded build for Trendgraphix — real estate data and marketing insights for agents and homebuyers.
More client work
Custom-coded builds and full redesigns across the Bay Area and beyond.
Moved to Binghamton, NY
West Coast chapter closed, Southern Tier opened — new hometown, same studio, fresh ground to build on.
Joined Blackfern Media
Stepped in as web designer for Blackfern Media — real estate photography, corporate work, and the web presence to match.
Rancho Bombero hits Men’s Health
The ranch-born body oil brand — designed and built here — lands a national press feature.
View case study →v3.0 — The Portfolio, Reforged Current
Designed by Theo, built alongside AI agents. Enterprise case studies, a curated archive, floating reviews, and a GSAP-driven landing experience — the site you’re standing in.
Back to v3.0 →Nuanced Studios launches
The product arm of Nuanced Design — homegrown apps designed, built, and shipped in-house, no client briefs required.
Explore the studio →Last Seen in the Twilight Zone launches
A true-crime podcast about missing people from the real-life “Twilight Zone” — Binghamton, NY, hometown of Rod Serling.
Listen to the show →Lighthouse Apps founded
A new app studio — homegrown products designed, built, and shipped in-house from the ground up.
Atlas Freight Case Study →The enterprise turn
Flux Energy ($1B+ in wind assets) and Atlas Freight ship — full-stack product work, designed and engineered end to end.
Flux Energy Case Study →Same craft, new tools. See you at v4.
More about Theo today →