About the Founder


 

Andy Yeckel, Founder & Art Director

 

Andy Yeckel is the founder and art director of Alpha Channel Design, a design company located in the Pacific Northwest. Known for his innovation and detail-oriented approach, Andy has spent much of his career working as a designer in a developer's world, combining his skills as both a creator and an engineer. His work at Alpha Channel Design includes leveraging decades of innovation to offer diverse design solutions for major companies worldwide. The company specializes in high-detail laser engraved maps on various materials like wood, metal, glass, acrylic, and leather, as well as photographic prints and artwork. Additionally, Andy and his father John repurposed an unfinished garage into a design studio, which serves as Alpha Channel's main office. The name "Alpha Channel" derives from his background in coding and photo editing, where the alpha channel defines the opacity of pixels, which he uses conceptually in his design work through laser cutting and CNC routing.

 

"Compiling Internets"

Biography

Andy Yeckel is a groundbreaking designer and developer whose innovations have shaped the way we interact with technology. A rare combination of visionary thinker, creative designer, and technical savant, Andy has consistently been ahead of his time, developing foundational concepts in interactive user interfaces, multi-touch technology, and data-driven design long before they became mainstream.

From his early work in 2002, which laid the groundwork for scalable, cinematic interfaces, to his 2009 contributions to Microsoft’s multi-touch API, Andy’s career represents a unique convergence of art, code, and human-computer interaction. His work has not only influenced major tech companies but has also been continuously live and operational for over two decades, a testament to its enduring relevance.

Timeline of Innovations

1988

  • Began experimenting with a Compaq Portable running DOS and Logo Writer, scripting graphics on a green CRT.
  • Developed an early passion for interactive design and computers.

1990s

  • Built computers, created network cables, and set up LAN parties.
  • Subscribed to Macworld magazine, memorizing specs and becoming fascinated with interactive, large-scale interfaces.

2001-2004

  • Worked at Go2Marine, developing foundational web development skills while attending the Art Institute of Seattle for a Multimedia Web Design degree.
  • Created scripts to process images, remove backgrounds and generate different sizes of images for fast loading.
  • Created code to build product pages and categories using scripts to assemble websites based on Excell spreadsheets.
  • Graduated in Early 2003 with the first graduating class of the program, showcasing his innovative 2003 carousel interface as his portfolio centerpiece.

2002

  • Authored a detailed interface design document (.docx copy) outlining concepts for dynamic, scalable, and data-driven web interfaces.
  • Created a prototype image gallery generator using JavaScript, a precursor to data-driven interfaces.
  • Created a prototype interactive wall that used shadow tracking to sense the user and rendered 3d rain that used physics to appear to bounce off the persons or objects in front of the screen.

2003

  • Published a fully functional, skinnable carousel interface coded in Flash, designed to work with touch-like interactions similar to the interactive wall concept. The interface was meant to react to you instead of relying on pre-scripted click events and transitions, it was alive. 
  • This interface, publicly accessible via his portfolio website, included depth effects and parallax and served as an early foundation for cinematic and reactive design. 
  • Reacts to touch perfectly today on any modern device, over 20 years later - a testament to his forward thinking. 

2005-2007

2008-20012

  • While at Content Master, Andy developed advanced user interfaces and eLearning content for Microsoft Surface, Silverlight and others using his years of developing cutting-edge interfaces to create a next generation web applications and experiences.
  • He worked with Umesh Patel who helped develop the C# and XAML code white at Content Master to create the first multi-touch website and touch api demonstrating gesture recognition and manipulation processing that later became part of the WPF 4.0 multi-touch gesture library and Manipulation processing  API for Microsoft, laying the foundation for manipulation processing and multi-touch Silverlight websites. (Note, Silverlight is no longer supported, it's possible to view these with IE tab for chrome and installing and old version of Silverlight)
  • Shared his innovations with industry leaders like Bill Buxton (April 2009) 
  • Created interfaces and graphics for AT&T, Microsoft Visual Studio, Azure, MSDN, Sharepoint, SQL Server and more. 
  • Created eLearning content for Microsoft Surface 1.0 and Surface 2.0

2013-2020

  • Freelance Designer and Developer - Further built on interfaces, designs
  • Worked With Bing voice search UI
  • Created iOS and Android UI for the 3M Hearing Protection and Respratory protection apps.
  • Became a Father and shifted focus off of full-time interface design

2018

  • Worked with Iqvia and Brad Frost (Atomic Design) to develop interface elements for the Apollo design system. 

 2018-Present

  • Moved to Kingston, WA
  • Founded Alpha Channel Design to create physical inventions and products
  • Founded Bainbridge Island Pickleball Company
  • Launched ADASigns.com

Notable Innovations

  • 2003 Carousel Interface: A fully skinnable, reactive UI that introduced parallax, depth effects, and modular design. This foundational work predates similar concepts by years and remains functional on modern touch devices.
  • First Multi-Touch Website: Developed in Early 2009, integrating Silverlight’s beta multi-touch capabilities with the first gesture recognition and manipulation processing library for Silverlight that shares its lineage to the first 2003 interface interaction methods.

  • Cinematic UI Design: Developed cinematic effects such as motion blur, weather-responsive elements like clouds, rain, and dynamic lighting in the 2005-2007 interface iterations along with dynamic text from an xml file. These features combined art and technology in innovative ways, enhancing the user experience with both aesthetic and functional benefits. While Apple introduced their version of a carousel called Cover Flow around 2007(purchased in 2005), it was neither browser-based nor designed for data-driven web content like images, documents, or videos. Additionally, it did not support single-point touch or swipe interactions, which were key features of the 2003 sixspeedmedia carousel interface.

  • template-based navigation components designed for data-driven expansion as early as 2002.

Legacy

Andy Yeckel’s work bridges the worlds of design and technology, proving that great interfaces and designs that can be both functional and beautiful. His journey highlights the challenges faced by independent innovators in a fast-moving industry while celebrating the transformative power of creativity and persistence.

Today, Andy’s work stands as a reminder of how individual contributions can shape the future, even if recognition takes time to catch up.

Andy's complete pre-Alpha Channel portfolio samples: