Our Founder & Lead Designer

Hello, my name is Jessica Miller, founder and lead designer at our little studio. As lead designer, I handle all design and development requirements, from concept art to hand-coding our websites.

I've put together a brief history of my unique road into the web design industry that I hope gives a bit of insight as to what makes our services stand out in a sea of designers.

From there to here

I was born in San Luis Obispo, California, and moved to the Bay Area in my teens. I finished college at San Jose State University, majoring first in Bio-Chemistry, then changing to Computer Science in my fourth year. Sounds like a pretty sharp 180, right? Well, I was actually minoring in Computer Science so it wasn't all that far fetched. Living in the tech capital of the US, it's difficult not to become a computer expert in your spare time. It was second nature.

Many years ago, after reading a book on HTML, I produced my first website as a favor for a friend who was selling a condo. I remember it well; Photoshop 4.0 textures, animated gif's, fancy javascript image rollovers, sound effects.... A laughable website by today's standards. But, I digress...

To my surprise, the website was apparently pretty advanced for late 90's standards. My friend showed it to his manager at Philips Electronics, and shortly thereafter I was asked to interview for one of four internships as a computer engineer. I wasn't planning to pursue a career in the computer industry, but the pay was irresistible to a 20 year old struggling to afford college. So I jumped on the opportunity and, again to my surprise, actually got the job, beating out 3rd and 4th year Computer Science majors from some very prominent universities.

As time went by, I found the job exciting and challenging. I worked at Philips for a good year before permanently switching my major to Comp Sci, and finishing out my education in this field. As a result, my love of the natural sciences took a backseat to my new career path.

My internship evolved into a contract job that lasted several years. I started off in the R&D lab, programming robotic chip testers and creating software interfaces. Our group was one of the first in the industry to utilize XML schemas for designing and developing browser-based interfaces, a concept made mainstream by Apple's revolutionary OSX.

Having gained expertise in markup languages and browser-based scripting, I eventually moved from the R&D branch to the web design department of Philips Headquarters. It was here that I discovered my calling as a web designer. At first I was a web programmer, and along the way found that I had an affinity for graphic design as well. I worked on Philips' internal intranet as well as their consumer electronics websites, creating cutting edge Flash animations and graphic artwork. My spare time was spent back at the university, taking courses in animation, graphic design, communication and marketing to enhance my skill set.

Four years later, when my contract at Philips expired, I took several short-term web design contracts with other top names, including Sony, HP and Sun Micro.

I very much enjoyed being a web designer, but found the corporate world restricting and riddled with red tape. I wanted the freedom to be creative, and to work on diverse projects that weren't always "design by committee" in nature. In response, I started Corvus Design Studio in 2004. I've since moved the entire operation to San Luis Obispo, California, where we operate today.

I could never really abandon my roots in the natural sciences and always try to find ways to interweave the ethereal nature of our planet into my career and life. I named our studio "Corvus" after my favorite genus of birds; crows, ravens, and magpies. The design of our website is an ode to my second love of nature. It's definitely a reflection of me, and I think that's most appropriate since I personally work directly with our clients. I feel it also portrays our artistic design nature. I pride our studio in being artistic, creative and rich in design, and at the same time, always up to date with the latest and greatest in technology and design trends.

I've been a professional designer for 12 years now, and enjoy every aspect of it, from concept development, to print design, to hand-coding HTML and CSS. I take my work very seriously, and I feel personally invested in every project I work on. The kind words and appreciation we continually receive from our clients lets me know that we are right on track with our methodology.

That's my bio in a nutshell. Thank you for taking the time to read it. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments about Corvus Design Studio.