ROBERT HIEGER

I grew up in a family entrenched in the performing arts, my late father a concert violinist and my mother, a concert pianist. As we grew up, my siblings and I branched out into experimental theatre and opera. I continue to perform in New York theatrical venues and tour abroad to this day.

 

My need to support my work in the performing arts led eventually to my pursuing a parallel career in digital media. In early adulthood, at the dawn of the personal computer age, I began a nearly 23-year autodidactic study of information technology, applying what I had learned as I learned it.With a background in desktop publishing, I entered into the world of web design/development in the early 2000s.

 

The field of design and development for the web, of necessity, encompasses a wide gamut of disciplines and skills from the technological to the artistic. The conventional wisdom is that one must pursue a career in front-end development or back-end development for the web. Further, some even believe that it is not possible to include design within that front-end or back-end development.

 

From the outset of my efforts, I have defied this conventional wisdom and pursued studies, at first on my own, in design and development for both front- and back-end. Later, having exhausted my ability to teach myself, I pursued a self-designed interdisciplinary degree, Integrated Web Application & Design from the CUNY Baccalaureate for Unique & Interdisciplinary Studies at the City University of New York, graduating Summa cum Laude in 2011.

 

This curriculum, mentored by Jenna Spevack, consisted of information technology and graphic design studies. This multidisciplinary study is a direct outgrowth of my own multidisciplinary background in the performing arts, and hence the reason for the eclectic blend of work samples on this web site.

 

My intended career path is to enhance my existing skills in order to build on my current consulting activities and grow a consultancy that serves a broad range of clients with particular sensitivity to the performing and visual arts communities, seeking out, as necessary, collaboration with artists in creation of the desired web application, furthering the synergistic efforts toward accessible and appealing end products that address themselves directly to their audiences.

 

Given the complexity of my chosen field and the tendency of general education requirements to crowd out needed electives, in Fall 2014 I plan to further hone and sharpen these cross-disciplinary skills in graduate studies aimed at wedding the visual, verbal and aural into a unified amalgam of pure communication. For more information, and previous work samples, read About the Work Samples.