Aten Design Group

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About Us

Aten Design Group is a web strategy, design, and development company based in Denver, Colorado. We're passionate about meaningful user experience, beautiful design, and elegant technical solutions.

About our Name

Aten is prounced ăt'-ten, and rhymes with Manhattan. The name comes from Egyptian history and mythology.

Learn more about the backstory

What We Do

Since 2000, we’ve worked with journalists, educators, human rights activists, health-care providers, climate change adaptation experts, international aid workers — a broad range of organizations committed to making positive changes in the world — to build interactive platforms that help impact lives.

We provide comprehensive strategy, design and development services to run all aspects of successful interactive projects, from start to finish. Our services include:

  • Content strategy, information architecture, and technical planning
  • Design
  • Development
  • Support
  • Dev-ops and server management

People First

After more than 10 years of creating expansive websites, we're still committed to keeping people at the center of everything we do.

Building solid, energetic relationships with our clients is a fundamental part of our approach. We develop effective partnerships by genuinely sharing in our clients' vision, inspiring their trust, and working with them as a team to realize goals.

While designing, we ask what best serves the user — not just the stakeholder, and not the designer. We champion user experience in each stage of design and development, and address project requirements with a consistent focus on promoting meaningful interaction.
See the outcome in our work.

In the office, we're committed to a strong team dynamic that recognizes the invaluable contribution each person brings to the process. We foster a genuine appreciation for every individual's unique skills, and invest time in developing together as a team — whether that's code reviews, design critiques, conferences, Frisbee, or ripping it sick on the slopes.
Learn more about working at Aten.

Our Team

  • Justin Toupin

    CEO, Partner

    Justin founded Aten Design Group in early 2000 while still in college. His focus on clear, effective design solutions and his determination to achieve project goals drive the design process at Aten. Justin has a passion for working with cultural/social organizations – particularly with museums and humanitarian agencies.

    Justin’s roles include providing overall creative direction and producing actual visual designs for projects. Additionally, Justin is a capable front-end and backend developer with eight years of experience programming for the web using a variety of technologies.

    Also, Justin runs (and owns) the business.

  • Jon Clark

    Business Development Director, Partner

    Jon was a co-founder of the company. Since 2000, he has contributed to all stages of design projects—from conception to production. He leads the company’s new business development efforts, while managing ongoing client relationships. Jon’s experience and understanding of the design process, combined with clear and effective communication, make him an ideal point of contact for Aten’s clients. He continues to play an important role in concept development and the rest of the creative process.

  • Ken Woodworth

    Art Director, Partner

    Ken is a proficient illustrator and designer with a gift for creating beautiful, intuitive design systems for even the most complex requirements. Ken’s work has been linked from a wide range of CSS design galleries and praised by prominent designers and authors in the web standards movement. Ken’s design capabilities are matched by a thorough understanding and ability in multiple production techniques, including (X)HTML/CSS and Flash, which makes his designs not only beautiful, but highly functional.

    In addition to design, Ken has extensive experience developing interactive applications and online games, and has served as lead developer in Flash projects for Colonial Williamsburg, Habitat for Humanity, the National Portrait Gallery, and more.

  • Scott Reynen

    Technology Director

    Scott has worked on the web most of his life. He hosted his first site on a server with less computing power than his current phone. He's seen a lot change on the web over the years, but the things that drew him to the web — online community, web standards, and quick iteration — are still here. Those things have most recently drawn Scott to the Drupal community, where he helps to manage groups.drupal.org, local Denver meetups, and several popular modules on drupal.org.

    Inside Aten, Scott leads our wonderful development team. Outside Aten, he plays with small personal projects to try to figure out where the web is heading. After much trial and error, Scott has concluded the web is going to be a big deal.

  • Joel Steidl

    Lead Architect

    Joel came to Aten in 2009 from Nashville, TN, where he spent four years at a leading interactive agency in the area. He has a rich history in all things web. After working as Senior Designer with Aten for a couple years, it became clear that Joel excelled at organizing and planning. He now fulfills the role of Lead Architect on our UX team.

    When he’s not organizing content, you can find him exploring new trails, hanging out with his wife, or traveling the world.

