Overseeing day-to-day operations, hires and revenue streams, and even some production when time allows, Brian has seen ADS grow to an agency with over 300 active clients and a full staff of designers and programmers. With a BA from the Univ. of Missouri, St. Louis (Music Business), he helped begin and run several small businesses there before moving to Chicago in 1991. With a knack for seeing the shortest distance to a given point, he excels at "strategy within budget", having fine-tuned process maps for artwork and web design/dev. for well over a decade.
Brian is a Christian, happily married to his wife Cheryl with two children and new grand daughter Ella. Brian is a bit of an audiophile, a motorcyclist, scuba diver, enjoys science, history, speculative fiction, audio books, and playing chess, poker and especially, drums and percussion. Overheard at his last gig, he touted "I can bend minds with my spoon."
Russell started working at ADS in the winter of 2008. He currently serves double duty as a web developer and Artistic Digital's server guy. Russell works on a bit of everything on the web side- slicing websites, building online applications, and making sure the servers run smoothly. His diploma is from Beloit College- a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Philosophy.
Outside the shop, Russell will either be rock climbing, playing ultimate frisbee, or geeking out with videogames and quality science fiction TV.
Currently a former resident of Hungary, Adam recently became a real person—he has a job and everything. He got a B.A. in Mathematics (he likes to think he is a B.A. in Mathematics) from Beloit College. He likes math for the pretty stuff, and the thinking bits, all of which may help him in his future career as a web designer / developer, copywriter and author of books that no one will read.
Gregory is the programming padawan of ADS, hailing from Texas. He recieved his Computer Graphics and Animation degree from DePaul University, and quickly started making a living as an underpaid web developer.
He has a peculiar encyclopedic knowledge of esoteric, 80's references, jazz music, and videogame scores. He speaks Hindi, Spanish, and Yuroba and adores Streetfighter and riding his fixed gear bicycle.
Karen Larson hails from Lakewood, Colorado, and recently graduated from Lake Forest College as an English Creative Writing major and theater minor. Her first love was theater, closely followed by writing, which was closely followed by every other form of art, including photography and music. From a young age, she voraciously wrote fiction and poetry and has continued to enjoy pursuing the depths of the written word. She is now expanding her talents to web development, graphic design, and marketing.
You can visit her website to view samples of her work outside of work.
Matt is a former member of ADS's web development team. For three years, his responsibilities included slicing website designs, Content Management System integration and building custom back-end systems. Matt started working at ADS after graduating from Beloit College in 2007 where he received his Bachelors degree in Computer Science. While at ADS, Matt grew from simply building contact forms to building and managing one of our largest and complex projects. Matt is currently living/working in Oregon and is available to us on an as-needed basis. When not working, he generally will be spending time playing video games or slinging dice around the RPG table with friends.
Dan Davis-Boxleitner has been programming and developing websites since 1999. He finds that the best web experiences come from close contact between the client and the developers in order to develop a meaningful project plan, resulting in websites which contain only what is needed and are easily accessible. His experience building online stores and constructing content management systems mean he is able to aid in delivering effective turnkey solutions. It has been said that he tackles projects without hesitation and completes them on time
A former member of ADS, Shawn attended Kentucky Wesleyan College and graduated with a B.A. in Communications with an Emphasis in Advertising in 2004. Working as a Catalog Production Manager before joining the ADS staff, Shawn continues to assist in creative work including print and web design. Shawn currently resides in Scottsdale, AZ.
When Shawn's not pushing pixels, he loves watching sports, being outdoors, riding bikes, playing with his dog, and dominating lawn sports.
My creative career began in 1993 with a position at a Chicago business publisher where I honed my computer design and production
skills and even followed jobs all the way through to the on site printing presses.
For the next several years I chose a creative contractor path in which I worked for a variety of marketing and advertising firms
on a project basis. Some of these were longer term commitments, such as those for Frankel, Ambrosi & Associates, Stephen B. Starr
Design, McDougel Littell and Lain & Associates. The work I did consisted of either art directing projects from concept to completion
or supporting other art directors in any manner of preparing such work.
After 12 years of providing creative services to some leading marketing firms on a contractor basis, I incorporated as
Robert Grillo Creative, prompted by a shift in my career goals from just
keeping myself busy to growing a larger business built on a team of professionals.