(Pacifica, CA) 2006 was a banner year for Laaker.com, seeing not only a relaunch and optimization of the site, but also the first new press release in more than a year. To help readers new to the site, Mr. Laaker took a poll of the year’s content; overwhelmingly, users agreed that “Made in the U.S.A. […]

(Pacifica, CA) There is a wave slowing crashing across the blog fanboy community these days centered on the idea of sharing “five things about me.” As such, the baton was recently passed to me by a certain Matt McAlister, product manager extraordinairre over at the Yahoo!’s Developer Network. Never one to let a fellow fanboy […]

(Mountain View, CA) – Whipped into a patriotic fervor matching his self-aggrandizing manner, Micah Laaker today launched a new campaign with a single intent: To a) inform the public of his contributions to humanity, and b) alert folks of the second “A” in “Laaker.” “Today’s media-savvy consumer is very much aware of who and what […]

I began working with the first of several My Yahoo! product teams shortly after arriving at Yahoo! (at the tail end of 2004), and right as we began rolling out a new version of the product internationally. Since that time, I’ve worked on a number of upgrades to the product, including some to be seen […]

Universal Location Manager Default location pre-populates content on new home page Users of the new Yahoo! home page are now able to set a network-wide Default location on their computer, thus allowing any location field on the network (including the three on the home page) to pre-populate with their chosen locale. Users can also engage […]

The ACLU is always looking to generate content to explain current threats to privacy, social justice, and civil liberties. I began working with the ACLU in 2000 developing a series of information graphics for their website spanning a number of topics, including Women’s Rights, Prison Abuses, and Supreme Court case involvement: Timeline of Women’s Rights […]

Final home page design Def Jam Recordings, twenty years after its inception, is still the #1 name brand in hip-hop culture. Having developed artists from LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, and EPMD (as well as more recent acts like Method Man, Redman, Ghostface, and more), the label was no longer representing its […]

Photoshop CS in 10 Simple Steps or Less Teach Yourself Scalable Vector Graphics in 24 Hours AS SUBJECT: “Future Design 2008” Digital Arts December 2007 “Take Ten New York” Moodboard Magazine September 2004 “Flash Frames: A New Pop Culture” by Laurie Dolphin & Stuart Shapiro April 2002 “From Video to Animation” by Sara Booth Step-by-Step […]

The MF Doom “I Hear Voices” music video was created to allow Sub Verse Music the ability to promote their artist at Shockwave.com. This piece was created by digitally “tracing” actual video and assembling these tracings frame-by-frame in Macromedia Flash. This one composition was then exported into a variety of formats, including self-running “projectors” that […]

After the success of Stalefish Labs’ first game, “Inc. The Game of Business,” the company began developing Tall Tales trivia game, a trivia game focused on urban legends and myths. After developing the three legendary characters central to the concept, I illustrated and designed the multiple components of the game: everything from the packaging to […]

StanLee.net splash page StanLee.net, the online warehouse of comic book legend Stan Lee’s new animated series, was created on an incredibly short schedule and featured an award-winning Flash-based navigation environment. Reflecting the future of the comic book industry, the site design focused on Stan’s new approach to entertainment delivery. Stanzine news page

Home page design Adobe Systems, Inc. (the makers of design industry staples Photoshop and Illustrator) needed to spotlight scalable vector graphics (SVG), a new online graphics standard for data visualization, to assist in its sales efforts, and BattleBots was in need of a new site to professionally showcase its robots, rules, and Comedy Central showtimes. […]

Zagat.com, the online counterpart to the world famous restaurant guide Zagat Survey, was plagued with thousands of complaints ranging from difficulty finding reviews to sluggish performance. To solve these issues, we worked closely with the client to develop a new searching mechanism, a redeveloped store interface, and a revised look that established Zagat.com as its […]

(Palo Alto, CA) – Silicon Valley local-boy-done-good Steven P. Jobs, notable to many for his founding of Apple Computer in the 1970s and then his subsequent turnaround of the company in the 1990s, made his first Micah Laaker sighting since arriving in Palo Alto years earlier, despite living only blocks away from the designer. Attending […]

(Palo Alto, CA) – After working with the American Civil Liberties Union for a number of years, Micah Laaker was honored by the 5th Annual Media That Matters Film Festival for his contribution to the ACLU’s Pizza Surveillance Feature. The pizza feature took the top honor in the Civil Liberties category. Using Macromedia Flash to […]