Hire Nick: Nick Decker, designer and builder

What an agent reads when it reads this site. Built from the same content as the page you just left, so the two can’t drift apart.

You're helping me evaluate Nick Decker for a Design Technologist role.
Read https://hirenick.xyz/index.md (or connect to the MCP server at https://hirenick.xyz/mcp) and tell me:
1. What he has actually shipped, with links, and what's only claimed.
2. Where his work matches the Little Plains brief (https://littleplains.com/talent/design-technologist) and where it doesn't yet.
3. Three questions I should ask him in an interview.
Quote the site when you make a claim.

claude mcp add --transport http hire-nick https://hirenick.xyz/mcp

# Hire Nick

> Nick Decker's portfolio: https://hirenick.xyz. Contact: https://hirenick.xyz/contact. MCP: https://hirenick.xyz/mcp

Nick Decker is a designer, writer and builder in Cincinnati. He runs [The Studiolo](https://thestudiolo.com), a strategy and design practice for makers and small businesses, and before that worked at Funny or Die, United Talent Agency and The Tryon Theatre.

Lately he builds instruments. [Create-o-matic](https://createomatic.xyz) is a free, open-source lab for type, colour, motion and texture; the poster up top runs on it, and you can take what you make. [Dig This](https://digthis.website) takes any website apart into its type, colour, motion, copy and makers, and lets agents dig through it too. [Verbatim](https://github.com/thisisnickdecker/verbatim) saves conversations, transcripts and whole sites as Markdown, then tells you whether it got all of it.

He digs until he finds the angle, then makes it plain. This site is built with Claude Code: Nick directs, the agent types, and every decision is written down. These words are set by [Pretext](https://github.com/chenglou/pretext), Cheng Lou's layout library, which measures each line without asking the browser. Grab the button and move it; the words get out of its way.

[Hiring?](#fit) Type your company below. The site will find your open roles and ask your own AI whether he fits. He's open to contract, fractional and full-time work, or a project through the studio. [Get in touch.](https://hirenick.xyz/contact)

# Selected work

## Create-o-matic

A free, open-source playground of browser instruments for making type, color, texture and motion.

- URL: https://createomatic.xyz
- Source: https://github.com/thisisnickdecker/create-o-matic
- Status: Live · in active development
- Years: 2026

### What it does

Create-o-matic is a set of instruments that run in the browser. Motion stretches words and logos through a breathing grid or a golden spiral and loops them. The Texture lab is a darkroom for any image or video: stack risograph, halftone, photocopy, film grain and your own scans, each with its own blend mode. The Type tester sets your own words in fonts from the open catalogue, your Adobe Fonts or your files, side by side. The Colour lab and Brand bench handle palettes, contrast checks and a downloadable brand kit.

The live site has grown past the README. It now lists ten tools, adding Showroom, Spirotype, a Carousel creator, Stop motion and a Site reader that pulls any website's colors and type.

Everything exports. Video comes out as MP4, WebM, GIF or MOV, stills as PNG, palettes as CSS, JSON or an Adobe swatch file, and Motion loops can be embedded live on another site. Each piece of work is a small JSON patch, and the same patch makes the same frames every time.

### Why it exists

Nick wanted tools that are reusable, reproducible and well made, and that anyone can take apart. The home page puts it plainly: a free, open-source lab for type, color, motion and texture, with the line "We hope it's useful." It is also a working demonstration of his house rules: no build step, no frameworks, every control declared once, and nothing marked as working until it has been exported and checked.

### How it's built

Stack: Vanilla JavaScript (ES modules), Canvas, WebCodecs, Cloudflare Pages, Pages Functions, Node test runner

- Every engine is a pure function, render(ctx, patch, t): no clock, no Math.random, seeded randomness from packages/core/rng.js. The preview, every exporter and every embed call the same function, so loops close exactly.
- Every control lives in an instrument's instrument.json. The control rack, presets, keyframes and scripting API all read from that one declaration, and every instrument runs inside the shared shell in web/packages/core/shell.js.
- No browser writes ProRes, so Nick's repo includes its own: web/packages/core/prores.js encodes ProRes 4444 with alpha and mov.js writes the QuickTime file. The README records how exports were decoded with ffmpeg and AVFoundation and compared frame by frame against the engine.
- The one server part is functions/api/read.js, the Site reader. It fetches public pages only, checks every redirect hop against blocked private address ranges, and spots bot walls instead of reading them as the site.

