Hi! We are Fastspot.
Fastspot is an award-winning interactive agency dedicated to creating amazing websites and applications while delivering outstanding client service. Our team is committed to working collaboratively with our clients and passionate about creating excellent user experiences.
We've also created some pretty amazing software you may have heard about. BigTree CMS is the content management system powering many of today's largest university, museum, and association websites. We've just released it as open source software, so check it out!
If we sound like the right fit for your project, download our project questionnaire or get in touch!
There aren’t enough adjectives to describe the Fastspot team—thoughtful and intelligent, technically savvy and outrageously innovative, responsive and detail-oriented, and absolutely committed to the quality and success of every project. Customer service is simply beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. This is a company that delivers much more than a service.
-Gayle McIntosh, University of Puget Sound
Our Team
President & Chief Visionary Officer
Tracey Halvorsen
Tracey's endurance for brainstorming and long meetings is the stuff of legends. ...more
Tracey Halvorsen is a consultant, designer, painter, author, and speaker. Her background in visual art and computer-based technology and her hands-on style of leadership has helped Fastspot consistently create award-winning and industry recognized websites, applications and marketing campaigns.
Tracey has been a speaker and presenter at numerous industry events and conferences. Her speaking career started with the groundbreaking premiere of the interactive project "Memoire" at NYC's 2001 Flash Forward conference, which went on to win the coveted Flash Film Festival award in Amsterdam. She was a panelist on one of 2010 SXSW’s most talked about presentations entitled, “We F*cked Up. Now What? Exploring Failure with Happy Cog and Friends” and spoke at the 2010 NYC Case Summit for Advancement Leaders.
Halvorsen, known for her innovative thinking and creative problem solving, is never short on opinions or ways to make things better, and she shares these observations in her blog, Think Design Interact.
Tracey keeps her focus on big-picture trends and how business is evolving and transforming within the interactive marketing arena. She ensures Fastspot engages with the "right" clients and works to inspire her team and colleagues to deliver outstanding results.
A native of Bethesda, Maryland, Tracey earned a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. She also spent time studying painting and sculpture in Lacoste, France, but her French is limited to "I'd like a beer, please."
@traceyhalvorsen
linkedin.com/in/traceyhalvorsen
Senior Software Developer
Tim Buckingham
Tim is the brains behind BigTree CMS, Denote, and Fastspot's plans to take over the world. ...more
As Fastspot's Director of Product Development and also one of our senior programmers, Tim oversees Fastspot's award-winning content management system, BigTree CMS, and the popular notation tool for live Websites, Denote. Tim has more than twelve years of technology development experience for a range of high-profile companies and clients.
At Fastspot, Tim has conceived and developed a wide range of Websites and applications. He ably tackles programming challenges, from complex registration sections to custom e-commerce sites. His programming prowess can be seen in such projects as University of Puget Sound and the International Dairy Foods Association.
An avid gamer and musician, Tim plays guitar, bass, and keyboards.
Agency Director & Project Manager
Stacy LaHam
It's safe to say this place wouldn't run without Stacy: Her strict attention to detail and schedule-wrangling abilities keep the lights on and everyone on track. ...more
Stacy has instituted many of the internal systems that keep Fastspot efficient. As one of our project managers, Stacy adeptly facilitates communication between Fastspot and such clients as College of Notre Dame, Chrysler Museum of Art, the American Beverage Association, and Baltimore Fishbowl, ensuring that clients' needs are attended to fully and promptly. Her familiarity with programming and design standards also inform her project management, ensuring that clients' problems are solved quickly and knowledgeably.
A graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art with a BFA in ceramics, Stacy has also worked as a program assistant at Maryland Citizens for the Arts, a statewide nonprofit arts advocacy group, and as a Web content editor for the Baltimore Greater Cultural Alliance's FunGuide. Don't challenge her at Jambalaya, Fastspot's Webby Award-winning word game app, where she has the third-highest score of all time: 28,650.
User Experience Designer
Calea Kevlin
Calea thrives on designing and problem-solving, transforming the utilitarian into a thing of beauty. ...more
Originally from Pennsylvania, Calea moved to Baltimore after graduating from Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in graphic design. Calea has taken her amazing sensibility for organizing typography and parlayed it into the interactive realm with great dexterity. Her command of color, typography, and information organization is refreshingly original yet accessible and functional; she also has a mastery of multiple visual languages, from information graphics to identity to print.
Calea has applied her skills to such projects as Woodberry Kitchen, College of Notre Dame, and Baltimore Fishbowl. Her talent for working collaboratively and delivering just what our clients need is invaluable, as are her sense of humor and easygoing nature.