  • Eric Toupin

    Lead Developer, Support Services

    Eric has been working with Aten since 2007. He's contributed to a full range of business operations at Aten -- both in technology and management -- with experience ranging through business development, communications management, site building, systems development and design implementation. Eric is committed to maintaining excellent client relationships through clear communication. He currently oversees our support line of service.

  • Rob Ballou

    Developer

    Rob is a seasoned web developer, primarily working on technology to deliver content and a good user experience. He has worked with many different platforms and programming languages over the years and enjoys tackling new problems. Passionate on creating the best content management workflows possible and figuring out solutions to create great mobile experiences.

  • John Ferris

    Front-end Developer

    John has been working in the print and interactive design industry since 2000. In 2005, He took on the role of creative director for a marketing firm in Colorado Springs, CO. A few years later, he ventured out on his own, starting a small web design company where he could focus on interactive design and development full time. John joined Aten in 2012 as a front-end developer. He is passionate about both design and code and finds the front-end, the sweet spot in-between.

  • Lydia Toupin

    Studio Manager

    Lydia was the first official employee of Aten way back in 2000, when she contributed to a variety of efforts including sales, client relations and office management. She has recently returned as a much needed Studio Manager to focus on operations, internal process, and team support. Lydia thrives on furthering an office culture at Aten that promotes continued creativity and healthy relational dynamics. With a background in bookkeeping, resource management, and human resources, Lydia brings a key administrative element to Aten’s team of developers and designers.

  • Clayton Dewey

    Site Builder

    Clayton joined Aten in 2012 after working as a Web Instructor and freelance site builder. With over six years experience as an educator specializing in Linguistically Diverse Education as well as actively working on numerous campaigns for social justice, he brings with him a passion for empowering web technology and putting its potential to use in fostering concrete change in the world.

    Aside from site building, Clayton also enjoys being a goofy dad and always appreciates a good paraprosdokian.

  • Garrett Dawson

    Front-end Developer

    Garrett is a front-end developer with a keen attention to the interplay between code and aesthetics. Originally from Colorado Springs, where he worked as a freelance web designer, Garrett has been working heavily with Drupal since moving to Denver several years ago. He finds the Drupal community exceptionally encouraging, and believes it to be a shining example of the merits of collaborative and open efforts.

  • Ryan Kois

    Developer

    Ryan joined Aten in late 2012. Formally a Colorado Springs resident, Ryan brings with him a passion for open-source development and internet freedom. An outspoken advocate of legislative transparency, the creative commons, and a surveillance-free internet, Ryan synthesizes ethics and software development into a lifestyle filled with compassion and analysis.

  • Ali Ali

    Senior Designer

    Ali found his passion for art and design at an early age, designing posters for video games and doodling all over his school notebooks. As an adult, Ali has crafted interfaces for organizations like Boston Scientific, Adobe, Kaspersky Labs and more. He is well known for his design work on A Feed Apart and the historic Online SOPA STRIKE. Ali is also an instructor at The College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at RIT.

    When he is not designing websites, Ali enjoys, drawing, reading, watching movies and spending time with his wife and son.

  • Karyn Cassio

    Developer

    Karyn has an extensive history in technology and the web. She first realized she was "good with computers" while serving in the US Air Force in the late 1980s, and began her career in systems administration and application development shortly after leaving the service in 1992. After discovering Drupal in 2008, Karyn was immediately drawn into the amazing open source community. Since then, she has lead Drupal Ladder meet ups, served as the Global Community Track Chair for DrupalCons, served on the "Drupal Ladder" steering committee, and spoken internationally at open source conferences -- all while keeping a strong focus on actually writing code. Karyn holds a BS in Computer Science, as well as an MBA from Pepperdine University.

What's with the name?

The name “Aten” refers to the somewhat obscure story of an Egyptian pharaoh, “Akhenaten”, who revolutionized the art, culture, and religion of his entire kingdom in pursuit of what he believed was the true creative source of the universe: Aten.

This single-minded focus, and the willingness to face odds and defy norms in pursuit of absolute creativity, were themes we found inspiring when we founded Aten Design Group way back in 2000.