About

Hey there. I'm a front-end designer and developer with over 13 years of experience. I am currently available for hire within Bristol, UK.

My background began with website and front-end design, though the past five years have happily seen me transition into a fully self-taught front-end development role. With a solid grasp of design, I'm well-suited to tackle the tricky details of modern front-end development.

I've been fortunate to work on a wide variety of projects over the years that have helped me build a solid, multi-faceted, technical and creative skillset that I'm always looking to improve and expand upon.

This particular set of skills, along with my professional interests, runs over into other related fields including realtime/videogame art, visual design, and animation. Front-end development is where my interests converge, and I'd love to work on projects that bring these disciplines together.

What I'm Looking For

I'm looking to join a company/studio that follows best-practices, that automates the boring stuff, and that has a drive for excellence, rather than just getting another product out the door.

I'm looking for employment that allows me to develop accessible, performant, and responsive sites that work flawlessly on all devices, in all browsers, and to work on these projects from start to finish. My professional drive and satisfaction comes from the thorough and proper finishing of projects.

From my own experience, I'd rather avoid working to a schedule that demands that I work on several codebases every day as standard business practice — sporadic client emergencies notwithstanding. You can read more about this in Notes to an Agency - Time.

Ideally, I'm looking to join a small to medium sized team of passionate and skilled people, working in a relaxed but work-oriented environment, on interesting projects that allow me to roll up my sleeves, get stuck in, and grow further as a front-end developer.

What's Next in the Pipe?

I've recently rebuilt this here portfolio in Gatsby and React as an impetus for self-directed learning, getting up and running with neat things like routing, state, GraphQL, and JSX. I'm really excited about the potential for building web projects with this technology, and can't wait for the opportunity to go further with these libraries in my next role.

Beyond this, animation & motion graphics, 3D & WebGL, and blazing fast performance are all where my on-going learning aims are focused.

Further Interests

I've a deep knowledge of both the design and art side of videogame development, and have recently been working with my one of my best buds (who is also a badass concept artist) to finally build that one game idea that's haunted me for years. Once we're at a stage to show something properly, we'll be showing it. It's currently still in early prototyping, as you can see here.

I love music, and producing music. I've been involved with several musical projects over the years and have managed to finish a handful of albums, to have been played on the radio, and to have made soundtrack music for a small handful of indie games. I've mainly stayed with software, though I'd love to have time to start learning/using analog gear: drum machines, hardware synthesis, analogue effects, etc. I love the technical parts of making music, and am fascinated by the techniques, theory, and production tricks used in creating modern music.

To relax, I very much enjoy painting very serious military units. It's a hobby I used to spend time on in my youth, and have been re-introduced to it in 2018 by people who do not want me to have any spare time or money, apparently. It's amazing how far miniatures have come, with new painting techniques, paint technology, and the quality of the sculpts, the projects people produce are astounding. For me, it's a great way to get away from the screen and decompress my brain from the workday.

In Closing

So yep, that's me. Nice to meet you!

I currently live in Bristol, and am happy to take a look at any job opportunities within the city centre, or anything remote (my years of freelance had me working remotely, so I'm prefectly happy working from home).

If I might sound like a suitable candidate for your team, please don't hesistate to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you very much for your consideration. Have a smashing day.