Jacques Wessels - Freelance Web Developer, Designer and Illustrator
Jacques Wessels
web development • design • illustration
About
I am a freelance web developer and designer with over eight years combined experience in the web development and retail marketing industries.
I have successfully delivered projects across the stack and worked in a variety of roles, including functioning as lead developer and providing training for junior developers and interns. The projects I have worked on range from small WordPress websites to large CRM systems and providing integration layers for accounting software.
I am currently based in Brackenfell, but I am open to remote work both locally and internationally.
Front End Development
Progressive Web Apps
Progressive web applications use a suite of features available to modern browsers to provide visitors to a website with experiences similar to those provided by native applications on their devices.
These features may include functionality such as push notifications, offline availability, installation to the device home screen and access to the device's hardware.HTML 5
HTML is a markup language used to structure content displayed on the World Wide Web.
Done correctly, semantic HTML provides applications such as web browsers and screen readers with context for its content, while offloading responsibility for the display and styling of the content to the accompanying CSS.CSS 3
CSS is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of the content provided by the HTML document.
It allows the developer to provide the browser with instructions on how, or even if, to display the elements on the web page, including animations and conditional formatting.JavaScript
JavaScript, alongside HTML and CSS, is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web. While HTML provides the structure, and CSS the styling, JavaScript allows the website to react to user input and exposes many more advanced features to the developer.
Back End Development
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language most often used on web servers to generate the content served to web browsers.
It can be used to create large systems built around database connections, to collect, organise and manipulate the data, and to provide meaningful output to the users of the web application.Node.js
While JavaScript used to be mostly relegated to client-side scripting in the user's browser, Node provides a framework that allows developers to perform server-side scripting while making use of JavaScript's syntax and asynchronous nature.
In a server environment it can be used to organise, manipulate and generate content in the same way as other scripting languages such as PHP, Ruby or Python.
Data Storage
MySQL
MySQL is a popular Open Source database management system. MySQL databases are relational in nature, meaning the information contained within is stored in a tabular structure using rows and columns across multiple tables.
These tables can have clearly defined relationships between them, allowing developers to easily determine which entries belong together for purposes such as reporting.Microsoft SQL Server
MSSQL is a database management system developed and maintained by Microsoft.
Like MySQL, its databases are relational, meaning information is stored into and retrieved from tabular entities with clearly defined relationships.Firebird SQL
Firebird is an Open Source database management system originally based on a version of InterBase.
Like MySQL and MSSQL, it uses relational databases to store its information.
Design Software
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is an industry standard graphics editor used a variety of applications ranging from manipulation of an existing image to providing a canvas for digital art.
While capable of manipulating vector images, it is most often used for raster image editing, where an image is composed of multiple pixels rather than a mathematical equation.Adobe Illustrator
Where Photoshop is mostly concerned with the manipulation of raster images, Illustrator provides a toolset geared towards vector image editing.
Vector graphics are defined in terms of points and mathematical formulas, giving them the ability to be scaled infinitely without loss of detail. This is in contrast to raster images, which are composed of sets of pixels, where scaling leads to loss of information.Adobe InDesign
InDesign is a desktop publishing and typesetting application used for the creation of layouts for items such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, books and presentations.
Individual elements and graphics are usually created in other applications such as Photoshop or Illustrator, and then combined into a proper layout and typeset using InDesign.
Frameworks and Libraries
WordPress
WordPress is an Open Source Content Management System written in PHP and deployed alongside a MySQL or MariaDB database.
While originally created for use as a blogging platform, it has since been expanded to support additional content types, including forums, media galleries, membership sites and e-commerce sites.jQuery
jQuery is a JavaScript library designed to simplify manipulation and traversal of the DOM tree generated by the web browser, based on the HTML document returned by the web server.
While no longer an absolute requirement in websites from the perspective of providing cross-browser support and consistency, it still remains one of the most popular frameworks used on the web today.
Version Control
Git
Git is a version control system that allows developers to track and save change in source code during the software development life-cycle.
Features such as branching and having a distributed nature enables multiple developers to safely work on the same project without stepping on each other's toes, and provides a handy backup of the source code.Subversion
Apache Subversion is a version control system much like Git, allowing multiple developers to work together on the same codebase while maintaining separate branches as well as a history of changes made to the source code.
Portfolio
Snippets
Snippets are small illustrations or prototypes created to provide a proof of concept, test out a new idea or training in a new skill. The complete catalogue is available on my GitHub account.
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