John L. Tatum
Print Production & Web Design Specialist — pre-press, finishing, and accessible web work, set by a U.S. Air Force veteran of two tours, honorable. Based in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and willing to relocate.
What's inside · 6 chapters
CHAPTER 01Service
Military service
The work began with one charge: protect people and protect assets.
As a U.S. Air Force Security Forces defender, John served from the United Kingdom with the 100th to Holloman AFB, New Mexico, where he enforced federal law and anti-terrorism measures for a 17,000-person base community across a 59,000-acre installation — running intrusion-detection systemsIDSIntrusion Detection System — sensors and alarms that detect perimeter breaches on a military installation. and standing in as secondary dispatcher for emergencies.
In 2012 he deployed to Afghanistan as a Perimeter Response Team Leader with the 455th Security Forces, safeguarding 35,000 personnel and $3.5B in combat assets. He answered 9 rocket attacks and 450 sensor alarms, served as Flight Intelligence Representative with 50+ classified briefings, and coordinated inspections with OSIOSIOffice of Special Investigations — the Air Force's federal law-enforcement and counter-intelligence agency. that seized 260 contraband items.
Plate I · portrait · uncoated proof
Service arc · 2007 → 2013
2007
Enlisted
Lackland · Basic
2008–10
100th SFS
United Kingdom
2010–13
Holloman AFB
New Mexico
2012
Deployed
Afghanistan · 455th
2013
Honorable
Discharge
Decorations & Awards
Decorations & Awards
- Air Force Achievement Medal with two oak leaf clusters
- Meritorious Unit Award with one oak leaf cluster
- Air Force Good Conduct Medal with one oak leaf cluster
- National Defense Service Medal
- Afghanistan Campaign Medal with one service star
- Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal
- Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
- Air Force Longevity Service Award
- Air Force Training Ribbon
- NATO Medal
Character of service — Honorable
CHAPTER 02Career · tap to expand
Career history
- Operate and maintain industrial finishing equipment for high-volume graphic production.
- Manage digital files for production — formatting, resolution, and color profiles for high-fidelity output.
- Prepare complex digital layouts with proper bleed and high-resolution formatting for large-scale runs.
- Maintain and secure institutional websites to Section 508 standards — 93% ADA compliance achieved.
- Manage printing inventory and material procurement; coordinate with IT on website upgrades.
- Managed inventory, merchandising, and overhead organization for assigned departments.
- Assessed customer needs and provided detailed technical information on product features.
- Maintained accurate stock counts to ensure availability and improve customer relations.
- Enforced federal laws and anti-terrorism measures for a 17,000-person base community and 59,000-acre installation.
- Responded to domestic disturbances, DUIs, assaults, and medical emergencies.
- Conducted speed enforcement and traffic control; secured crime scenes and preserved evidence.
- Operated Intrusion Detection Systems and served as secondary dispatcher for security situations.
- Protected 35,000 personnel and $3.5B in combat assets; responded to 9 rocket attacks and 450 sensor alarms.
- Served as Flight Intelligence Representative, delivering 50+ classified briefings to increase detection capability.
- Coordinated with OSI for local-national inspections, resulting in the seizure of 260 contraband items.
- Began an Air Force Security Forces career in law enforcement and installation security overseas.
- Built the foundation in patrol, response, and standards that carried through every role since.
Five entries · 2007 → present · full record on request
CHAPTER 03Practice
Print production and web work
Eight years in high-volume industrial print — the full lifecycle, from pre-presspre-pressEverything before the press: file prep, color profiles, resolution, imposition, and proofing. to the finishingfinishingPost-press operations: cutting, folding, drilling, binding, coating, and foil stamping. line.
On press, the work is exacting: managing digital files for correct formatting, resolution, and color profilescolor profileA definition of how colors map from one device to another (e.g. screen → press), keeping output predictable.; building layouts with proper bleedbleedInk that runs past the trim edge of a page so the final cut has no white margin. Required for full-bleed backgrounds. and high-resolution output; operating and maintaining industrial finishing equipment; and holding the line on quality, inventory, and material procurement.
On the web, it's the same discipline pointed at a different medium — building and securing institutional sites to Section 508Section 508The U.S. federal accessibility standard requiring electronic content to be usable by people with disabilities. Cousin to WCAG. / ADAADAThe Americans with Disabilities Act — civil-rights law requiring accessible public accommodations, including websites., backed by Web Mastery certification.
JT
John L.
Tatum
Print Production & Web Design
Let's set
the next one.
