Co-Founder/Creative Director, chromatrope.com
Greater New York City Area
- Current
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- Co-Founder / Creative Director at Chromatrope
- Past
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- Creative Director - Chromatrope at Buckminster Fuller Instutute
- Creative Director/Co-Managing Director at Think New Ideas / answerThink
- Senior Designer/Creative Lead at Organic Online
- Senior Designer/Creative Lead at ACI-Interactive / RareMedium, Inc.
- Senior Designer at Headland Digital Media
- Freelance Designer at DS arts (Sole Proprietorship)
- Senior Digital Artist, Prototype Developer at Architectural Glass Design
- Designer/Conceptualizer at Graj + Gustavsen
- Art Director at R. Bonder Advertising
- Freelance Designer at Studio Three (Self-employed)
- Education
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- Fashion Institute of Technology
- Recommended
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5 people have recommended Joe - Connections
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connections
- Industry
- Design
- Websites
Joe Skopek’s Summary
I have been a professional designer since 1984, during which time I have worked in a variety of design arenas in both New York and San Francisco. This includes independent freelance, in-house design team and corporate agency work, both traditional and interactive. I co-wrote the book "web media magic", taught a class on design process, invented an architectural glass art process and have been a featured speaker at a variety of events including MacWorld2000.
More recently I have been the creative lead for chromatrope.com - an interdisciplinary design team with colleagues linked virtually across the globe. Projects have taken me to such lovely places as China, Czech Republic, Hawaii, Honduras, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Spain and throughout the United States. I speak several kitchen languages and currently reside in a 1946 Bungalow I am restoring near the banks of Oyster Bay on Long Island just outside the city limits of New York USA.
Joe Skopek’s Specialties:
Business Development, Individual Branding, Conceptual Development, Graphic design, Interactive Design, Environmental Design, Brand Development, Identity
Joe Skopek’s Experience
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Co-Founder / Creative Director
Chromatrope
(Partnership; 1-10 employees; NA; Design industry)
April 2000 — Present (9 years 4 months)
As creative director I am the brand compass and storyline tailor for Chromatrope.
Beginning in May of 2000, I assembled a group of my long-time colleagues from San Francisco and New York. Together we created a collaborative multi-disciplinary design studio that makes full use of the virtual nature of the internet bringing together teams from around the globe.
One of the first organizations attracted to this unique process was the Buckminster Fuller Institute. Chromatrope provides a wide array of services including Graphic Design, Content Development, Conceptual Development, Interactive/Multimedia and Industrial Design.
www.chromatrope.com -
Creative Director - Chromatrope
Buckminster Fuller Instutute
(Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Civic & Social Organization industry)
2001 — 2005 (4 years)
The Buckminster Fuller Institute is a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1983 and inspired by the ideas and discoveries pioneered by the late R. Buckminster Fuller. BFI's constituency crosses disciplinary boundaries and includes people working in the fields of art, architecture, design, education, engineering, information technology, economics, the environment, mathematics, planning, science, and systems theory.
In addition to producing an array of collateral materials, trade show booth and logos the major project that Chromatrope conceived and developed was the EARTHscope™ online geo-story-telling tool and EARTHscope™ Library. -
Creative Director/Co-Managing Director
Think New Ideas / answerThink
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; ANSR; Marketing and Advertising industry)
December 1998 — April 2000 (1 year 5 months)
At Think New Ideas, it was my responsibility to manage and work with design, technical new business and executive staff, executing the first large scale web projects for Visa, Avery Dennison and Getty Images, as well as creating interactive TV, radio and print campaigns for LawOnline, eBates Tony Stone and TurboLinux. During my tenure, I grew the staff from 7 to 58, reduced project turn-around time and weathered two name changes. In addition to various company speaking engagements I was also a featured speaker for Getty Images at MacWorld 2000.
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Senior Designer/Creative Lead
Organic Online
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; OMC; Marketing and Advertising industry)
July 1998 — November 1998 (5 months)
While with Organic, I was instrumental in the creation of websites for Broderbund (Ages of Myst), Levi's, and an early version of starbucks.com. I was also responsible for overseeing junior designers and teaching a design overview class at the University of California - Santa Cruz.
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Senior Designer/Creative Lead
ACI-Interactive / RareMedium, Inc.
(Public Company; 11-50 employees; RRRR; Marketing and Advertising industry)
April 1998 — July 1998 (4 months)
My role at ACI was to develop websites and Interactive CDRoms for the financial services industry that enabled users to review the pros and cons of certain financial planning methods. One of the challenges of the position was to create visually compelling designs for a variety of users.
