Web design

1996 – 2022

I built my first website in 1996 for a local shop. We sold Etherical oils online using HTML and CGI scripts. First year we made a whopping 4 sales, but at the time it was the coolest thing ever. No payment processing, only cache on delivery with an email of order confirmation. A postal address was a must.

But this cemented my love for building and designing websites.

Graphic design

1998 – 2022

I’ve designed brands for businesses, organisations and projects. Created a few CD covers and a lot of manuals, restaurant menus and magazines.

Second Life

2007 – 2009

Most of my time in Second Life was spent running four businesses: Majestic Weddings, Corona Villas, Metro City Retail and Liberty Estate.

Corona Villas

Corona Villas started out a small store selling pre-made home in Second Life. You simply placed the box on your property and clicked on it to unpack it and voilà, a brand new house. After a few months I started expanding into adding furniture and lights that could go well with the homes and quickly the business shifted from homes being the primary product, to furniture.

Liberty Estate

Stretched over 8 sims, Liberty Estate offered land rental with or without pre-set homes. Parcels ranged from landscaped areas to private sand beaches, a favourite in game. At the hight of all things, a total of 125 parcels of land were available for rental or sale.

Majestic Weddings

At the time, Majestic was one of the top wedding service providers in game. We offered five different themes for weddings: Rose Garden, Grass, Beach Front, Church/Chappell and Waterfall. Our packages ranged from small quick ceremonies to large extravagant affairs with live DJ, real life minister and up to 60 party guests. All this run by 3 full time staff.

Metro City Retail

If Liberty Estate offered land for private individuals for homes and hide aways, Metro City Retail focused on rental spaces for businesses. Ranging from space dedicated for offices to pre-built shopping areas where you could rent store space.

Merovingi Fashion Awards

Started in 2007, the MFAs primary aim was to celebrate fashion designers in Second Life. Each year, members could nominate their favourite fashion labels in 5 different categories. The winner in each category was then decided by popular vote. In 2007 we had 2 categories with each winner getting Linden Dollar rewards, while in 2008 we expanded to 5 categories where each winner walked away with a brand new iMac. The results were then presented on a live awards show in game, that was broadcasted online by SLTV. We had over 50,000 viewers from all over the globe with the 3 day event drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors.

WordPress

2007 – 2022

I was looking for a CMS and came across WordPress back in 2007. Been building themes since 2010 and developing plugins since 2012.

In 2014 I released myCRED, a points management plugin for WordPress with over 20k active installations. myCRED introduced me to AWS, payment gateways like Stripe or PayPal, WordPress plugins such as WooCommerce, bbPress and BuddyPress.

Star Citizen

2015 – 2022

Since I became a backer in 2015, I have made a few fanart for the game.

Visit my Behance account for examples: https://www.behance.net/gabrielmerovingi/projects