About Us
Your Ever-Active Interactives
Mostly Serious is a group of overachieving professionals who thrive on creating barrier-breaking interactive solutions. We get hyped to build interactive apps and websites the way gear heads get amped to supe up, say, a ‘67 Chevelle SS 396. The fun comes with obsessing over all the details that perfect the canvas.
Our friends may wish we were a little less passionate about interactive apps, but our clients can’t seem to thank us enough.
The Talent Behind the Reputation
Big breakthroughs take big brains, and Mostly Serious boasts some deep-thinking pros. Our results reflect serious ideas and exceptional craftsmanship. We put our heads together to create all kinds of great things, but we gravitate mostly toward interactive apps, websites, and other interactive solutions.
Want to get to know us? Mosey on over to the right and click our sweet little mugs.
Jarad Johnson
Designer & Partner
Jarad helped found Mostly Serious after cutting his teeth at boutique firms, startups, and as an interactive consultant for some of the largest agencies in the US. He also organized Springfield Creatives—which strives to improve local connectivity and culture—and serves on the advisory board for an urban garden project, Springfield Community Gardens.
A multi-talented creative, Jarad has a strong history wrangling interactive projects, software applications, and marketing campaigns. His abilities transcend interactive, and he has previously served as project manager, writer, marketing director, and dishwasher. To this day, young-blood dishwashers in Jarad’s hometown spin tales of his legendary ‘05 pearl diving.
Jarad’s work is regularly featured on design blogs and galleries including Smashing Magazine, Awwwards, and a variety of CSS galleries.
Zack Bonebrake
Developer & Partner
Zack is the type of developer every client and creative dreams of working with. His education in architecture, design, and business—as well as a history of building companies—groomed Zack to master the intricacies of extremely high-quality code, while developing a detailed understanding of nearly every part of the project.
As a founding partner of Mostly Serious, Zack brings over a decade of development experience ranging from complex corporate systems to websites for local restaurants, where we often include a bit of trade for night cap cocktails.
Zack received his BA in business and design, with an architecture minor from Drury University.
Joe Donohue
Writer & Partner
Joe’s mom told him early on he was destined to write. Ever determined to prove people wrong, during school he rarely wrote much other than “I will not interrupt the class. I will not interrupt …” Like most moms, Joe’s proved to be right. Today, he writes everything from marketing taglines and website copy to app instructions and business proposals.
Before helping lead Mostly Serious, Joe wrote help guides for insurance software and earned his stripes with marketing agencies. Along with crafting memorable messaging, he wields finely sharpened SEO skills to land clients’ sites high in search results. If he’s not writing, reading, or loving life as dad & husband, he becomes a 12-year-old boy, playing with his dogs or video games.
Joe graduated Missouri State University’s Professional Writing Program and later taught writing while completing his graduate coursework.
Clay McGee
Project Manager & Partner
Prior to becoming a founding partner at Mostly Serious, Clay owned and operated businesses in the service franchising, financial, real estate, restaurant, and manufacturing industries. His versatility has lead him to launch two web-based companies, where he solidified his love and enthusiasm for hardware, software, and interactive projects.
Clay manages the day-to-day operations and business development for Mostly Serious, our partner companies, and clients who have a need for business expertise. His skills are not limited to the office either. When he’s not winning matches of Call of Duty, you can find him battling in outdoor sports. And by battling, we mean winning.
Clay studied business management at the University of Missouri and at Arizona State University.
Laura Greene
Project Manager
Laura’s project management prowess is enhanced by over a decade of restaurant experience, 7 years of which were spent in management. As the office Velvet Hammer with the right touch for every personality, she provides a constant and open connection with clients while ensuring no one misses a beat during the project.
Since joining Mostly Serious, Laura has managed projects both large and small, earning bragging rights rarely achieved in the interactive industry: her clients and teams have yet to miss a deadline. If managing creatives is like herding cats, Laura must drink catnip.
When she’s not in a meeting, you can typically find Laura at a farmer’s market or strumming away on the 1950 Gibson LG-3 her old man gave her. You can even listen to some of her music at LauraGreeneSings.com.
Tom Hunkapiller
Developer
If we could edit self taught in the dictionary, we’d simply use Tom’s smiling face. Using pen and paper and later checking his work at the public library, the man taught himself the ins and outs of server-side development in just a matter of weeks. He then polished his skills building a browser-based role playing game and equipping a number of local nonprofit organizations with updated websites and content management systems.
Diving in head first forced Tom to sink or swim. Well, he’s still kicking. In fact, Tom has become a standout, versatile developer with absolutely no reservation when it comes to learning new development languages, working with new systems, or tackling just about anything that lets him experiment.
Tom lives to solve problems, and our lofty ideas ensure he never sees a shortage of barriers to break through as he helps deconstruct and solve our clients’ toughest tasks.
Chris Gerringer
Designer & Illustrator
Chris joined Mostly Serious as an established illustrator and designer, fully equipped with a sizable online following that studies his every pen stroke. He found his love of drawing as a child and mastered his skills while obtaining dual degrees in graphic design and advertising. His habitual dabbling has led him to learn front-end development, launch an online store, release a Tumblr theme, and create countless other generally cool things.
In the rare instance you catch Chris without his pen in hand, you’ll likely find him perusing comic books, playing classic video games, watching cartoons and animated movies, or enthralled by stupid cat GIFs.
Chris earned his graphic design and advertising degrees at Evangel University.
Maranda Reynolds
Developer
Maranda loves studying code theory nearly as much as writing code for client projects and our in-house applications. Her need to master difficult concepts drove her to minor in both math and physics while majoring in computer science at Missouri State, where she graduated summa cum laude.
A music lover, during school Maranda wrote software that analyzes bass tabs for mode and key and converts the info to shorthand. Since graduating, she’s spent the years writing hefty insurance software and learning all she can about various development languages. With all the insight she soaked up at PyCon, Maranda has mastered the Zen of Python.
Our Pythonista doesn’t find all her joy staring at a monitor, though. She’s also happy hanging with her husband, cooking exotic vegetarian dishes, or running. She’s even earned her half-marathon bragging rights.
Steve Popp
Strategic Partner
Mostly Serious has a long-standing strategic partnership with Steve, who is respected as one of the Midwest’s most innovative and experienced creative minds. He trusts us for additional design, development, and writing when he needs it at Popp Brand Advertising, and we turn to him for additional insights on creative and communications whenever a project calls for it.
Popp, as the ad world knows him, has been leading ad creative for the likes of Pepsico & Frito-Lay, Mars, Smucker’s, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and countless other global giants for more than 25 years. He’s got a psychic’s grip on tomorrow’s ad trends, and he maintains an old-school commitment to the details that set great marketing apart.
When he’s not building brands, Popp loves kicking back with the family, nabbing big fish, drinking good Scotch with his friends at Mostly Serious, and sporting a moustache that could kick your moustache’s ass.
We’re currently hiring experts in CSS, HTML, Javascript, and interactive design. We’re also accepting applications for a range of internships. Interested?
