My name is Mitch Donaberger, and I'm a 30-something Creative Director and Illustrator living in Philadelphia, PA. I have been working in the Design industry for 15+ years, focused mostly on supporting the world's largest technology brands, such as Akamai, Linode, the Linux Foundation, Supermicro, DellEMC, PureStorage, Cisco, HPE, LexisNexis, Elsevier; as well as helping startups go from looking like something someone built in their garage to something that looks like it was built by an agency of 50 seats or more.

I was raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, but grew up in Pittsburgh. I consider myself a child of Pennsylvania, and moreover, a child of the Internet.

The Internet was my playground as early as I could sit upright in a chair under my own power. I taught myself how to type, and I taught myself how to code. I was so bewitched by this strange and beautiful window to the world that my thoughts began to focus around one singular thing: making Internet. I grew up in the vast halls of Newsgrounds.com, or chatting amongst the chaotic town square that was Something Awful. I swam in sea of sewage, taking back with me an impression that this machine — and this network that connects them — was worth more than the sum of its parts. This was more than a place where scientists shared data, or nerds argued theory; it was a place where real people met other real people, and built a new, shared sense of identity that is unbound by borders, politics, or faith. The Internet was everybody, at least in theory, and that thought blew me away.

So, I turned into a polymath, because creating good Internet required so many different skills that required so much time and intelligence to master. I had no idea how people could afford to get good with computers or with electrical engineering, because it was so expensive to get started or even get experienced. The Internet and Websites however, were different — they were almost endless, and allowed for an infinite amount of mistakes. The Internet became my scratch pad, my entertainment, my library, my third space, my money-maker, and a source of balm for the spirit.

Anyway, all of that is just a long way of saying that I love the Internet, and my passion is working to bring that same magic to others. I believe that the Web can still connect us, and that it can be a collective force for good. I believe the Internet can educate people, and protect people, with good information. I believe that the Internet is Humanity's first taste at world unity, and it was obvious to me from the very beginning that this is what I wanted to do with my life.

So, for the past 20 years, I have been working on everything and anything. I have shown up in some profoundly strange places, and some seriously strange things have happened in my career. I look forward to sharing some of them with you all here.