Developer
Dylan Farnsworth
Dylan is a man of many talents—from programming to beer brewing to photography. ...more
Dylan brings the artistry of a professional musician and the precision of a nature photographer to his work at Fastspot. Dylan is highly skilled as a developer and has quickly become an important member of the BigTree team. Dylan works to ensure the documentation is up to date and assists with the forums. He is also a contributor to BigTree implementations and custom module development for Fastspot projects.
Dylan is fluent in a variety of languages and platforms including HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript, Python, Ruby, Objective-C, SQL, Access and Filemaker. He also has extensive experience working with other CMS platforms including Drupal and Joomla. Dylan has been programming for 19 years.
A native of Vermont, Dylan earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Florida State. Along the way, he developed a fascination and talent for turning code into intuitive front-end design. A Web-standards enthusiast, Dylan enjoys the challenge of creating responsive Websites that function well on a variety of devices. An advocate for responsive design and open source code platforms, he ensures our production team is staying focused on the future and always aware of possible options for our clients. When he's not flexing his programming skills, he bakes bread, brews beer, and makes a damn good pizza.
@farnsworthdylan
dylanfarnsworth.com
President & Chief Executive Officer
Amy Goldberg
Amy makes sure everything runs smoothly at Fastspot. Don't bother trying to hide from her—she will find you. ...more
Amy Goldberg, a co-founder of Fastspot, is a gifted designer, visual artist, organizer, and solutions provider. She has the ability to combine traditional graphic design awareness and new media technologies with classic, fine art sensibilities and applies this to all of our clients’ projects.
A native of Ohio and a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art with a BFA in photography, Amy was originally drawn to more traditional art forms, especially black and white photography, until she discovered her natural programming, problem-solving, and project management abilities. She flexes those muscles every day, overseeing all of Fastspot's undertakings, from supervising information architecture development to budget development to resource allocation for Fastspot's projects.
Amy works to continuously drive Fastspot forward, ensuring that the agency is always evolving and improving while continuing to nail the basics: making beautiful things that function effortlessly.
User Experience Director
April Osmanof
When April isn't busy doing the work of ten, she's finding the funniest videos on the Web to entertain us. ...more
A native of Florida, April moved to Baltimore in 1998 and earned a BA in sculpture and an MFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art. Her studies in sculpture cultivated an interest in the way things are built and function, which has informed her work in graphic design and Web development.
April oversees much of the information architecture work that goes into Fastspot's Website projects, including HistoryMiami, Ziger/Snead, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and Brooklyn College; she's also worked on design for Brooklyn College, Woodberry Kitchen, and other clients. She is able to seemingly effortlessly create and manage complex architectural schemas. She also produces front-end elements for many projects, ensuring that sites are accessible and meet contemporary Web standards. In addition, she's the agency Search Engine Optimization expert.
April has contributed to Graphic Design: The New Basics, Indie Publishing: How to Publish Your Own Book, and Urbanite magazine. She also writes about user experience on Fastspot's blog, www.thinkdesigninteract.com. When she's not cooking up yummy vegetarian food for lunch, she can be found making the occasional Justin Bieber tribute video.
Project Manager
Kim Koenig
Kim truly thrives on working with clients—and coaching the Fastspot kickball team. ...more
Kim manages all aspects of a project, from inception to launch to long-term support and maintenance. She draws on organizational and workflow strategies that she developed while working in the mortgage industry; she also applies her extensive experience in sales and marketing to her work. She's skillfully shepherded such projects as Woodberry Kitchen, HistoryMiami, and the Walters Art Museum's Works of Art site. Her attention to detail and grasp of usability empower her to make sure that Fastspot's projects evolve on schedule and within scope, as well as achieve the high level of quality that Fastspot is known for delivering.
A native of Ohio, Kim played basketball for much of her life, including at Ashland University, where she earned a BA in communications and business. In her work at Fastspot, she's a true team player, always willing to share knowledge and expertise.
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If he wasn't working at Fastspot, Baltimore native Ben Plum might have followed his father's footsteps into carpentry. We're lucky that he chose the Web. Ben, who earned a BFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art, is an adept programmer and skilled user experience designer; he ensures that front-end interactive elements are intuitive and engaging, and that projects both look great and function beautifully.
At Fastspot, Ben has contributed to building HistoryMiami, the Walters Art Museum object display tool, Baltimore Fishbowl, Bay State College's digital viewbook, and several sites for Discovery Communications. In his spare time, he won sixth place in the 2012 CSSOff, a "no-holds-barred display of CSS and markup skills." Between crafting code and dreaming up ideas for the iPad and iPhone operating system, Ben improves his excellent yo-yoing skills. (His favorite trick so far? Skin the Gerbil.)
