About me.

I am a web designer from Helsinki, Finland, specialized in responsive web design. I’ve been designing web sites for over a decade.

My name is Ariel Salminen and I’m an user interface designer at Kisko Labs. I’m also an author at Smashing Mag and the founder of Helsinki Device Lab, which was established to help developers to be able to test their work on the ever-growing range of mobile devices. I’ve created tools such as Responsive Nav, Responsive Slides and Remote Preview which have been very popular and used by brands like Microsoft, AT&T, Ted and jQuery.

I started my career by studying print design during the early 00s. At that time, there wasn’t much to choose from if you wanted to learn web design, so I’ve learned most of what I know now by self-studying and working hard.

In everything I do, I am constantly inspired by the artworks of 50s and 60s jazz vinyls. Especially the records that Blue Note released during that time are very close to my heart. I love their simple and plain, but at the same time rich, typography heavy look. That’s also one of the reasons why I’ve been collecting 12" vinyls for over 14 years now.

My site—the one you are browsing right now—is made to be responsive, which means that it adapts to the size of your device’s viewport. It uses the so called Mobile First technique and progressive enhancement, which enable it to be accessible to a wide range of users browsing the web. Currently this site can adapt to screen resolutions ranging between 230–3000 pixels.