Interactive software developer and consultant specializing in
custom experiences for entertainment and advertising.
Owner and director of Planimal Interactive, LLC.
My company Planimal Interactive, LLC has been providing professional software consulting and development since 2011, but our focus for the last several years is building statement pieces for tradeshows and other public spaces, including major events such as the San Diego Comic-Con and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
I took on consulting positions with companies developing both consumer-facing and B2B enterprise products and apps. Longer-term projects and dedicated teams combined with needs of product and market positioning made for a new and interesting mix compared to my previous work in advertising.
Based on my broad experience (see Agency Circuit below), I was hired into technical leadership positions at companies building interactives for entertainment and children-focused brands including more work for my old employer, the Walt Disney Company, as well as PBS Kids, Veggie Tales, Penguin Books, and Random House. I oversaw the architecture, development, and launch of complex projects and websites, on-schedule and on-budget, and helped to quote projects and draft winning, client-facing proposals.
A passion for literature led to my co-founding of indie book publisher Narrow Books. We printed art books and anthologies, including work from National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winners.
I took additional studies in advertising and copywriting through the ArtCenter College of Design, scripted curriculum-based educational videos for the ICanLearn system recognized by the US Department of Education, and contributed to a book from educational publisher Houghton Mifflin. I also published a number of stories, wrote multiple commissioned screenplays and treatments, and reached the quarterfinals in Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope screenplay competition.
After Disney, I chose to strike out on my own as a freelancer, working for various digital agencies around the LA area. Client work included projects for well known brands like Honda, Lionsgate Films, eBay, AOL/Time Warner, Kaiser Permanente, Kia, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, MTV, Mattel, Nissan, Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, and ABC Television.
I moved to LA, into a job at a digital agency where I created sites, games, and web apps for entertainment properties. After doing a number of interactive projects for Walt Disney/Buena Vista, I began freelancing for them directly, and eventually joined the Walt Disney Internet Group to work on Disney’s Magic English, a curriculum-based English language learning software suite for non-English speakers.
After a dual Computer Science/English Literature major at Washington University in St. Louis—where I coded logic for an award-winning, self-driving toy car and worked on alterations to XCOSM, a 3D data imaging system—I headed to California and took an intern/junior developer position at a video game company in Irvine.
The Romulus ™ editor/CMS is a web-based, WYSIWYG ("What You See Is What You Get") editing system—built on a NodeJS/React/Redux stack—that allows for authoring content and updating my REX C++ interactives.
I built these high performance mobile video games ( a duel and a horizontal shmup) in the Haxe language. The cross-platform HTML5 games run great on both mobile devices and desktops.
I oversaw the architecture, development, and on-schedule, on-budget launch of the website—featuring interactive, animated characters, and 100+ destination pages of content.
Owner & Director
© 2017 Christopher Lepkowski
