PERSONAL BIOGRAPHY

Toby Braun is a freelance information designer who specializes in information architecture and interface design for the World Wide Web. His design style and approach is typified by the terms simplicity, ease of use and legibility. Toby has over twenty years of design experience.

Prior to his current freelance status, Toby was a senior-level advertising art director as well as an early evangelist of computer-aided design and interactive marketing strategies. Notably he was instrumental in persuading the Tribune Entertainment Company and Searle Pharmaceuticals to begin interactive projects whilst the Internet was still largely unknown to the general public. Toby also introduced Apple Macintosh computers to several of the ad agencies he worked for and acted as Eisaman, Johns & Laws' Director of Creative Technologies.

In the 13 years Toby spent as an art director he created and produced a multitude of television commercials, print, direct mail and outdoor advertisements for regional and national clients including the Chicagoland & Regional Cadillac Dealers, Chicagoland Chevy Dealers, Hiram Walker & Sons, G. Heileman Brewing, Motorola Cellular, Neutrogena, R.J. Reynolds, and WGN-TV. [ View portfolio ]

In 1994 Toby's disk-based electronic portfolio was featured in an article on emerging technologies in U.S. News and World Report. His essay "Better Advertising through Bartered Sponsorship" was published in the International Telecommunications Union's World Telecommunication Development Report in 1995. By the end of 1995 Toby became a freelance "hypermedia designer" providing a critical creative bridge between the nascent technologies of the World Wide Web and the brand-critical requirements of corporations wishing to establish an online presence.

In the years since, Toby has created and consulted on dozens of commercial web sites and online advertisements for clients including Abbott Laboratories, Abridge.com, Advanstar Communications, American Bar Association, Chicago 96 (Democratic National Convention), comScore Media Metrix, FAST Search, Free Country Outerwear, Jockey, Johnson & Johnson, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Miles Laboratories, Motorola, onProject.com, Perkins & Will, Rotary International, Searle, Smith Barney, SmithKline Beecham, Spiegel, Stevens Point Brewery, Stanford University CME, TruServ, Voter Information Services, and Wace USA.

Toby Braun has also given lectures at MIT's prestigious Media Lab, Columbia College (Chicago), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Toby's work has been featured in a wide variety of venues ranging from web sites such as Suck.com, LookSmart.com, ProjectCool.com, EFF.org; as well as in print magazines including Yahoo! Internet Life, The Face, Information Week, and Entertainment Weekly. An earlier iteration of Toby's web site, located at www.tbid.com, is featured in usability guru Jacob Nielsen's book, "Designing Web Usability," and also in an earlier online article Nielsen wrote as Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer regarding the interface design of Sun's own web site. More recently, Toby served as the technical editor for the 37signals book, "Defensive Design for the Web."

Toby has also periodically dabbled in software programming and design producing a fine arts algorithmic animation generator called Randomation and a unique interface for reading extended texts on a computer screen called the lexiaProject which utilizes a new technique he coined as a "vertical serial text presentation" or VSTP.

Toby attended Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, and received his BA in May of 1983. Hampshire features a unique educational approach that rejects traditional tests and grading systems, emphasizing instead an interdisciplinary process of independent study that focuses on gaining the skills necessary to ask intelligent questions and to seek meaningful answers. Toby's Division III thesis was titled "Type Copy and Image Quality in Graphic Design." The thesis culminated in a gallery exhibition, called "The Art of Illusion," which included original paintings, photographs and graphic poster designs created during his tenure as the Print Shop Manager of the student-run business, Hampshire Graphic Design.

Toby Braun lives in Miami Beach with his wife Ilana and his two children, Theo and Lola. Toby likes to collect cookbooks and cameras. He tries to practice yoga daily (and if he doesn't, he gets kinda grumpy).