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Senior Designer
Headland Digital Media
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Retail industry)
January 1996 — April 1998 (2 years 4 months)
My work with Headland was focused on web and CDROM. One of my responsibilities was to to bring National Geographics CD ROMs "108 Years of National Geographic" and "Photographers of National Geographic" to a wider audience via the web. I also created marketing websites for the series Rough Guide to Travel, National Geographic's GeoBee Challenge & Swingin Safari and Stephen King's Dark Tower IV . I developed jump pages for Penguin/Putnam Publishing International, created branding concept and packaging for netWAR (an early online multiplayer) and designed a downloadable screen saver for Dreamworks film "Amistad".
Headland was an in-house full service design studio for Pearson Publishing creating a majority of the marketing materials, both online and traditional, for the company worldwide. -
Freelance Designer
DS arts (Sole Proprietorship)
(Sole Proprietorship; 1-10 employees; Design industry)
February 1995 — January 1996 (1 year)
I completed projects with Nvest Technology and a variety of Silicon Valley start-ups. I created a complete corporate ID package, developed marketing materials and acted as art director for the company's website. I co-authored the book, WebMedia Magic (IDG Publishers), with Kevin Hampton; targeting traditional graphic designers making the transition to interactive.
During this time I worked out of my home studio with a massive 56k modem and collaborated virtually with early adopters on the internet. -
Senior Digital Artist, Prototype Developer
Architectural Glass Design
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Glass, Ceramics & Concrete industry)
January 1993 — November 1995 (2 years 11 months)
My role with AGD was a challenging mix of design collaboration and production solution in the creation of large scale architectural art glass installations. Working in a team environment, I created marketing materials, proposal graphics and supervised final production. I developed and implemented a computer based solution for mass producing the patented "inner-lite" art glass units which were previously hand-cut. This new process cut hours off the production time and enabled the company to expand the product line. It was utilized by such notable architects as Frank Gehry, Richard Meier and I.M. Pei. I have been fortunate to see my work grace such diverse locations as a Hospital in Utah to a Mosque in Kuala Lumpur.
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Designer/Conceptualizer
Graj + Gustavsen
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Apparel & Fashion industry)
March 1990 — December 1992 (2 years 10 months)
G+G is a branding / marketing firm involved in re-positioning and strategic planning of apparel products and companies. I began working freelance in 1986 as a traditional graphic designer and increased to full time in 1990, creating textile designs, placement graphics, packaging and logos, working on turn-key concepts for Discovery Store and Terrasystems. In 1993, I moved to San Francisco, but continued to work with the company as a conceptualizer long-distance for several years.
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Art Director
R. Bonder Advertising
(Marketing and Advertising industry)
January 1988 — February 1990 (2 years 2 months)
As art director, I had the privilege of working closely with Ronne´ Bonder in the fine art of type design and advertising. He is one of the originators of photo typesetting and a principal at International Type Corp. My role was to bring his concepts to life. I worked with a team of artists, writers and photographers for the national campaigns of BASF, Citibank/Citicorp and European American Bank.
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Freelance Designer
Studio Three (Self-employed)
(Self-Employed; Myself Only; Design industry)
June 1984 — December 1988 (4 years 7 months)
During the early eighties I worked around NYC as a freelance designer on everything from trade show booths to graphic design for the apparel industry. It was during this time that I met one my mentors, Simon Graj, who opened my eyes to all that design could accomplish.
Joe Skopek’s Education
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Fashion Institute of Technology
Visual Merchandising 1984 — 1986
- Activities and Societies:
- Delta Omicron Tau - Co-Founder/Vice President 1985-1986
Student Leader - Outdoors Club
DJ - WFIT radio
Additional Information
Joe Skopek’s Websites:
Joe Skopek’s Groups:
Fifth International Symposium on Digital Earth - Berkeley, California - 2007
International Symposium on Digital Earth - Brno, Czech Republic - 2003
PlaNetwork Conference - "Networking a Sustainable Future" - Featured Speaker - California - 2003
United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) South Africa, Representative-BFI -2002
Chinese Academy of Sciences. Bejing, China - Representative EARTHscope - 2002
MacWorld 2000 - featured speaker - Getty Images
University of California, Santa Cruz. - Teacher, Design Overview Class -1998
Founding Member: International Society for Digital Earth, isde5.org
Joe Skopek’s Honors:
Member: Art Directors Club, NYC - 1989
Joe Skopek’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
