Meet the Team
Emily Cotler
Creative/Art Director, Visual/UX Designer, Sits in the Chair Where the Buck Stops
- Once stood within 50 feet of The Queen (indeed!)
- Cares deeply for the word “whom,” appropriate apostrophes, and the Oxford comma
- Ideal escape from cyberspace: Colorado snowboarding
Judyth Collin
Project Assistant, Copywriter, Site Updater, Print Wrangler
- A hummingbird once landed on her hand
- Reads a lot
- Likes to garden
Ruth Poliakon
Developer, Project Manager, Queen of Documentation
- Firmly believes she would be a great street racer
- Was not complete before she watched Dirty Dancing for the first time
- Is your go-to person for identifying that weird bug you saw
Mikhail Twarogowski
Senior Developer, Graphic Designer, WebFont Wizard
- Made his own coffee mug
- Owns a “Hall of Fame” of junk mail with misspellings of his name
- Knew a turkey with the temperament of a house cat (RIP Butterball)
Diana Tsoi
Billing Manager, Jacklyn of All Trades, Master of the Spreadsheet
- Usually figures it out without reading the manual
- Has no fear in composting your trash
- Zen place, island beaches
Braden Davis
Executive Assistant, Project Manager
- A total bookworm. If he’s reading on his Kindle, he’s probably reading something spicy
- Drinks more coffee than water and his doctor is mad about it
- Believes that seeing movies by yourself is the ultimate form of therapy
Clients: Who to Contact at Wax
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Photography of Emily by deborah sherman photography; all other photos taken in-house.
Emily’s History
How does an UCLA History major get herself into advanced design class? “I camped outside of Professor Kathleen Bick’s office for two weeks begging for an audience. I wasn’t in the design program, but I was really drawn to design and wanted to do an independent study. I persisted… she finally relented. I got an A.” Not exactly what one would call a typical start, but an example of Emily’s undeniable drive when it comes to something she’s passionate about.
Many more design classes followed, leading to employment and creative partnerships with industry lead professionals including Kelly Goto and Shelby Tupper. In her ten years of experience prior to opening Waxcreative Design in 1998, Emily was immersed in graphic design. From wedding invitations, medical packaging, and silkscreening to menus, corporate newsletters, and CD packaging, Emily created a wide spectrum of communication designs before ever signing on to the internet. But she wouldn’t reroute her road to business ownership for anything, stating, “Schooling only takes you so far in this industry. Experience — including both a honed ability to understand audience as well as the ability that only some accomplished designers have to see design potential in raw content — this is a major key to success.”
That, yes. But also hunger.
In the late 90s Emily heard the call of the web — or rather, her sister’s nonstop badgering for a workable and attractive website that both showcased her as an author and furthered her career goals. “I think this website thing is going to be big,” Julia said. This was new. This was innovative. This was something that Emily couldn’t resist. It fed her creative side while stretching her technical muscles. Armed with her newly-learned HTML skills and a decade’s worth of invaluable graphic and project management experience, Emily set to work on what would become the first version of JuliaQuinn.com (redesigned for the fourth time mid-2014, with a major under-the-hood overhaul in 2017, and another one in later 2020 to get ready for Netflix’s Bridgerton, since with regularly added new features, constantly streamlined existing features — the site has become Waxcreative’s flagship. Go visit! It’s sublime).
Other sites followed quickly. Then in early 2000 Emily partnered with web design powerhouse Goto to write a book that would prove to become a web industry standard. Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works, is the second edition that was released almost five years later, just as CSS was replacing tables. Translated into 14 languages, this book continues to be a staple in web design departments and firms across the globe and included in college-level and post-graduate curricula. Crazily, it’s still in print and selling — over 20 years later.
Over 100 highly acclaimed sites after that first incarnation of JuliaQuinn.com, Emily’s excitement for her craft is as fresh as it was when she parked herself outside of Professor Bick’s office that fateful fall day — and that excitement is catchy. Make contact. Prompt Emily to schedule a zoom with you. She’ll get you excited to redesign your site.
