Upstate Interactive was created by Shaun Andrews in 2007 as a central location for all his client work and other projects.

Keep reading if you wanna know what happened before that...

In 2004, he graduated with a Bachelors in mechanical engineering from SUNY IT, a small technology school in upstate New York. Towards the end of his senior year in college, he realized that he didn’t want to be a mechanical engineer. At that point, he was just learning about HTML and CSS. He fell head-over-heals in love with the web. After a few late nights in his dorm room, he threw together a portfolio of random design and web work that he had done for friends and bands. He scoured the web, posting his portfolio and resume everywhere he could. He was lucky enough to be found by Mike Gowen, who hired him as a web editor for Alienware in beautiful Miami, FL. After a short stint at Alienware, he found himself working at a brand and identity studio, also in Miami, named Propeller.

At Propeller he worked with some amazing and talented people, and he learned a ton. During his time at Propeller, he worked on 100+ projects for over 20 clients from all over the south Florida area. After becoming comfortable with the industry and business in general, he made the decision to go out on his own as an freelance contractor. This was 2 years before starting UI.

During these two years he was lucky enough to build a stable list of clients, and still find time for a few side projects, like Tick and XHTMLGenius—both of which he is no longer involved with. When he moved back to upstate New York a few years ago, he decided it was time to give his freelancing business a name. He chose Upstate Interactive since he was back in upstate New York—and for the fact that he could abbreviate his user interface design business, UI.

On one fateful day he met an awesome chic named Andrea. A friendship and partnership was born! Shaun has since been working with Automatic on VaulPress.com. Don't fret though, he is always close by for a coffee and some input.

These days I find myself working with clients from all over the world doing some of the most creative work of my career. If you've got a project, I'd love to talk with you about it. Shoot us an email →