Christian Budschedl (born 1981), better known as Kriesi, is an Austrian
web designer
Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code an ...
, digital author, technologist, founder of Kriesi.at, and co-founder of Givester. Kriesi, as one of the first digital template authors at Envato,
has been responsible for popularizing the
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 (also known as participative (or participatory) web and social web) refers to websites that emphasize user-generated content, ease of use, participatory culture, and interoperability (i.e., compatibility with other products, systems, a ...
design style and website layouts
currently used by thousands of web designers. He was named as one of the five most influential living
Human-Computer Interaction digital trendsetters in a 2012 Ben-Gurion University study of global web design techniques.
Biography
Kriesi was heavily involved in
Flash
Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Fictional aliases
* The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed:
** Flash (Jay Garrick)
** Barry Allen
** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...
ActionScript programming
while still a
CIS student at the
Vienna University of Technology
TU Wien () is a public research university in Vienna, Austria.
The university's teaching and research are focused on engineering, computer science, and natural sciences. It currently has about 28,100 students (29% women), eight faculties, and ...
in the early 2000s. In 2004, Kriesi started to become disillusioned with the monotony of the long daily hours of writing repetitive code, which he realized was an unsatisfactory outlet for his creativity.
Kriesi left the university, and enrolled at
SAE Institute
The SAE Institute (SAE) and SAE University College (in Australia), formerly the School of Audio Engineering and the SAE Technology College and badged SAE Creative Media Education, is a network of colleges around the world that provides creativ ...
studying front end web development techniques using
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
,
CSS and later
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...
and
JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior.
Web browsers have ...
. After graduation, Kriesi began working for a small digital agency where he became experienced with all aspects of the website development life-cycle.
In a 2011 interview, Kriesi credits this experience with giving him a competitive advantage over his colleagues who may be experts in one or more narrow facets of programming or design, yet have little understanding or experience in other equally important areas of the development lifecycle. Kriesi explained in multiple interviews that the aphorism "
jack of all trades
"Jack of all trades, master of none" is a figure of speech used in reference to a person who has dabbled in many skills, rather than gaining expertise by focusing on only one.
The original version, "a jack of all trades", is often used as a com ...
" best describes his philosophy that separates him from others, who he concedes might be more talented as programmers or have a sharper eye for design, yet lack the broad experience required to become a success in the current digital market as an independent designer.
References
{{Reflist
External links
Official WebsiteFreelance Web Designer
1981 births
Living people
Flash artists
Austrian digital artists
Web designers