About Me
…aka: The DJ
I started DJing small warehouse parties when i was 16. I wasn’t anything special. I just had a knack for good music and small following.
When I went away to San Jose State University, I spent a lot of time in the AV rooms creating mixes and countdown shows for my buddy back in L.A. who started a pirate radio station. That went on for a number of years until he got shut down. But I still had a need to share with others what I thought was quality music.
My migration to the internet was a slow one. I started blogging back in 1994 (before i knew what blogging was). Luckily I caught the musical ear of EJ Flavors (www.ejflavors.com), who would go on to school me on music and the internet. I was able to take what i was doing with the pirate radio situation and elevate it. I grabbed this website and began to produce the mix show “Big La Doin’ Big Things” for a couple years.
In 2006, I was contacted by Charles Brown. the owner of a music site called flowink.com (www.flowink.com). A fellow iDJ, after hearing the music he was putting out, I immediately wanted to do something collaborative. Within a few months, I had joined to team as one of the websites DJ’s, phasing out “Big La Doin’ Big Things” and creating a more broader show: “Prototype Of Nu-Soul”. From there I expanded to do a half dozen other shows, which I sitll do to this day.
In 2010, myself and media partners Dantrel “Fave” Robinson, Will Dawson, EJ Flavors and Ken “JustSayKB” Burke came together to start groovmnt.com (www.groovmnt.com), and online media magazine, covering Hip-Hop, Soul and other forms of music from the independent side. I decided the site needed a signature music show to represent it, so I start “The Insomnia Mix”, which was a gumbo pot of our favorite music, as well as experimenting with other lesser-known genres.
My Current Projects/Shows
- Prototype Of Nu-Soul (R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop)
- The Flow Hop (Underground & Independent Hip-Hop)
- The Background Flow (Instrumental Hip-Hop / Experimental Beats)
- The Crates (6-Part Crate Diggin’ mix featuring vintage songs that have been sampled)
- The Artist Spotlight (Hour-long mix focusing on one artist)
- The Flow School Hip-Hop Show (Classic mix of old school Hip-Hop)
- The Insomnia Mix (An “Anything Goes” mix, started at flowink, now exclusively from Groovmnt.com)
..aka: The Designer (Straight To The Portfolio)
I’m a multi-faceted graphic designer that has recently moved to the Lake Merritt area of Oakland. I am currently doing contract work, but looking for a more permanent position inside a design firm, or a marketing/sales department in a large company. Over 15 years of design experience, creating presentations, web sites, and collateral for some of silicon valley’s leading technology companies, including: 3Com, Capcom, Cisco,Cadence, Electronic Arts, Documentum, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Philips Semiconductors, and Sony.
And here’s some key points about my job history. If you feel i’m a good fit for the position, please call me a your earliest convenience:
Presentation Specialist
Motion Media / Video
Website Design
Collateral And Graphic Design
Summary Of Qualifications
- Solid background managing projects, vendors and designers simultaneously
- Provide excellent direction on projects from wireframes to finished products
- Proven track record of integrating different design elements and technologies to produce
- Expertise in design reviews, managing personnel, scheduling, contingency plans, all while maintaining and coming in under budget.
Technical Skills
Skillset: Graphic Design, Web Design and Animation, Presentations, Audio/Video Editing and Production, media network systems, Macintosh workstations and apps
- Adobe CS: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, After Effects.
- Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, FrontPage
- Apple: Final Cut Pro, Motion, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, iWeb, iDVD
- Operating Systems: Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista
- Experience: HTML/DHTML, Javascript/AJAX, PHP, XML, ActionScript, CGI
Education
Studied the art of Radio, Television & Film at San Jose State University. That is where i developed my passion for video compositing and editiing. During that time, I worked at the school Computer Store receiving, selling and servicing Machintosh computers. It was there where I started working with graphic design applications, devloping everything from simple flyers, to multipage print and online catalogs.
Employment History
American Reprographics (2009 — Present)
Contractor: Graphics | Web | Motion Media
Brought on to help marketing with rebanding acquired companies and consolidating existing products into the parent company suite of applications. My duties expanded to product branding videos and motion customer success stories. Finally, I assumed the role of lead designer, helping to manage and then launch product roll outs and service center support.
General Dynamics (2003 — 2007)
Prepress Designer | Digital Press Operator
Brought into the Graphics Support Group as the pre-press professional to service the company’s Project Teams with proposals, media duplication, conference, instructional video projects and graphics creation. From there I expanded my duties to Product Software reproduction/distribution, photographer and videographer.
EMC | Documentum (2001 — 2003)
Presentation Specialist | Infographics Designer
I supported the Sales & Marketing teams as the Presentation Specialist and Graphic Concept creator. I created and refined PowerPoint presentation decks for sales and marketing events. I also turned executive and marketing wireframe concepts to polished, dynamic graphics.
