MikeGolus UX Designer/Developer

I love to create.

With experience going as far back as 2004, I excel in the creation of effective, elegant, and intuitive user interfaces and experiences. My substantial knowledge in both design and coding gives me an edge when bridging the often present gap between the worlds of UX/UI design and front-end development.

I spent 8 years working for a branding and marketing agency as both an art director and lead interactive developer. I headed the design and front-end development of a variety of interactive websites and applications with keen attention to brand identity and marketing strategy. In my current UX design role at an enterprise software company, I see projects through framing, ideation, prototyping and validation, and operate as a design consultant for the development teams building new applications and features.

In my free time, I enjoy hiking, rock climbing, landscaping, woodworking, and many other outdoor activities with my wife Emily and son David. I'm an avid music artist and can often be found in my home recording studio working on my latest album. I also occasionally daydream of one day flying with the best of them in the US National Drone Racing Championship, but mostly stick with less competitive freestyle flying.

Oh, I'm also on CodePen and Instagram.

Elk River Club

The Problem

Elk River Club's website was beginning to feel dated. It wasn't optimized for devices, the navigation had become bloated, and it lacked the ability to feature some of the club's stunning photography.

The Solution

I crafted the new site's design system to allow the club to feature an abundance of beautiful, attention grabbing photography and videography. The site's unique and versatile page and section layouts were designed and built to be flexible and to allow a content specialist to easily build visually stunning and interesting pages for all the club's amenities.

BJU After School Help

The Problem

Bob Jones University Press needed to bring their textbook material and resources into the modern era of laptops, phones and tablets.

The Solution

I helped design and develop the front-end interface for After School Help. This product was created for Bob Jones University Press to present supporting textbook material online, offer interactive courses and course practice, and serve to connect teachers, parents, and students.

Sailfish Point

The Problem

Sailfish Point's old website was failing to draw attention to the stunning real estate and vistas that their location in Stuart, FL has to offer.

The Solution

I designed Sailfish Point's new website to feature large photos of their location and real estate and make the experience of Sailfish front and center. The newly added featured listings section on the home page and the redesigned listing detail page make their available properties easy to explore and clearly presents the site visitor with next steps.

World of Vindor

The Problem

Recently published local author Emily Golus needed to get the intricate details of the world she created in front of her target audience.

The Solution

I created the online experience of World of Vindor not just as an interesting website but as an immersive experience with captivating visuals and alluring sound design. After extensive research into current social media sharing standards the site was carefully crafted to accomodate successful sharing accross the major social platforms and to allow Emily to launch effective inbound marketing campaigns.

GFA Missions

The Problem

The GFA Missions online presence was severely lacking strong branding and effective communication. Their poor online user experience was actually a turn off to potential mission partners, short-term missionaries, and donors.

The Solution

I designed GFA's new website to draw the visitor in and show them what GFA does and how they can play a role in GFA's mission to reach the world with the Gospel, to train leaders, and to plant churches. The website's interface makes it easy for the visitor to receive updates on missionaries, to give to support the ministry or to find available missions opportunities.

Builder People

The Problem

As partners, SK Builders and McAlister Realty offer their clients a wide range of services. Their new website needed to inform users of these services, establish their credibility in the upstate, and allow users to explore all of their available communities and construction options.

The Solution

The client can now use their custom CMS to build up a collection of floorplans, communities, and homes for sale. With all these items being related to each other in the database, the users can explore the abundance of available floorplan options, see how they can customize them within each community, and get specific and detailed pricing information.