About Me

I'm David Marshall, a Boston-area front-end developer and designer with 20+ years creating accessible, user-centered digital experiences. I specialize in responsive web development with a strong foundation in visual design, brand identity, and UX/UI.

I've worked with clients and employers including Connecticut Digital Service, Duck Creek Technologies, CVS Health, Merrill Lynch, McGraw-Hill, and Houghton Mifflin. Most recently, I was Senior UX/UI Front-End Developer for Connecticut Digital Service, where I built accessible government websites serving millions of residents.

The Journey

I started as an illustrator fresh out of Massachusetts College of Art, but a wise design director once told me: "Nobody needs an illustrator, but everyone needs designers." That advice redirected my career from freelance illustration to graphic design in the 1990s, working for agencies across Boston including Hill Holliday, Midnight Oil Studios, and the Boston Phoenix.

Print design naturally led to web design in the early 2000s, and web design led to development. I discovered I loved the precision of code as much as the creativity of design. Over two decades, I've evolved from Adobe PageMill and font tags to modern CSS preprocessors, responsive frameworks, and accessibility-first development.

The through-line in all of this work has been a commitment to user-first thinking. Whether designing a logo, illustrating an educational textbook, or building a government website, the question is always: does this serve the person using it?

What I Do

Front-End Development: HTML, CSS/SCSS, JavaScript, TypeScript; Responsive design and accessibility (WCAG compliance); Component-based architecture and design systems; Git, Bootstrap, Angular, Node.js, Agile workflows

Coder Designer

Design & UX: User experience and interface design; Brand systems and visual identity; Wireframing, prototyping (Figma); Cross-functional collaboration

Not bad for a kid from Springfield who once thought he'd draw comic books for a living.

Contact

Reach me via email & social media

Origin Story

Marshall Art Studio is my contractor identity, named after an old nickname from a time when the more logical domain names were already taken (this was the AOL era).

October 1967: A kindergarten class in Springfield, Massachusetts was given an art assignment to make a human being out of clay. I apparently breezed through the sculpture and spent the remaining time instructing other kids how to make theirs. My art teacher Mrs. Snowden must have thought, "The little fascist is a born art director."

By high school, it was clear the only thing I was better at than anyone else around me was drawing pictures. This led me to Massachusetts College of Art for a BFA in commercial art—an antiquated name I still think is accurate.