A Little Bit More About Me
I guess I've always been into making things.
I remember how angry I got when my brother and I ran out of grey Lego bricks - that meant we couldn't finish building the perfect skyscraper that took centre stage in our Lego city, unless of course we dipped into our black brick supplies (which I hated doing). These types of episodes, in their strange ways, must have shaped where I find myself now, as someone who still likes to build things and who still gets angry when spotting a pixel in the wrong place. In fact this probably explains the skyscraper fetish in this site.
I guess it was at Edinburgh University (as an English Lit undergrad) where I started to develop a proper conscience of design and innovation. The Enlightenment way of thinking, the form and function thing, struck a chord from early on. I quickly realized that good design changes lives and defines eras. Or maybe it was just timing. In my second year at Edinburgh the iPod 1 emerged from a friend's pocket for the first time. In my final year the Facebook poke became a library phenomenon overnight (apparently).
Something, somewhere was building.
It wasn't until a spell working in a feature film cutting room, that I discovered the world of web design. I had always wanted to go into film, following many years spent mucking about with cameras. As a sideline I was buying and selling old film posters and I needed a website to show them. Sadly this was pre the Wordpress we know and love so I found myself a copy of Dreamweaver and got cracking (in the visual editor of course). I remember the feeling of seeing a page I'd managed to patch together online for the first time. I wish I still had it now. It must have been terrible. I was hooked.
So, to cut a long story short...
Here I am, five years down the line, in my office in 'Silicon Roundabout' and tech is my chosen industry. What have I learnt in that time? Well, I must have written hundreds of thousands of lines of code and have worked with some really inspiring people on some great projects. I've got a strong design and tech grounding and the hunger to keep growing. But above all, and what inspires me every day, is knowing that design is alive, it never stops - it's a great ride and this is just the beginning.
About this site
This site was built using a combination of HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery. The current typefaces are Lobster by Pablo Impallari and Gentium Book Basic by Victor Gaultney, with a dab of Helvetica Neue by Max Miedinger. Thanks to Ian Lunn for his Parallax plugin and Woo Themes for their excellent Flexslider plugin. Also for the guys behind the Nike Better World site, who have done amazing things. Many of the background textures are from Subtle Patterns.
The two New York images were taken from the archive of the New York Department of Records, it's worth checking out. The photo of me was taken by my great friend, John Gayner. This site responds to various sized devices and is best viewed on the latest brower versions *.
I wanted to build something fresh and fun, and it's still a work in progress. It would be great to get your feedback.
