Tim Tolman was a very early adopter of electronic information design and development. Below is a timeline that follows his participation from the industry's earliest days.

1981
Tim Tolman begins working as Art Director in Rhode Island for the Providence Journal's electronic publishing project. Major newspaper publishers were aware that a future paperless publication could be coming. Some of these publishers included Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Washingon Post, News Day and the Chicago Tribune. Along with the Providence Journal, they all had electronic publishing projects in the early 1980's.

Working with focus groups, writers and newspaper editors, Tolman designed the screen for what was called videotext a computer-based text and graphic delivery application that forshadowed the internet. Click here to see an archived sample of VIDEOTEXT >

The outcome of the videotext experiment was Prodigy a three-way venture between CBS, IBM and Sears. In 1984, Prodigy became the first consumer dial up service and the internet for all of us was born.

1984
Tolman begins teaching Advertising Art Direction at the Rhode Island School of Design.

1985
Videotext experiments officially ended with the introduction of the Macintosh and the IBM personal computer and Prodigy and AOL to follow. Tolman begins to develop
3-D animation on the first PC-based solid modeling and animation application called Cubicomp.

1986
Tolman is RISD's first faculty member teaching electronic publishing using Pagemaker 1.0 on MacPlus monochrome computers. Aldus Pagemaker creator, Paul Brainard had previously worked for ATEX, the newspaper electronic publishing software company and one of the videotext technology partners.

1986
Tolman co-founds Colony MultiMedia. Colony produces 3-D animation, digital video, Apple HyperCard and Macromedia Director-based computer presentations and CD-ROMs. Interactive clients included Fidelity Investments, Roger Williams Zoo, Stratus Computer, The Foxboro Company, and The Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
3-D animation clients include Brown University, Etonic, Titleist, The University of Rhode Island, Corning Fiberoptics, Texas Instruments, and New England Sports Network.

1990
Tolman works with CoSA, the founders of AfterEffects. Video compression and playback from CD-ROMs as well as animation was the key to Tolman's business. CoSA (Company of Science and Art) were developing PACo, a video compressor and by 1993 AfterEffects 1.0 was released. In 1993 Aldus aquires COSa and in 1994 Adobe aquires Aldus.

1993
Tolman works with the founders of cable television's Food Network. He designs the first Food Network (called The TV Food Network) identity used on air, their first trade show booth, brochure and print ads.

1995
Tolman produces first digital 30 fps video playback for an interactive installation for the Naval Undersea Warefare Center in Rhode Island. Tolman used a Radius Video Vision card and an SCSI array.

1996
Tolman worked with Stratus Computer to produce an interactive CD-ROM to promote the first virtual event called InterAct 96. It was hailed as the world's first virtual 3D trade show.

1996
Tolman Interactive develops its first internet projects for Deloitte Consulting and American Power Conversion.

1999
Tolman works with the orginal founders of The Food Network to creat one of the biggest streaming video sites on the internet. Tolman builds a comprehensive content management system using Allaire ColdFusion 3.0.

2001
Allfood, the streaming video site is picked up by Real Networks in its launch of RealOne. The launch featured CNN, ABC, CBS and ABC. Tolman developed an application that worked with the RealOne player to launch url flips or slides that would be driven by events in the time code of the digitized video. The events were synched up with the video so the user had a total rich media experience.

2003
First completely Flash driven website. MVGArchitects.com.
First eCommerce website. UpCountryinc.com.

2005
First use of Google Ad Words
HouckFurniture.com

2006
First use of Flash Video as codec replacing Quicktime and WindowsMedia for projects. Jigsawprods.com.

2007
Tolman teaches course entitled Web 2.0 at RISD.