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About

I’ve been building things most of my life.

I’m Brian Brixon. I build websites, laser-engrave keepsakes, write software and photograph dogs, all from Colorado Springs, in sight of the Peak.

Now in Colorado Springs · · Stars over the Peak

The story

One instinct, four crafts.

I started on computers at about ten and never really stopped. Websites came in 2000, photography in 2012 and engraving in 2015. Different crafts, same instinct: take care of the details, and make something that lasts.

The web work: hand-coded, and built to last.

I write my sites by hand in PHP, HTML, CSS and Bootstrap, instead of leaning on page-builders that hide the important parts behind paywalls. The people I build for own their websites, the code stays lean and fast, and when something needs changing, a real person changes it. I’ve looked after some of these sites for years, and I take that seriously.

The engraving: handmade, one at a time.

Through LaserEtchingArt I make personalized and memorial pieces with a Celtic, Irish and Norse flavor, the kind of keepsakes people hold onto. Every piece is made by hand here in Colorado Springs, and the same care that goes into a clean codebase goes into the grain of the wood.

The software: KeeperSuite.

The clubs and kennels I built websites for needed better tools than they had, so I started making them. KeeperSuite is four apps for kennels, pet resorts and dog sports, and every one of them keeps working when the internet doesn’t.

The photography.

Mostly dogs, since 2012. A few of those portraits became canvases and prints for the people who love them.

Along the way

The unbroken line

  1. The first websites

    Hand-coding sites, and I haven’t stopped since.

  2. Photography

    Pet portraits, and the canvases and prints some of them became.

  3. Laser engraving

    The first pieces come off the laser.

  4. LaserEtchingArt and the Colorado Springs Kennel Club

    LaserEtchingArt opens. In July I start working with the kennel club, and in October one of its members asks me to build, look after and host the Prairie Vista Meadows HOA site.

  5. Rocky Mountain Hound Association

    A registration-heavy club site, looked after ever since.

  6. Now

    KeeperSuite

    All four apps are in beta: GateKeeper, KennelKeeper, ResortKeeper and ShowKeeper.

An illuminated letter B woven from Celtic knotwork, in green
The illuminated B, my old mark, kept as heritage art. The knot B in the header grew from it.

Why Celtic, Norse and a little sci-fi

The things I love show up in the work.

The knotwork, the runes, the ravens, and yes, a soft spot for Star Trek and Stargate, have been with me a long time. They show up in my engraving designs and in the small details around this site: the rune in the logo, the knots between sections,the knot in the logo, the plaits between sections, my name in Ogham at the foot of every page, a hello waiting in your browser’s developer tools.

They aren’t decoration for its own sake. They’re things I genuinely love, and I think work is better when it’s made by someone who cares about it.

How I work

Three things you can count on

  • One person, start to finish.

    You deal with me from the first conversation to the hundredth update, whether it’s a website, a keepsake or an app.

  • Made to outlast the moment.

    Sites kept running for years, keepsakes meant to be handed down, software you pay for once where I can.

  • Straight answers.

    If I’m not the right fit for what you need, I’ll tell you, and point you somewhere better if I can.

Then and now

From a photo to a drawing

Slide to wipe from my photograph to the illustration traced from it.

Photograph of Pikes Peak under snow, taken from Colorado Springs
Illustration traced with AI from a photo I took from Colorado Springs.

Have something worth making?

A website, a keepsake or a question about the software. Tell me what you have in mind.

Start a project Commission an engraving