Nor Sanavongsay

Director of Creative Technology

My name is Nor, pronounce Naw, I was born in Thailand. My family moved to the United States when I was four years old. We landed in Kingport, Tennessee and we stayed with our sponsors for about six months before heading up here to Illinois.

I grew up watching Bruce Lee movies, Samurai Sunday, Transformers, Thundercats, and all the great 80's cartoons. I also have a facination with mangas and graphic novels. I began drawing at the age of six with my uncle as a mentor. I've been drawing and kept my interest in art ever since.

It wasn't until junior year of high school that my dad got me into computers. Well, he didn't get me into it, I just fell into it by default. He enrolled in a mail-in course to learn to fix computers. He didn't know English well, so, I ended up learning as I was teaching him. I primarily worked with Win3.1 paint application and the DOS environment. That was the beginning of my adventure into the digital art and programming world.

Although I majored in Fine Arts, I had a profound interest in learning programming. I started with HyperCard and then gradually into Lingo in Macromedia Director. Soon it was JavaScript and I was hooked into the development world. So when the web became mainstream in 1994 I believe, I started learning more about web development. As an artist, I wanted to show my artwork to the world, and the internet was the gateway.

Today, I enjoy writing children's books, digital painting, programming in many languages, and the guitar. I've been trained to use both halves of the brain and they have been working together quite well. I find pleasure in both technology and creative and bridging the gap between the two. Together, they make the world more balanced. Form and Function.