If there’s one place on the Internet I can rattle on about myself unashamedly, I guess it’s here. This is also the place I can design in a way which is rarely appropriate, here I play and experiment and try not to fall into current design cliches (I have plenty of my own).

A Quick Biography

I’m the son of a sculptor and a soft toy designer. Alas, I was never destined to become a rocket scientist.

I’ve been in this game for a long time. Probably most of my life. I started designing on a Sinclair Spectrum as a kid in the early 80′s, using packages which didn’t even allow me to really save what I’d created. They had 8 colours. (But I learnt to dither to simulate more.) I created fonts on an 8X8 grid. It beeped. I bought a multichannel sound board. It beeped in 4 channels.

I programmed graphics and games and wrote music on 8-bit machines, working my way up to the Atari 800 XL which allowed a whole rainbow of colours to choose from (256 in fact – which almost seemed too many). It also had multichannel sound. I wrote music by programming Basic, created sound envelopes with for/next loops. For a while I was overwhelmed.

I got over it and bought an Atari ST in 1989. This had 4,096 colours (now I was completely spoilt for choice) and built in MIDI sockets. It had the GEM operating system – one of the first GUIs. I got a DTP package. I got a word processor. I got an art package. I could save things to floppy disk ! I got a MIDI sequencer. Heck, I even got a dot matrix printer. I produced lavish black and white dotty graphics at University. I produced MIDI music.

Throughout academic and early work, I always became the presentation guy
- by whatever means; crayons and paper, sugar paper and spraymount or even using Vax VMS and dot matrix printer.

Then… one day… I heard of this thing called the Internet…

More things about me:

• Web Interface Designer, with 15 years experience
• Worked for a dot.com and rode the first bubble of boom and bust
• Specialises in front-end design, accessibility and XHTML/CSS
• Designer of logos, graphic identities
• Creator of animation and video sequences
• Composer of mainly instrumental music in random styles
• Has an MA in Music from York University
• Is very keen in all things photographic
• Collects National Geographic – I have a degree in Geography
• Lover of Modern Architecture
• Player and lover of many instruments from piano to ocarina
• Really wants a baby grand piano
• Likes just about anything raspberry flavoured
• Thinks snorkelling is the best thing ever.
• I can swim all day long without stopping
• Passionate about the world of coffee
• Loves modern art, especially if it makes him laugh or go woooo
• Caravaggio is his favourite artist of ‘proper’ paintings
• Adores the graphic works of M.C.Escher
• Really likes alien worlds of Giger, and the surrealism of Dali
• Thinks the music of Jon Hopkins is sublime
• Collects random musical instruments
• Leigh mostly listens to books as he falls asleep reading
• Worked for 3 years in Reading University’s IT department
• Thinks his favourite film would be impossible to decide
• Adores choral music and requiem masses. But also loves trance.
• Has had grey hair since he was 18. But is positive that he still actually has hair
• Has worked as a fund raiser.
• I think the glass is always completely full
• Can walk very quickly
• Has a passion for Venice
• Laughed at Twitter at first. Ooops
• Never ever wants to stop learning

About.me