Al Dumo

13 August 2011Posted in: About by Al DumoHello

I've been drawing at an early age of 4, never had any real interest for anything else, except for drawing. So I attended the Art Institute of Seattle in 1991. Computer classes were not available till late in school term, so I used my time after classes in the computer lab learning all of the graphics programs they had at their disposal. Along with the rest of the school, I used the Mac II with 9-inch screen at 512x342 resolution, and 4 megs of memory, with a floppy disk drive. That was cutting edge technology at the time, capable for saving a file with mulitiple floppy disks, ahem. By the time my first computer class arrived, I was ahead of most of everyone, including my instructiors. I was then selected in a student program to do freelance work under the Art Institute and then graduated with honors in 1993. Before graduation, each student would have a portfolio show open to friends, family and companies.

Two men liked my portfolio and asked to interview me for their newly established office in Redmond. A week later, I was the first graphic designer in Squaresoft. Already legendary in the video game industry, Squaresoft produced the renowned Final Fantasy series for Nintendo and the Super Nintendo System. With a score of young, talented group of designers and developers, we created the first Squaresoft game inside U.S. and Secret of Evermore was released in 1995 receiving positive reviews.

With a grueling schedule of 12 - 14 hours per day, 6-7 days per week for several months on end to get Secret of Evermore released on time, I got burned out of working in the video game industry after almost 4 years. I was time to try out something different. I got in Microsoft as a contract designer for the early stage of MSNBC in the "Blender" department. I was given a very young copy of a web animation softwware called Future Splash. Little would I know that this would be a web designer's staple called Flash from Adobe.

After the Blender, I moved onto Microsoft's Avatar division, an online chat platform using characters that I would digitize and color to populate the online world. Think of Avatar as Playstation Network's Home series back then. Later, I would do Flash tutorial for Microsoft Press. Afterwards, I would work for about a dozen companies as a contractor for various agencies all over the East side. Even becoming a senior designer for AXC Interactive - Network Commerce. But the online plunge happened and then 9-1-1 hit the nation, millions of jobs were lost, including any opportunities my way. Times were tough back then and I hadn't worked for over a year, so I went get a certification for to hone my web skills, did a 2 term non-paying internship, for a small print company, Seattle Publishiing, excluded the part that I've had over 8 years of design experience. Then, again as a non-paying intern for a small design firm, called Ad Ventures. Afterwards, the economy slowly got a little bit better and I returned doing contract work for T-Mobile, later with the Seattle Times.

In November of 2003, A design position became available at KING5. I knew I couldn't pass up the opportunity. After 4 interviews later, I landed the web designer position. Little did I know that it wouldn't just be with KING5 , my localized department merge with corporate in Dallas. I joined up with a dozen other web designers and work on projects for all 24 TV news sites all over the country. Later, re-org happened again, my corporate stuidio was disbanded and my concentration returned to for KING5, KREM and KTVB.

So, it's been almost 8 years and over 150 clients later, that I have been working for KING5.com Not on the news department, folks keep asking me. I do online advertising and promotional sites for KING5, NWCN, KONG, along with KREM in Spokane and KTVB in Boise, Idaho, along with CARS.com for the NW market.

As for my personal life, I still enjoy drawing from time to time. I enjoy comic books, play video games and watch popcorn movies. I am happily married for 13 years now and have a 5 year old boy. We live in a small town called Covington just 20 miles from Seattle. I do enjoy blogging about the things I enjoy, if you woud like to read my blog, check out graffiti.nazhost.com - its entertainment nerd news about movies, comic books and video games. For those interested, I've posted some of my family vacation photos, to view them check out the Familly Pic Links below. I will be adding new content to aldumo.com, so make sure to check back later.

Thank you for your time. - AL