freakdigital brings a variety of skills to bear on each client's project. The skill "definitions" offered here are not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to provide context to the skills and roles sections for a specific project. This list also provides a good overview of the types of proficiencies which freakdigital regularly utilizes. freakdigital tries to continually hone these skills; overconfidence in one's own mastery of a particular skill or technique is particularly dangerous in a rapidly-evolving field like web design.

  • Design: Design refers to the conception and creation of graphic or visual elements or projects. Clearly more esoteric definitions of design as an undertaking or profession exist - but debating these is beyond the scope or intention of this content.
  • Code: Coding can also be understood as "programming" or "development," and refers to the components of the web development process that don't require a graphics or image editing package. Broadly speaking, coding is intended here to serve as a catch-all for web development activity that can be accomplished through a text editor.
  • Information Architecture: Information architecture, also often referred to as IA, is the process of organizing the content of a website into clear and usable sections. While information can be understood broadly to be "organization of information," the context here is limited to the organization and labeling of site content.
  • Photoshop: Adobe Photoshop is arguably the de-facto standard for image editing within the graphic design industry or community. The application excels at manipulating photography or other pixel-based or raster images.
  • Illustrator: Adobe Illustrator is the de-facto standard for vector-based illustration or the creation of images. Vector, in contrast to raster or pixel-based, means that the images retain quality regardless of their scale.
  • XHTML: XHTML extends HTML but does so with a stricter syntax, based on the syntax of XML. (HTML is the language that web pages are written with, and the language that is interpreted by browsers to display a web page.) XHTML's stricter syntax generally results in fewer cross-browser issues, as browsers often interpret loosely-written HTML in surprisingly different ways.
  • CSS: CSS or cascading style sheets are a technology that allow website presentation or look and feel to be separated from the semantic structure or "meaning" of a (web) document.
  • Flash: General: Flash based content for the web can take quite a few forms, but is most generally used for graphic animation or to create custom-designed interfaces or applications.
  • Flash: ActionScript: ActionScript is the scripting or programming language of Flash, and can be used to create or manipulate content programmatically, versus through timeline-based animation.
  • PHP: PHP stands for PHP Hypertext Process, and is a server-side web development language. PHP code is interpreted by the server and output is returned in XHTML to the browser. The use of PHP, or any server-side language for that matter, allows content or data to be brought into a web page dynamically.
  • MySQL: MySQL is an open-source database, that is often paired with PHP in the web development context. Storing information inside of a database allows it to be recalled, sorted and edited efficiently.
  • Sound Design: Sound Design here refers to the use of sound to create mood and effect as part of a project's overall impact.