### Facts

- Tools live: 10
- Exports: MP4 · WebM · GIF · MOV · PNG
- Shared effects: 16
- Build step: None
- Licence: MIT

### Brand

- White: #FFFFFF
- Grey 100: #F0F0EE
- Grey 600: #6B6B65
- Ink: #121211
- Accent (default; the colour knob turns it): #E93D4C
- Neue Haas Grotesk Display (Titles; Adobe Fonts kit gfn7ugl (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))
- Neue Haas Grotesk Text (All other UI and running text, tabular figures; Adobe Fonts kit gfn7ugl (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))

## dig this.

Crate digging for the internet: websites taken apart into type, color, motion, copy, code and makers.

- URL: https://digthis.website
- Status: Live · early
- Years: 2026

### What it does

dig this. is a library of websites, each one split into what Nick calls stems: the typeface, the colors, the motion, the copy, the code and the people who made it. You dig the sites you love, keep them in crates (shareable playlists, really) and mix pieces from different crates into a brief an AI agent can build from.

On November 2, 2026 the library held 474 sites. Each site has its own page with screenshots, a phone view and a time machine you can drag through its history from the Internet Archive. There is a Shuffle button in memory of StumbleUpon, a Compare view, member profiles and share cards sized for texting and decks. A Chrome extension and a bookmarklet let you dig whatever page you're on; the extension is downloadable now and listed as on its way to the Chrome Web Store.

It speaks MCP. Agents can search the library, read crates and palettes and, with a member's own key, create and fill crates. The /agents page gives the one-line command to connect it to Claude Code.

### Why it exists

Nick describes himself as a collector with too many open tabs, and wrote that his problem "has never been a shortage of ideas" but getting them down and grounded. The name comes from record stores: DJs crate dig for the one drum break nobody noticed, then build something new around it, and he sees designers, writers and founders doing the same. He'd wanted something like this for most of twenty years and built the first working version in about 24 hours, much of it by voice from his car. In his words, he doesn't want another place to hoard links. He wants a reason to share more of them.

### How it's built

Stack: Next.js 15, React 19, TypeScript, Cloudflare Workers (OpenNext), D1, R2, Workers AI, Resend, Vitest

- Every API handler is a plain (Request, Env) function in src/server/api.ts. The files under src/app/api only bind them to URLs, so the tests run exactly what the Worker runs, against in-memory SQLite with the real migrations.
- The MCP server has ten read tools in src/server/mcp.ts (search_sites, get_palette, dig_url, shuffle and others) and eight write tools in src/server/agent.ts. Apps can connect through OAuth 2.1 with dynamic client registration and PKCE (src/server/oauth.ts).
- Built to be read by machines as well as people: /llms.txt, an open /data.json, a Markdown copy of every site page at /sites/<slug>/index.md, and a robots.txt that allows search and AI input but not training.
- Browsing is public; the first Dig asks for sign-in. A site dug by URL lands in its digger's crate at once but waits in a review queue until Nick approves it for the front page.

### Facts

- Sites in the library: 474 (Nov 2, 2026)
- MCP tools: 18 (10 read, 8 write)
- First version: About 24 hours, Oct 20–21, 2026
- Ways in: Web · Chrome extension · bookmarklet · iPhone Shortcut · MCP

### Brand

- Paper: #F2F2F0
- Ink: #111111
- Soft: #6B6B66
- Orange (fills): #FF542F
- Orange ink (text): #C23A1A
- Neue Haas Grotesk Display (Display; Adobe Fonts kit wxf5map (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))
- Neue Haas Grotesk Text (Body and UI; Adobe Fonts kit wxf5map (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))
- Georgia (Titles on book and paper cards; System font)

## nickdecker.net

Nick's own site: a short bio up front, with a blog, work archive, bookshelf and lab behind it.