Bon Champion is a recent graduate from Maryland Institute College of Art. A native of Toledo, Ohio, Bon started out at MICA as a photography major but quickly realized his interest in, and natural ability in, interactive design and development.
Bon has become an adept programmer working at Fastspot, highly skilled in CMS implementations and swiftly becoming a master of the responsive web template. He’s proven to be an asset both in the office and on the kickball field, where his last name instills fear in the competition. Bon is skilled as an HTML and CSS front end developer and is also developing custom modules and templates for BigTree projects utilizing his skill set within PHP and MySQL.
Art & Technology Director
Curt Kotula
Curt oversees the design and technical aspects of all of Fastspot's projects. He has a deep appreciation for furniture consignment shops, video games, microbrews, and Baltimore. ...more
As Fastspot's Art & Technology Director, Curt provides the visual and technical direction for all of the agency's projects and ensures a collaborative execution of the interaction design process. He also spearheads the evolution of Fastspot's internal applications. Curt's ability to code beautiful experiences is evident in such designs as the Walters Works of Art Collections Module and the Websites for Ziger/Snead architects and HistoryMiami, as well as virtual tours for Bucknell University and Dickinson College. He is also responsible for the design of Fastspot's Webby award-winning word game app, Jambalaya.
Prior to joining Fastspot, Curt was a senior designer and developer for Alexander and Tom, Bionic Box, and Grafik Marketing Communications. He has a BFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art, where he has been a visiting artist in the MFA in graphic design program and taught undergraduate classes on Web design.
Curt is also the agency breakfast connoisseur, making our stomachs growl regularly with tales of the pancakes, burritos, and other savory snacks he cooks up at home.
Senior User Experience Designer
Justin Kropp
Justin is a modernist at heart. He believes that a great design solution is equal parts pragmatics, theory, and play. ...more
Justin is an accomplished multi-disciplinary designer. He uses his background in graphic design, typography, and design theory to ensure that projects at Fastspot are user-centered, accessible, and conceptually clear.
Justin writes frequently on his blog, Oneskinnyj, which features an ongoing series of interviews with industry design leaders. Justin received his Master’s Degree in Graphic Design from Maryland Institute College of Art. He is currently extending his graduate research by working on a compendium of visual semiotics.
When not in the office, Justin continues to be a passionate outdoor enthusiast and wannabe comedian.
Senior Designer
John "Yianni" Mathioudakis
Yianni brings a lot to the table—design, photography, motion graphics, and a wonderfully calm attitude. ...more
Yianni comes from a family of restaurateurs, but he was always drawn more to art and design. He earned a BFA in graphic design from Maryland Institute College of Art. At Fastspot, he specializes in concept development, interface design, and content visualization. Depending on the project, he draws on his design, typography, motion graphics, photography, illustration, and/or usability skills. Yianni has contributed to the design of Dickinson College, Woodberry Kitchen, and the product minisites for the American Beverage Association. His photography and video editing work can currently be seen on Bay State College's new Website and digital viewbook.
Yianni is also a musician; with his two brothers, he runs 3 Sons Production, which creates original music and music videos. He can usually be found with headphones on, tapping his foot to some new tunes.
Project Manager & Writer
Marianne Amoss
Marianne juggles clients, words, and a busy agency. She's trying to cut back on coffee. ...more
Marianne is Fastspot's resident wordsmith. When she's not keeping up on the latest trends in content strategy for the Web, she's serving as project manager for a variety of clients and helping keep the agency running.
A Baltimore native, Marianne has a BA in English and Spanish from College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Prior to joining Fastspot, she spent nearly six years as an editor at Urbanite magazine, an award-winning monthly magazine focused on cities and city life as seen through the lens of Baltimore. She won the 2008 Best New Journalist Award from the Maryland Pro Chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists; her writing has also been published in Johns Hopkins, Next American City, and Style magazines.
Strategic Partners
Ambient Noise Expert
Stella
When not barking at our Nerf basketball or keeping an eye on visitors, Stella snoozes the day away to the sweet sounds of keyboard typing. ...more
Stella makes frequent visits to the office, always checking in with each of us to say hello … and see what snacks we might have. While we still can't get her to program Websites or send invoices, she does provide soothing background noise (aka snoring) while we're working.
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Senior Aromatherapy Expert
Rufus
Rufus is a calming presence at the office, keeping us company during our production meetings and phone calls. ...more
Rufus is a perfect big brother to Fastspot's other canine companion, Stella, and he spends most of his time keeping an eye on things and making sure everyone's OK. When he's not hanging with us at the office, he's having a great time exploring the neighborhood with his dogwalker and fellow four-legged friends.
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