madewithpixels > about

I guess I’m lucky. Making things look pretty for a living seemed to find me.

Back when Mac suites were a pipe dream for most art schools (mine included). Magic Marker, repro camera and sketch pad were the order of the day. So I learned 'the trade' doing grid based layout on paper. Drawing, kerning and leading fonts by hand with technical pens, knocking up magic-marker renderings and getting sweaty in the darkroom with that girl from the HND course film back cameras.

Rather luckily for my clients, past employers and career path, I’ve always been a bit of a geek too. Religiously playing video games in the late seventies (aged five, and still; pushing into my mid-thirties). Messing around with paint packages on early home computers in the eighties. Experimenting with 3D CGI during the nineties. More recently, picking up some serious XHTML skills and dabbling with photography and motion graphics as we plough into the noughties.

When? How? Why?

During the nineties was when this thing that I've become took hold; a graphic designer - If it really must have a title.
Inspired by Peter Savilles' work for Factory Records, the music scene; and whichever other cultural zeitgeist happened to be making waves at that time. And; still playing (lots of) video games. All of a sudden home computers had become affordable and much more powerful; providing creatives everywhere with an exciting technological platform with which to experiment in all things 'New Media'.

By this point; I was already accustomed to the differences in print vs. screen layout. While other designers of the dot-com era struggled to reconcile CMYK to RGB, 300 to 72 dots per inch, and were screeching in fancy design periodicals about the horrors of jagged type. I was already flying.

In my element so to speak; relishing the text that was now hyper. The layouts that were organic and fluid. The art that had gained a third dimension. Most importantly, already benefiting from a solid twenty years of user experience testing and training thanks to Mr. Nintendo, Mr. Sega and the old lady Atari.

What had taken 4 hours on paper; now took an hour with a Mac. For me; that changed everything. This was design for the masses. Media that everyone could consume, experience, feel, touch. And for the first time, publish.

Where have I come from? Where am I going?

Having spent the past ten years working freelance and commercially for new media agencies in Leeds, York and Sheffield. On everything from CD-ROM’s to TV commercials, through identities, websites and exhibitions. I’ve finally settled back in sunny Leeds, working with some very old friends on a very exciting and very secret video game project.

Of course, I'm still popping in for a cuppa with all my old t'internet buddies - taking on a few choice freelance projects here and there and generally keeping abreast of what the rest of you are up to along the way. If you would like to work with me; in any way shape or form, please don't hesitate to get in touch .

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