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Hi, I'm Aaron Richard. You might remember me as that guy from some website who goes by the name "Ralph The Magician."

I live and work in San Francisco. Sometimes I make things. I like radio & sailboats.

I use this to showcase some of the things I've worked on that I think others might find particularly interesting.

You can learn more about me, follow me on Twitter, or send me an email.

Note: The image above is massive at 13536x1584, and too big for Tumblr. You can find a high-resolution JPEG here. I have colloquially chosen to call this The Skypeline. I can’t well cover up the client in this case. This was for a pitch I worked on. (For Skype, in case you were still wondering.) I decided to map the history and evolution of Skype as both a brand and a product. To do this I used the Wayback Machine to pull creative and copy from Skype’s website dating back to their launch in August 2003. It’s interesting to see how Skype developed over the years, being that it’s been mostly a “free” product and service. Several of the initiatives to monetize their platform have been killed. Skype business model is something of a paradox. They want more users to sign up for Skype and use their paid services, but every time a new person signs up for Skype that’s one less person that you need to use the paid service to call (since Skype-to-Skype calls are free). It’s not a problem most businesses have. If everyone uses Skype, Skype makes no money. The optimal scenario for them is one where ever customer has exactly half of his or her contacts on Skype so that he or she is using it all the time, but still needs the buy into the paid service to call the other half that isn’t using it. They would have made an interesting client. I hope to work with them in the future.

Note: The image above is massive at 13536x1584, and too big for Tumblr. You can find a high-resolution JPEG here.

I have colloquially chosen to call this The Skypeline.

I can’t well cover up the client in this case. This was for a pitch I worked on. (For Skype, in case you were still wondering.) I decided to map the history and evolution of Skype as both a brand and a product.

To do this I used the Wayback Machine to pull creative and copy from Skype’s website dating back to their launch in August 2003. It’s interesting to see how Skype developed over the years, being that it’s been mostly a “free” product and service. Several of the initiatives to monetize their platform have been killed.

Skype business model is something of a paradox. They want more users to sign up for Skype and use their paid services, but every time a new person signs up for Skype that’s one less person that you need to use the paid service to call (since Skype-to-Skype calls are free). It’s not a problem most businesses have. If everyone uses Skype, Skype makes no money. The optimal scenario for them is one where ever customer has exactly half of his or her contacts on Skype so that he or she is using it all the time, but still needs the buy into the paid service to call the other half that isn’t using it.

They would have made an interesting client. I hope to work with them in the future.