Plate II · 3.5 × 2 in · calling card — click to flip · move to tilt
Print Production
High-volume industrial finishing equipment operation and high-resolution formatting for large-scale runs.
Pre-Press & Design
Digital file management, resolution and color-profile optimization, complex layouts with correct bleed.
Section 508 / ADA
Accessibility compliance across digital and physical outputs — 93% compliance achieved and maintained.
Web Mastery
Certified web design & development; site maintenance, security, and IT coordination for upgrades.
Color Management
CMYK profiles and high-fidelity output — keeping screen, proof, and press in registration.
Inventory & Procurement
Managing printing inventory, processing work orders, budgeting, and material procurement.
CHAPTER 04Education & Honors
Education and honors
B.S. — Information & Communication Technology
NMSU – Las Cruces · College of Engineering · senior standing
Associate of Applied Science — Computing
NMSU – Alamogordo · awarded May 2019
Certificate — Web Design & Development
NMSU – Alamogordo · Dec 2019
Certificate — Web Mastery
NMSU – Alamogordo · Dec 2019
Security Forces Apprentice Diploma
Community College of the Air Force · Combat Arms, CLS & IDS training, Lackland 2011
NMSU · College of Engineering · senior standing
CHAPTER 05Selected Works
Selected work
Print production and finishing, the software that runs it, web design, and graphics — made to be used, and made to be accessible from the ground up. Click any plate to view it full-size.
Signature I
Press work
Ink on paper, and the hands that finish it. Four plates from the shop floor.
Plate 01 · Accessibility
Braille Holiday Cards
Holiday cards produced for the school in two formats at once — the printed greeting and a matching embossed Braille edition, so blind and low-vision readers get the same message by touch.
Plate 02 · At the Bench
Finishing by Hand
Punching and drilling stock at the bench — the hands-on side of the shop, from drilling and trimming to collating and binding.
Plate 03 · Pre-press
The Print Shop Floor
The finishing bench — light table, rotary trimmer, paper drill, and binding equipment — where digital files become physical, bound deliverables.
Plate 04 · Bindery
Bound & Finished, In-House
Comb-bound handbooks and booklets produced end to end — printed, collated, covered, and bound on-site in the NMSBVI brand.
Signature II
The print shop system
One application, four views — the tool I built to run the shop, and the reports and drawings that came with it.
Featured
Plate 05 · Application
NMSBVI Print Shop — Inventory, Requisition & Reporting System
A single-file, offline-first web app that runs the shop end to end: print work orders, live inventory that updates itself as jobs are submitted, finishing & bindery, and automatic monthly impression reporting. One entry, three results — no duplicate bookkeeping.
Plate 06 · Documentation
Reports & Meter Reconciliation
Monthly impression reports auto-generated from work-order data, with meter reconciliation against physical stock — closing the loop between digital and material inventory.
Plate 07 · Documentation
Technical Documentation
End-to-end documentation for the Print Shop system — operator runbooks, inventory procedures, and reporting workflows written for the people who run it every day.
Plate 08 · Architecture
System Architecture
An information-design study of how a single work order flows through inventory, finishing, and monthly reporting — one source of truth, three outputs, no double entry.
Signature III
Web & graphic
Screens: one live client site, one proposal, one poster, and one page made for its own sake.
LiveFeatured
Plate 09 · Web · Client (live)
NMSBVI — New Mexico School for the Blind & Visually Impaired
Web design and front-end work for a statewide K–12 school, built for Section 508 / ADA compliance and used by blind and low-vision visitors every day. Live at nmsbvi.org.
Visit live site
Plate 10 · Graphic · Photoshop
Concept Poster — Composite Study
A self-directed Photoshop composite exploring lighting, depth, and type treatment in a cinematic key.
Plate 11 · Web · Client (proposal)
Roadrunner Galleria — Artisan Mall & Online Store
Website proposal for a curated artisan galleria in Alamogordo — a home for Tularosa Basin makers, with an interactive clay-throwing hero, an artisan showcase, and an online store built to plug into the client's existing Square POS. Delivered as a working page the client can click through before committing.
View the proposal
Personal
Plate 12 · Personal · Experimental
Brutalist — Notes on Concrete
A personal study in the brutalist tradition, made out of appreciation for the movement: exposed structure, weight, nothing applied. Built as a single page with no dependencies — a CSS pier-and-slab layout, parallax concrete plates, and a generative Web Audio drone engine that synthesizes every tone in the browser with no audio files, re-rolling pitch, waveform, reverb and stereo placement on each press. Not client work.
Open the piece