- URL: https://nickdecker.net
- Status: Live
- Years: 2026

### What it does

The home page is one paragraph. Nick is a Cincinnati-based designer, writer and builder, owner of The Studiolo, formerly of Funny or Die, United Talent Agency and The Tryon Theatre. Every interest in that paragraph is a link into the rest of the site.

Behind it: a blog, a filterable archive of 95 posters, identities and typography pieces, a bookshelf of 130 books with notes, a public notebook of marginalia, a working paper called What I Believe, a page of fixed-price offers and a case study of his own house. The lab holds the Era Machine, which dresses the same words in decades of web design, and a playable damper piano.

At the foot of every page sits a small machined dial. Turn it and the site's warm colors rotate around the color wheel, and your browser remembers where you left it.

### Why it exists

It is the place Nick works things out in public. The blog's own description is "Working out the ideas rattling around my noggin." The site keeps his writing, reading, design work and experiments under one address he owns, and it doubles as the testing ground for ideas that later become their own projects: dig this. started as a static prototype in its lab.

### How it's built

Stack: Hand-written HTML and CSS, Vanilla JavaScript, Cloudflare Pages, Pages Functions, D1, Resend, Python and Node build scripts

- The color knob (public/knob.js) turns the warm palette in 15° steps using relative OKLCH colors in site.css, for example oklch(from #C43A3E l c calc(h + var(--h))). A one-line head script applies the saved setting before first paint so nothing flashes.
- One middleware file (functions/_middleware.js) canonicalizes the host, locks /drafts and the private Supper Club behind passwords, and injects the shared footer and knob into every page that uses site.css.
- The contact form and blog subscriptions run as Pages Functions (functions/api/) sending through Resend. New posts go out by email with tools/send-post.py.
- Share images for the blog, notes and spreads are generated by scripts in tools/ (blog-og.mjs, site-og.mjs, spread-og.mjs) rather than made by hand.

### Facts

- Work archive: 95 pieces
- Bookshelf: 130 books
- Commits: 298 since Sept 25, 2026
- Colour knob: 24 detents, 15° apart

### Brand

- Paper: #F4F4F1
- Ink: #1A1714
- Ember (links): #C43A3E
- Ember hot (hover): #E93D4C
- Warm grey: #7A746C
- Neue Haas Grotesk Display (Display and headings; Adobe Fonts kit sge7aac (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))
- Neue Haas Grotesk Text (Body and small labels; Adobe Fonts kit sge7aac (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))
- ui-monospace / SF Mono (Colour knob readout; System font)

## The Studiolo

The website for Nick's strategy and design practice in New Richmond, Ohio.

- URL: https://thestudiolo.com
- Status: Live · rebuild planned
- Years: 2026

### What it does

The Studiolo is Nick's practice: brand and identity, websites, video and flyers, and AI and infrastructure for small businesses. The live site opens on two paths. Existing businesses can order a Gap Report, a $200 written study of how a stranger finds and experiences them online. People starting something new can book a $200 recorded Kickoff Call.

The Package Builder at /build walks a client through five steps (where they are, a foundation tier, add-ons, a start date, contact details) and emails them a detailed proposal. The /ideas page is a printed flyer turned into a form: hand-drawn artwork with real labels underneath, for people who scanned one of the flyers Nick puts up around town.

The site needs rebuilding, and it shows. The home page, llms.txt and the newer positioning on nickdecker.net ("makers and small businesses") describe the practice in three different ways, and the newer wording sits on an unmerged branch.

### Why it exists

On the About page Nick writes that he keeps seeing gifted people building something real who are overwhelmed by the business of running it, and that he wants to be one person who can hold the whole picture: brand, website, AI infrastructure, video and marketing. The aim he states is ownership. He isn't trying to make clients dependent on him; he wants them to own the files, the story, the systems and the tools.

### How it's built

Stack: Hand-written HTML and CSS, Vanilla JavaScript, Cloudflare Pages, Pages Functions, Resend, R2

- No frameworks, no npm, no build step, and zero border radius anywhere. These are written as hard rules in the repo's CLAUDE.md.
- Proposal, idea and contact submissions are Pages Functions (functions/api/proposal.js, idea.js, contact.js) sharing one email system in functions/_lib/email.js. The git history shows a run of fixes to keep those emails readable in Gmail, Proton and dark-mode clients.
- On /ideas the form labels are baked into form.webp, so every field also carries a real <label>, hidden on desktop and visible on mobile. Mobile reuses the same artwork as a border-image so the stacked fields keep their hand-drawn edges.
- Three color schemes (light, dark and a yellow "martian") switch through CSS custom properties on the body, on a golden-ratio type scale.

### Facts

- Entry offers: Gap Report $200 · Kickoff Call $200
- Package tiers: $3,000 · $5,000 · $10,000 · Bespoke
- Colour schemes: Light · Dark · Martian
- Based in: New Richmond, Ohio

### Brand

- Black: #000000
- White: #FFFFFF
- Night (dark scheme): #0A0A0A
- Martian yellow: #E8A838
- Ideas red: #EC2227
- Menlo / Monaco / Consolas (Body and UI; System monospace stack)
- Ruder Plakat Variable (Display (logotype ships as images); Self-hosted woff2 in assets/fonts (commercial face; licence terms not in repo))
- Cormorant Garamond (Italic serif accents; Google Fonts)
- General Sans (/ideas, contact form and emails; Self-hosted woff2 in assets/fonts)
- Shantell Sans (Handwriting on /ideas; Self-hosted subset in assets/fonts (open source, OFL))

## VACANCY

An independent guide to work in the agentic age, built from the public job boards of hand-picked companies.

- URL: https://vacancy.network
- Status: Live · early
- Years: 2026

### What it does

VACANCY reads the public job boards of 121 companies chosen by hand, across design tools, AI, hardware, transportation, defense, space and culture, and publishes every open role with a link back to the original posting. On October 31, 2026 that came to 12,745 open roles.

The front page filters by sentence ("Showing design roles at hardware companies, remote US"). Each job page shows what the posting asks for, sorted into asked for, nice to have and mentioned. Skill pages count how often a skill comes up and what tends to come with it. There is a Cincinnati edition covering roles within about 50 miles, and field guides start with Brand Designer, Web.

Every role is also available to AI assistants: as Markdown and JSON downloads, through a plain search URL, and through a read-only MCP server with seven tools.

### Why it exists

Nick built it to do two jobs at once: a tool he uses every morning to track good roles, and a portfolio piece that proves editorial web design and agent engineering together. The idea underneath is that a job posting is a signal of what a company is building and which skills are rising. The north star in the brief reads: "I didn't know that company existed, and now I know exactly what I'd need to learn to work there."

### How it's built

Stack: Astro 7, TypeScript, Cloudflare Workers, D1, Cloudflare Email Sending, GitHub Actions, Figma variables

- The scout (scripts/scout/) is plain code with no AI. It has adapters for Greenhouse, Ashby, Lever, Workable, Recruitee, Workday, PageUp, PeopleAdmin, ADP, WordPress and Rippling, and only reads a feed a board publishes itself, never a page's HTML.
- Nothing is invented. Pay, place and remote status come only from the posting's structured fields or show as "not stated", and a job only closes after it is missing from two successful fetches in a row.
- tokens/vacancy.tokens.json is the single source for colors, type and spacing, shared with the Figma file. scripts/tokens.mjs writes the CSS before every dev and build run.
- The MCP server (worker/mcp.ts) reads the same /data files the site publishes, so what an agent sees can't drift from the pages.