Marimba | BMC Software (2000 — 2001)
Presentation Specialist | Front-end Web Designer
Recruited by the VP of Marketing to be a multi-faceted designer in the re-branding of the company’s web sites and presentations. Working with outside vendors and partners on product campaigns, my responsibilities also included exploring new avenues to create revenue through marketing. I supported the sales force with creating printed and on-screen collateral for better support of established and potential clients. I maintained the look and feel of all major company web sites. I monitored the corporate standards on all print, web and presentation materials.
Cadence Design Systems (1996 — 2000)
Presentation Specialist | Front-end Web Designer
I worked with the Executive Team and sales force to produce quality presentations, which helped generate $1.2 Billion in Revenue. I created key presentations for use by the worldwide sales and marketing teams. I maintain web content for internal and external web sites.
Presentation Specialist
Motion Media / Video
Website Design
Collateral And Graphic Design
Summary Of Qualifications
- Solid background managing projects, vendors and designers simultaneously
- Provide excellent direction on projects from wireframes to finished products
- Proven track record of integrating different design elements and technologies to produce
- Expertise in design reviews, managing personnel, scheduling, contingency plans, all while maintaining and coming in under budget.
Technical Skills
Skillset: Graphic Design, Web Design and Animation, Presentations, Audio/Video Editing and Production, media network systems, Macintosh workstations and apps
- Adobe CS: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, After Effects.
- Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, FrontPage
- Apple: Final Cut Pro, Motion, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, iWeb, iDVD
- Operating Systems: Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista
- Experience: HTML/DHTML, Javascript/AJAX, PHP, XML, ActionScript, CGI
I’ve been an Executive Presentation Specialist for companies such at Cisco, Marimba, Cadence Design Systems and Documentum. I currently create and edit presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote. I used optimized graphics in formats that will yield the best visual output on both screen and print. I utilize the technologies within the applications to create rich, yet simple animations and transitions that create the best presentation.
…aka: The Big La vs. Todd
Never really taking a career in music seriously, Big La vs. Todd (Todd Kelley) has taking his 20+ years of beat-making as a way of expressing himself. Creating his first full-length CD in ‘94, he was content with cataloging his creations and storing them away for his own amusement. As the years went on, he’s gains a solid, loyal fanbase of beat enthusiasts and fellow beatmakers. Armed with a MacBook Pro funning Apple Logic Pro, he constructs his beats exclusively on his laptop.
Not a big fan of today’s Hip-Hop sound, The Big La’s style is reminiscent of the 90’s when sampling was the staple of Hip-Hop production. Sighting current day beatsmiths like 9th Wonder, Nicolay and J Dilla as inspirations, he’s content with making beats that he loves and wants to hear, instead of MTV/BET video style beats.
Collaborative Projects
The Rhythmteachers — “Comfort” (2008)
Solo Projects
…aka: The Photographer
I’ve recently gotten into photography. I dabbled 5-6 years ago, but never took it seriously.
An opportunity opened with my current job to photograph client collateral and signage for a rebrand project. I was handed a Canon Rebel T2i and tasked to take shots for the web, collateral and video projects. (In my opinion) the camera seemed to do most of the work. Lucky for me, I seem to have a good ‘eye’ for framing shots, so what started as a necessity has turned into a nice hobby.
You can see my photography at: http://www.toddkelley.net/photography
…aka: The Writer
Writing has always been the passion of mine that has always taken a back seat to my other creative projects. Not that I love it any less, but I just felt if was my weakest creative outlet.
I started writing with I was a young kid. After watching movies like Star Wars and tv shows like the original Battlestar Galactica, I started writing science fiction stories because I hated that the movies and tv shows had endings. I started writing stories and eventually spanding centuries with new characters and complex plots. My first story took me over a year to let go, reaching 600+ pages handwritten on double-sided lined paper.
In college I took and good crop of creative writing and English classes and excelled at all of them. I even took a scriptwriting class and finished the class in two weeks. when my teacher informed me I should’ve started with the advanced class. Go figure…
I currently have a site that i use as my creative writing outlet. The goal is to right a few ongoing series, short stories, and when I want to flip some scripts.. some poetry (urgh). I don’t think my stuff is ‘publish quality’. It’s just a way to flesh out and fine-tune my creative process.
Another great thing is my primary style is ‘free writing’. I don’t really do outlines and plot out my stories. I like to just start writing and see where the story takes me. The draw back is that I don’t write a lot. I usually start typing when I get the writing bug, which is not very much.
Todd Kelley Writing: http://www.toddkelley.net/writing/
