Hot Knife Design, Inc., is a Boston-area Web design contracting and consulting firm with 10 years of experience developing Web sites and applications.

At Hot Knife, Jon is responsible for visual design and project management.

He has ten years of experience creating compelling user experiences for Web sites and Web applications. Jon’s visual design work has garnered several American Graphic Design Awards, the Apex Award, and other industry recognition. Jon’s first design job was for Saul Bellow’s literary magazine, News from the Republic of Letters, and he has a passion for typography, its history, and its proper use in design.

Jon is an internationally published author on the topics of user experience and information design. He contributes regularly to Web industry publications UXmatters, Digital Web and A List Apart. His articles have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Jon is active in professional associations including the Boston Web Innovators Group, the Interaction Design Association (IxDA), the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Boston Chapter, and the User Experience Network (UXnet). He is a past member of the AIGA, the professional association for design.

Selected Clients, Contracts, and Employers:
DF King, New York Public Library, Scenic Hudson, Glance Networks, Concert Pharmaceuticals, State of Massachusetts Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission

Matthew Holm is an accomplished writer, artist, and Web developer.

For eight years, he was an editor at the Hearst Corporation's 1.6 million-circulation Country Living Magazine, where he wrote about topics ranging from home-building, architecture, and historic preservation to food, travel, and current events. His freelance work has included a great deal of science writing, making the research of Ph.D.'s accessible to a lay audience.

At Hot Knife, Matt is a CSS consultant and HTML/ASP developer. He also skins off-the-shelf blogging/CMS software such as WordPress, Blogger, and ExpressionEngine. Matt acts as a copy writer and an information architect as needed, using his writing and editing skills to organize the structure and content of clients' Web sites in the most clear, logical, and approachable manner possible, and employing his considerable talents as an illustrator to craft wireframes and paper prototypes to aid in the design, testing, and building of Web sites.

Matt is Vice Chair of the Computer-Human Interaction Forum of Oregon (CHIFOO, the Oregon chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction), and a participant in and volunteer for both the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) and the User Experience Network (UXnet).

In addition to his work in the on-line world, Matt is also a professional children’s book illustrator, and is active in the children’s literature and reading education communities. More than a million copies of his award-winning, critically acclaimed Babymouse graphic novels (published by Random House) are currently in print.

Selected Clients, Contracts, and Employers:
DF King, New York Public Library, Scenic Hudson, AnswerThink, NeoVision HeatMaps, Hearst New Media, Random House, American Library Association

Seth Aaronson is the principal partner of Amset Software, a software solutions company founded in 1991.

Seth has been working in the computer industry for more than 20 years. He has held positions including technical support and training, software engineer, and vice president of software development. He has implemented and maintained embedded systems, digital video and image processing applications, large scale multimedia presentations, and both static and interactive internet applications.

Seth has been a founding member of several Boston area companies. His last startup, Fantasy Entertainment, is a manufacturer and operator of digital photo kiosks. During the seven years that Seth was with Fantasy Entertainment, revenue grew to more than $50 million in domestic and international sales. As part of the founding group, Seth helped set up the technical support, MIS, and software development departments. His responsibilities included project planning, new product conceptualization and design, software architecture and development, existing product maintenance, and vendor contact.

Seth is a member of the IEEE Consultants Network, working with the steering committee to increase the outreach of the organization.

Seth graduated summa cum laude from Boston University with a bachelor of science in computer science. His technical skills include C/C++, Java, HTML, XML, web scripting languages, SQL and database concepts, and many standard desktop applications.

Selected Clients, Contracts, and Employers:
Blue State Digital, Oasis Open, Air2App Wireless Telemtry Inc, Fantasy Entertainment Inc, Micro Visual Systems Inc, AB Lasers Inc, Fisher Pierce Inc, Setforth Research Institute for New Media Technology, Beth Israel Hospital, Museum of Science, Boston

Dan Pickett, Principal at Enlight Solutions, Inc., is a consultant in Boston, MA.

He is heavily interested in the process of software development and Agile methodologies. Dan has been programming with Ruby and Rails for three years. He has been responsible for the technological architecture and leadership behind sites like www.gazelle.com and www.frightcatalog.com. Dan has a passion for leadership, and making developers better by evangelizing best practices.

Selected Clients, Contracts, and Employers:
Gazelle.com, FrightCatalog.com

Anand Athavale is a veteran Web developer who has been in the industry for well over 10 years.

Anand started at Merck developing application for the Bioinformatics group and since then has worked in academia, with start-ups, and with private industry. His projects have included mutli-million records Oracle databases, business Web sites of all kinds, and small Web applications.

Anand is also interested in the areas of social networking and social media, helping individuals and companies navigate the uncharted waters of the modern Internet.

Anand has a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Fergusson College and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology/Biology from Temple University. He is an avid soccer player and devourer of books.

Kevin has been conducting various forms of user research and usability tests since 2003. By tailoring user feedback to match the design process, his goal is to help designers solve real user problems.

As a consultant, he has helped design firms large and small build sites and Web applications with a user focus for companies such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Century21, and The Poetry Foundation.

Kevin holds a bachelor's degree in Technical Communication from Mercer University and a master's degree in Human Factors in Information Design from Bentley College. He is an active member of the Boston chapters of the Usability Professionals Association and the Human Computer Interaction Special Interest Group of the ACM.

Outside of the Web, Kevin enjoys reading bad fiction, running slowly, and attempting to fish.

Selected Clients, Contracts, and Employers:
American Power Conversion, Fidelity Investments, SolidWorks, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Century21, Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, RTI Biologics, nGen Works, Tierra Innovation, Grafica Group, and The Poetry Foundation.

With nine years of experience in Web site/Web application design—from business requirements analysis to HTML production—Anne is an expert in visual and graphic design for the Web. She has deep knowledge of Web-enabled application user interface design.

While working at Fidelity Investments, the largest mutual fund company in the United States and a leading online brokerage firm, Anne redesigned the online account opening workflow/interface for most Fidelity retail products, the online statement section of Fidelity.com, the Alerts section of Fidelity.com, and portions of the online stock option management interface.

Anne received a Bachelor of Arts in English at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, and enjoys running, reading, travel, and photography.

Selected Clients, Contracts, and Employers:
EMC, Experience, Fidelity Investments, Investors Bank and Trust, Mercer Management Consulting, Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, Massachusetts Teachers Association, Seaport Hotel and Conference Center, and Veritude.

Joy has over 7 years experience in product marketing, management, and visual merchandising.

At Hot Knife she serves as senior designer on select client engagements and as the marketing point person. Joy formerly worked for the Web firm Smartec while living in Madrid, Spain, and provided visual design for college-focused Web magazine Student.com.

Joy was on the Ann Taylor retail management team, serving at the brand's $7 million site, the top volume flagship store in New England. As the store Visual Manager, she was in charge of product presentation and coordination.

Joy graduated summa cum laude from Boston University College of Communications with a graphic design focus and enjoys reading, dancing, and music. Joy also speaks Spanish and hopes to see Hot Knife expand into international opportunities.

Selected Clients, Contracts, and Employers:
Ann Taylor Stores, Clearwater Productivity, Imaging Joy, New York Public Library, Smartec (Madrid, Spain), Student.Com, Student Advantage, Xtremeclean