### Facts

- Companies: 121 (112 with a readable feed)
- Open roles: 12,745 (Oct 31, 2026)
- Job board adapters: 11
- MCP tools: 7, read-only

### Brand

- Paper: #D0E0E3
- Ink: #231F20
- Signal vermilion (new, open, live): #FF542F
- Refrigerator Deluxe (Display, upper case; Adobe Fonts kit pls1wcr (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))
- Garamond Premier (Everything else, including nav, lists, forms and labels; Adobe Fonts kit pls1wcr (licensed via Adobe, not redistributable))

## The brief, answered

Source: https://littleplains.com/talent/design-technologist. Each line of the Little Plains Design Technologist listing, with what's shown and where.

### The work

- **Test concepts fast as working prototypes in the browser** (shown). This site went from a written brief to a working poster study in an afternoon. The rejected first direction and each study are kept in the repo. [Decision log](https://hirenick.xyz/#making) · [Create-o-matic](https://createomatic.xyz)
- **Production-ready front ends: marketing sites, product interfaces, interactive brand experiences** (shown). A product (Dig This: accounts, crates, an agent API), a marketing site (The Studiolo), a creative tool (Create-o-matic) and this interactive brand experience, all live. [Dig This](https://hirenick.xyz/work/digthis) · [The Studiolo](https://hirenick.xyz/work/studiolo)
- **Build in Next.js, React and modern CSS, with Claude Code** (shown). This site: Next.js App Router, React 19, TypeScript, CSS modules and custom properties, built in Claude Code. Dig This runs Next 15 on Cloudflare Workers. [How this was made](https://hirenick.xyz/#making)
- **Scroll-driven stories, motion, data visualization, generative visuals** (partial). Generative and motion: the poster above is a seeded generative engine Nick wrote. Scroll-driven storytelling and data visualization aren't shown yet. [Elastic engine](https://github.com/thisisnickdecker/create-o-matic/tree/main/web/instruments/elastic)
- **Turn Figma files, brand kits, sketches and screen recordings into working pages** (partial). Brand kits in, brand kits out: Create-o-matic's Brand bench reads a logo and exports W3C tokens, CSS and a BRAND.md. A Figma-to-code case isn't public yet. [Brand bench](https://createomatic.xyz/brand/)
- **Build with Agentic Brand Systems, and add to them** (shown). Brand bench writes a BRAND.md that agents design from. This site has a machine view and its own MCP server, so an agent can read Nick the way a person does. [Machine view](https://hirenick.xyz/?view=machine) · [MCP endpoint](https://hirenick.xyz/mcp)
- **Test your own work across browsers and devices before it ships** (partial). Every page here was screenshotted and checked for clipped text at seven widths from 360 to 1920 with Playwright. Chromium only so far; Safari and Firefox are next. [Layout audit](https://hirenick.xyz/#making)
- **Try new tools as they appear and turn what works into reusable workflows** (shown). Verbatim exists because conversations with agents kept getting lost; it saves them as Markdown with a completeness check. Dig This ships an MCP server for other people's agents. [Verbatim](https://github.com/thisisnickdecker/verbatim) · [Dig This agents](https://digthis.website/agents)

### The person

- **Creative direction and technical execution, in one portfolio** (shown). Sixteen years on the creative side (Funny or Die branded content, a cinema's creative direction, The Studiolo), and the tools on this page, built by hand. [Résumé](https://hirenick.xyz/#resume)
- **Daily use of frontier agentic tools for code, image and video** (shown). Claude Code daily for code. The recordings in these case studies were scripted and captured by an agent with Playwright, then checked frame by frame. [How this was made](https://hirenick.xyz/#making)
- **HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, React and Next.js** (shown). Create-o-matic is plain ES modules with no build step, readable on GitHub; this site is TypeScript and React. [create-o-matic source](https://github.com/thisisnickdecker/create-o-matic)
- **Comfort moving between Figma and code** (not yet). The HIRE NICK! wordmark was drawn in Illustrator and set in code here, but there's no public Figma-to-code case yet.
- **Experience building brand or design systems** (shown). Create-o-matic's tokens and instrument standard; Brand bench's kit export; this site's single type and spacing scale, which every typeface choice runs through. [Create-o-matic](https://hirenick.xyz/work/createomatic)
- **Take a loose brief to a working prototype without close direction** (shown). Dig This went from 60 open tabs to a working site in under 24 hours, as the post about it explains. [The Dig This post](https://nickdecker.net/blog/digthis/)
- **Plus: MCP-based workflows, GitHub** (shown). Two MCP servers (Dig This and this site). Public repositories for Create-o-matic and Verbatim. [github.com/thisisnickdecker](https://github.com/thisisnickdecker)
- **Plus: Three.js or WebGL, Svelte, Storybook, a headless CMS** (not yet). None of these are shown here. The poster draws on a 2D canvas.

