I’m Kasia Gawlak, a self-taught website development, media design, content creation, and marketing professional residing in Edmonton, AB. I specialize in clean, modern, and user-friendly website concepts, with a focus on customizing and implementing for WordPress, the popular, full-featured open source content management platform.
Throughout my 12 year career, I’ve gained experience in multimedia & video production, print & graphic design, search engine optimization, online marketing initiatives, traffic analysis/reporting, and copywriting for a variety of mediums.
I have a degree in English Literature from the University of Alberta, and I’ve held several marketing communications positions for companies of varying sizes, from small start-ups to large international organizations.
More recently, I’ve expanded into public relations and event promotions/planning. I’m passionate about internet culture and social media. I’m an avid participant on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, and enjoy helping clients use these tools to promote their brands, products and/or services.
You might describe me as a “one stop shop” — a creative professional with twelve years’ experience who can design, code, write, edit, analyze, promote, publicize, organize, and who is plugged into the pulse of online culture. I love expanding my knowledge and skill set by diving into new challenges, and 100% of my capabilities, creativity, passion, and potential go into every project I work on.
My professional background.
I became interested in website design & development as a student at the University of Alberta. This was 1996, long before “blog” became a household word or content management systems were accessible to everyone, and personal home pages were all the rage. I wanted to stake out my own little corner of cyberspace, and set about teaching myself the basics of HTML and simple graphic design techniques using the software available at the campus computer labs and whatever free programs I could get my hands on to install on my Macintosh Performa at home.
Website creation quickly became a passion for me, and I spent as much time outside of class and work as possible trying out bigger and better concepts as I acquired new and more advanced skills, constantly revising and rebuilding my home page. Whenever I encountered a new technique that I wanted to try, I dove into the code, figured out how it was done, and then replicated it for my own requirements. I’ve continued using this approach all through my career, eventually teaching myself about PHP/mySQL and Adobe Creative Suite as well as HTML. (more …)
I graduated from the U of A with my degree in English Lit in 2000, and immediately took a full-time position in Marketing Communications with a small software start-up. I was hired primarily as a copywriter, and in that capacity worked on marketing collateral, press releases, website copy, technical documents, and positioning papers. A year later, I was promoted to Product Marketing Specialist. Copywriting was still my main focus, but my role expanded to some trade show/event planning, and website/graphic design work. I moved from there to another independent software development company in late 2003, in a similar role, where I stayed until mid-2006.
During this time, I continued with website design as a creative pursuit. I launched numerous personal websites with some success and usually had more than one project on the go at all times. By then, I felt I had learned enough and had enough demonstrable skills to make it my primary career. Before I found my next full-time position, I did one major freelance website development contract, for Rouge Lounge/Rose Bowl Pizza, one of Edmonton’s longest-running independent family-owned businesses. The website I designed for them launched in February 2007, and was operational until mid 2011, when Rouge Lounge and I amicably parted ways.
In 2007, I took a position as the Marketing Coordinator for Website Development at an internationally distributed industrial heating and filtration manufacturer. In this role, I was responsible for all aspects of their corporate website. I designed the aesthetic concept and navigation structure, produced graphic and multimedia elements, developed most of the site’s written copy, and programmed back end architecture and functionality. I also delivered comprehensive reports on a monthly basis that analyzed the website’s performance (user traffic, page popularity, keyword conversion, referral traffic, search engine ranking, etc.), as well as the performance of online marketing initiatives designed to drive traffic, such as Google AdWords. Additionally, I performed other marketing functions, such as designing print and display media, and contributing to the overall corporate marketing strategy for the company. During my tenure, their average monthly website traffic levels saw a 30-35% increase compared to when I first came on board.
During my time there, I completed two more major freelance contracts on the side — one for Innovative Financial Management, who is still a client, and the other for Wordsmith Associates Ltd., who still uses the design concept I created for them in 2009.
I left my full-time position in early 2010 to pursue a long-term goal of becoming self-employed. However, due to some significant challenges in my personal life, I took some time away from full-time work through 2010.
During the first half of 2011, I did two more passion projects, which sparked my interest in PR and event planning/promotions. The first of these projects was the Edmonton Music Collectors Show, an independent venture cofounded by my dad, George Gawlak, and his business partner, Dave Chorley. It was the first organized pop culture collectors event focused solely on music in Edmonton in over a decade. My dad has been an avid and knowledgable record collector for years, but since his retirement in 2010 has taken a more proactive role in rallying Edmonton’s music collecting community. When he proposed that I run marketing and promotions for the event, I was only too happy to oblige. The first EMCS took place on April 17, 2011 and everyone involved in organizing it considered it a great success. It is now an annual event, and the second Edmonton Music Collectors Show is scheduled for April 22, 2012.
The second of these projects was the Edmonton SlutWalk. A controversial event with a controversial name, the SlutWalk movement has received worldwide media attention since it began in Toronto in April of 2011. I’ve considered myself a feminist since the age of 5, and the social and political issues informing SlutWalk are very close to my heart. I was initially approached by a team of three local activists organizing the Edmonton walk to handle their website/blog, but as media interest in the event grew, so did my role in representing the protest as a member of the organizing committee. I participated in numerous media interviews, handled the public side of our squabble with the City of Edmonton over proposed fees to run the walk, and led a group of over 300 people dressed in everything from sweat pants to fishnets and leather miniskirts from the Alberta Legislature Grounds through downtown to Edmonton City Hall. It was truly an amazing and rewarding, though at times emotional and stressful, experience.
