justin zagar

I trained on paper, where there is no undo.

I went to school for graphic design, and print is where the discipline came from. A mistake shipped in ink stays shipped. Screens pulled me in early too: at the Milwaukee newspaper I built interactive Flash ads in the digital department.

Then came the Payless Car Rental years, where the print training got used for real. I originated the marketing campaigns that turned the business around, and Just Drive ran from 2004 through 2008 as a registered Payless service mark. The campaigns and all the printed material were mine, and behind them I kept building: the corporate site, the sub-brand sites, and the intranet the whole company ran on.

Since 2012 I have designed and built every pixel and every line of the software behind a national wheel business. The storefront, the warehouse tools, the listing pipeline, the ledger that ties it all together. Fourteen years of one person doing both jobs.

These days that adds up to two things: Evolve Engineering, where I build custom systems for businesses, and a house full of software I made for my family.

The space obsession is real. It is why a starfield hangs behind every page of this site. Photography got in early too, and I have compulsions I stopped fighting. Things I will always stop to photograph: the sky doing something unusual, good signage, and the dogs when they hold still.

When I'm not in UX mode, I love to immerse myself in video games, movies, and anything else that tantalizes the senses. My partner and I live on the east coast of the United States with our four little doggos: Shirley, Noel, Lilly and Geordi.