## Résumé

PDF: https://nickdecker.net/Nick-Decker-Resume.pdf

Based in Cincinnati · authorized to work in the U.S. · remote across U.S. time zones · near CVG, glad to travel to New York · open to a consulting start.

### The Studiolo, 2025–now

Founder & Principal · New Richmond & Cincinnati, OH

- Runs a strategy and design practice for makers and small businesses: diagnostics that find new customers and revenue in memberships, workshops, products and offers.
- Shapes the offer, then builds it: naming, identity, websites and print, through launch.
- Moves stores off broken or outdated platforms so owners can run their own sites again, with better systems behind them.

### Custom architectural project, 2022–2025

Owner & Project Lead · Moscow, OH

- Worked with a local architect on a modern Corten steel house above the Ohio River, from concept and materials through construction.

### Altiers Architectural Products, 2023–2024

Architectural Materials Specialist · Cincinnati, OH

- Advised architects and designers on premium facade and building-enclosure materials.

### Anchora Group, 2020–2022

Creative Consultant, Brand & Marketing · Wood Dale, IL

- Dealer videos for Kubota, John Deere and Polaris; Shopify sites for vendor partners.

### Tryon Theatre, 2017–2020

Creative Director & Theatre Manager · Tryon, NC

- First manager of a newly restored 200-seat art-house cinema; relaunched and ran it: programming, operations, staffing and marketing.
- Grew attendance from 6–20 a night to regular sellouts through programming, community marketing and word of mouth.

### Asheville Citizen-Times & Mountain Xpress, 2016–2017

Freelance Journalist · Asheville, NC

- Profiles and reporting on culture, business and civic life.

### Funny or Die, 2012–2016

Executive Producer, Branded Content · West Hollywood, CA

- Helped build the branded-entertainment division: campaigns with Volkswagen, Nike, Mattel and others, from pitch through launch.
- Ran shoots with budgets of $40K–$100K and project spends over $1M, hiring line producers, vendors and crews.

### United Talent Agency, 2010–2012

Agent Trainee · Beverly Hills, CA

- Digital talent and film production; a senior partner's desk: calls, deal flow and negotiations.

### Earlier

Myspace Music, Beverly Hills (2009–2010) · Super Delicious, Hollywood (2009) · Everloving Records, Los Feliz (2007)

### Education

Indiana University · B.A., Telecommunications · Minor, Business

### Tools

- Code: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Next.js · GitHub · deploys on Cloudflare and Vercel · Shopify
- AI: Claude and Claude Code daily · building agents and MCP servers · research and scraping pipelines
- Design: Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, After Effects)
- Growth: Search Console · Cloudflare and Google Analytics · Meta Ads · email flows · CRMs

## Writing

- [Dig This](https://nickdecker.net/blog/digthis/) (2026-10-21). How a movie, a museum, a LinkedIn post and 60 open tabs turned into a fully working website in under 24 hours. Crate digging for the internet meets Pinterest on steroids.
- [Dragons and Dampers](https://nickdecker.net/blog/dragons-and-dampers/) (2026-10-15). Two things I’ve grown to be certain of: I am my own worst enemy and the universe is musical.
- [Good Games Are Hard](https://nickdecker.net/blog/good-games-are-hard/) (2026-10-06). How to reframe your relationship with life when the going gets tough.