In the fall of 2011, I helped two more clients launch new websites: KikkiPlanet.com, an online magazine focused on the young, up-and-coming, professional, and social media savvy population of Edmonton; and LisaNicoleGrace.com, a website for independent Edmonton songstress Lisa Nicole Grace. I’ve also been working as an outsourcing contractor for Dana DiTomaso, contributing to the design, development, and/or maintenance of half a dozen websites for her existing clients.
That pretty much brings you up to speed! I am excited to embark on this new chapter in my career, looking forward to working with everyone who will be a part of it, and eager to live the dream of getting paid to do what I love every single day!
My business approach.
I love Edmonton and have lived in the area virtually all my life. Edmonton is a place where independent businesses and self-employed entrepreneurs continue to thrive, and are a vital part of our community. From restaurants, cafes, and bars to tradespeople and contractors to clothing retailers, record and comic stores and beyond, I believe that every small or independent business in our city should be able to afford a professional, custom-designed website and online marketing plan without breaking the bank.
Unfortunately, not all of them have the budget to hire an in-house person or a fully-staffed design/marketing firm with expertise in all areas of a comprehensive success strategy. Many turn to independent contractors, but it can sometimes be difficult to find someone reliable or with a broad enough skill set to cover all their bases. Too many have an online presence that is underwhelming, or worse, non-existent. Too many get ripped off by contractors who oversell their abilities, because they have no idea what a fair market rate is for these services. Too many don’t know where to find someone who can give them sensational service for an affordable rate. Non-profit organizations often face similar challenges.
That’s where I come in. (more …)
I believe that my varied professional background, well-rounded skill set and social media savvy make me uniquely suited to fill this niche. Online marketing is becoming more and more important, especially to small businesses who don’t have a huge budget and national reach competing against the big guys. With mobile internet access and social networking usage rapidly on the rise among all demographics, even just having a website is often no longer enough anymore to compete. I have witnessed the incredible success of local business owners and their employees who engage daily with their clientele on a personal level and grow their businesses using Twitter, Facebook and other social media in a way that their corporate competitors simply cannot match.
To sum it up, I’m offering professional quality services at fair, but not excessive, market rates. Every client is unique and I’m able to negotiate base rates for projects on a client-by-client basis. I’m always willing to consider discounts, exchange of service and other concessions if I’m excited about the project. I’m available (and sometimes prefer) to meet outside of traditional business hours, and I have a very efficient turnaround time.
I am happiest when my clients are also my friends. I do my best work when I’m genuinely passionate about who and what I’m working for, and I love to make plans, discuss project requirements and review content over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee with a few laughs in between all the shop talk. I truly believe work is always better when it’s fun.
My personal approach.
I’ll be straight up, which (as anyone who knows me will tell you) is usually how I roll. I’ve been sharing myself and my life with the world online for over 15 years, almost half the time I’ve been on this earth. I started just before I turned 18, when 56 Kbps dial-up, e-mail, IRC, Telnet and Netscape 1.0 were the big news in tech. Technology has certainly come a long way since then, and I am one of those lucky cuspers who is old enough to remember a time before we were all connected 24/7 carrying around a phone that’s also a computer in our pockets, but young enough to have embraced with fervour the tech boom of the 90s and its associated culture. I’ve run dozens of websites/blogs and commented on hundreds. I’ve posted dozens of YouTube videos, hundreds of photos of myself, thousands of Facebook updates, and tens of thousands of tweets.
So as you can imagine, if you Google me you’re guaranteed to turn up something that might give HR staff or a potential employer some pause. You might find me cursing up a storm, talking frankly and openly about “controversial” stuff like sexuality, politics, hard partying and the social issue du jour in a public venue, revealing a slice of my personal life, stating my opinion emphatically and often, and not always staying entirely unobjectionable. I believe strongly in the value of the internet as a vehicle for personal self-expression, and I make no apologies for any of this. In my mind, there is always such a thing as context.
My extracurricular activities.
Besides website design & development and internet culture, my passions are poetry, parties, politics, poker, fandom, fashion, and music! I play a little guitar, love to pretend I’m a rockstar diva at dive karaoke bars, and have been known to post acoustic covers of some of my favourite songs on YouTube. I’m a huge fan of Texas Hold’em tournaments, whether I’m in a casino against hundreds or in someone’s living room playing with a few of my friends. I’m a TV fangirl, and I collect TV on DVD. I have hundreds of box sets. I’ve run a couple of blogs dedicated to fandom and critical analysis of my favourite stuff. I also co-organize the Words With Friends creative writing collective and performance series with my co-founder and friend Jason Lee Norman. I also launched my first self-published and self-designed poetry collection, the mourning after, at the end of October. I enjoy being part of Edmonton’s vibrant social media scene, and I attend meet-ups and events focused on this community whenever possible.
