Portfolio & creative archive practice
I help writers, artists, researchers, performers, founders, and other established professionals gather, shape, publish, and preserve the work of a lifetime—so it can be found, understood, and carried forward.
The heart of the practice
You may have decades of writing, talks, research, performances, artwork, projects, press, correspondence, photographs, or recordings. The material has value—but it may be scattered, inconsistently described, or dependent on services you do not control.
We turn that accumulation into a coherent, durable home. The result can serve colleagues and audiences today while giving future collaborators, family members, researchers, or archivists something they can actually navigate.
What we can build
The exact mix depends on your work, your audience, and how much material already exists.
A clear, distinctive website that helps people understand the arc of your work—not just your latest title.
A navigable collection that preserves relationships among the work, its history, and the people around it.
A practical way to keep the collection healthy after launch, without making you dependent on one person or platform.
Selected work
Every collection calls for a different balance of recovery, editorial context, technical structure, privacy, and public access.
Writer · transmedia archive · institutional papers
Working with writer Howard Rheingold to prepare his digital papers for Stanford Libraries. We searched across the internet to recover dispersed material and are building an extensive, searchable transmedia archive at rheingold.com.
Building expertise · early web publishing
In 1999–2000, helped building contractor Donald Pearman turn hundreds of local newspaper columns written over many years into a hand-built hypertext site offering practical expertise to homeowners.
Photography · private archive
Organizing the private archive of a realtor and landscape architect, developing a workable structure for more than 150,000 photographs while respecting the boundary between personal material and work for eventual sharing.
Ways to begin
You do not need to commit to a complete archive at once. We can begin with a bounded piece of work and build from there.
Inventory the material, identify risk and opportunity, and leave with priorities and a practical plan.
Shape selected work and career chapters into a distinctive website people can understand and explore.
Recover, organize, describe, preserve, and selectively publish a substantial collection over useful stages.
From accumulation to understanding
Folders, links, credits, files, old pages, recordings, and memories—each meaningful, but hard for another person to see as a whole.
A legible body of work with enough context to invite discovery, while respecting privacy, ambiguity, and the way a career actually unfolds.
How we work
This is collaborative work. You bring the knowledge and sensibility; I bring structure, technical fluency, and steady forward motion.
We look at what exists, where it lives, what feels important, and what is most at risk.
We identify audiences, themes, permissions, priorities, and an organizing structure that fits the work.
We organize material, write context, digitize selectively, and create the public and private systems.
We document the system, establish backups, and make sure the right people can maintain it.
Why Justin
I published an early expansive personal website, helped launch HotWired, worked in journalism and online media, made games and documentary video, and managed large collections of pages, images, links, and community material.
That history matters here. I understand old formats, changing platforms, and the difference between simply putting files online and creating a collection people can understand. I also know that the most important questions are often editorial and human: what belongs together, what needs context, what should stay private, and who should be able to carry the work forward.
Client perspective
“Justin is head and shoulders above the rest.”
Howard Rheingold · Google review
Common questions
No. It is for anyone with a substantial body of work that has outgrown a conventional biography or portfolio. The best time to create structure is often while you are still actively making and publishing.
Absolutely not. A strong archive distinguishes between public, private, restricted, sensitive, and still-undecided material. Publishing is selective; preservation can be much broader.
Yes. These projects often benefit from shared stewardship. I can help establish roles, documentation, permissions, and a process other people can understand and continue.
We begin with a free 15-minute conversation. If there is a fit, a focused archive survey and written roadmap can stand alone or become the first stage of a larger portfolio or archive build. Remote collaboration is available nationwide.
Start with the work you have
Tell me what you have made, where it lives now, and what you hope becomes possible.