Hi, I’m Robin. You might also know me as John. I used to work in marketing; now I focus on technical copywriting.
I spend a lot of time thinking about where form and function meet: How can we make things that work well and are also beautiful? How can I write things that inform yet delight?
I’m not taking on new projects at the moment, but please feel free to reach out all the same. Happy to stay in touch: robin (at) rookwork (dot) com.
Work history
I started out going to college for engineering but, life had other plans. I did get to make a mobility cart for a cute goat, though.
After some waffling, I ended up majoring in Philosophy and East Asian Studies. Practically, that meant I spent a lot of time thinking about how to think and learning to speak Chinese. I even lived in China for a little while.
My first few jobs were in book publishing. I worked on both the publisher side in marketing and as a bookseller. Eventually, I realized I was my own worst enemy. The more books I got bookstores to buy as a publisher, the more heavy boxes I had to carry at the store. Trust me, there’s a bunch of heavy boxes of books just out of frame.
I ended up in Portland working as a coffee shop consultant. This is when I really dove into understanding marketing and psychology on a deeper level and began my lifelong quest of writing less but saying more.
I also volunteered as the marketing manager of a Japanese culture convention, so I was busy. In addition to even more copywriting, I got to interview some very cool people like Steve Blum and the visual kei band ACME.
Then, I got an unexpected opportunity: to work at an ergonomic keyboard company. Ergonomics and keyboards were already things I was passionate about, so it seemed like a great fit, and that’s my primary line of work to this day. You can see a lot of my work here: blog.zsa.io.
