A (somewhat dubious) summary of my life to date

My first real interest in anything artistic was drawing simple cartoons when I was six. I indulged my imagination by creating a myriad of weird and wonderful characters which, unfortunately, all tended to look exactly the same. I suppose I grew up for a while and wasted my childhood like so many others playing football, going on bike rides and frollicking gaily in the fields.

Fortunately, I was rescued from this hideous (and largely false) fantasy by discovering and eventually being seduced by the darker side of the comic book universe. It would probably be untrue to claim that my first teenage orgasm was brought about not from staining my mothers lingerie catalogues but from seeing the awesomeness of Todd McFarlanes’ ‘Spawn’ series of comics. Untrue, but a romantic notion nonetheless. This love for the dark, gothic and surreal was furthered by my interest in the artwork and fiction of Games Workshop.

From then on, I was lost to a world of fantasy violence and for a while almost learnt how to draw properly. This flourishing hint of capability was routinely crushed when I thought it’d be good to take up art for GCSE. Two years, a ‘C’ and a neatly sharpened hatred for art later, I found myself firmly entrenched in the, despairingly real, world of academia. Fitfully excreting my creative juices in between getting drunk.

Me. Circa 2005.

If we fast-forward four years, our hero (me) had blagged himself a bachelors degree in psychology and history (without any real knowledge of either) with a desire to get a job doing something creative (without any real knowledge how). Spending much of my waking moments learning how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Imageready, Dreamweaver and Flash MX to varying degrees of glorious success and bitter failure. I’m constantly trying to improve my skills in all these areas mainly because I (wrongly) think it’ll get me laid.

It was around this time that I designed and built this website, which I did for a number of reasons but mainly it was as a learning experience and a showcase for my work so I can receive some brilliantly constructive feedback from the thriving community of online art-heads. If you like (or don’t like) what you see or if you have any advice about creative design be sure to speak to me.

With a degree in my pocket and some nifty skills hidden in my fingertips, I was ready to take the world by storm and demand my oyster. I was young, vibrant, sexy and verbose, surely that must count for something? Of course, this generally means squat as the only thing prospective employers are looking for seems to be experience - which is rather limiting, I feel. Rejected, denied, dejected (is that a combination of the other two?), I found myself doing temporary work in some truly, extraordinarily, diabolically dull jobs. Things were bad; I had to break free.

Me. Circa 2007.

My angel of salvation appeared in the guise of my lovely (and ravishingly lusty) friend Smidley who suggested that I should be a copywriter. So that’s what I did. I’ve since spent the last couple of years working like a crazy person for a fantastic and innovative marketing company which has swept me along like a fragile little leaf in a cyclone - but in a good way. One highlight of this period is that my Photoshopping and website building skills finally got me laid.

I’ve since broadened my horizons to move beyond the confines of static HTML into the murky depths of web two-point-oh. The redesign and revamp of the website slowly continues but with a stronger emphasis on the blog while my I further nail down the identities of my other presences (which you can visit by following the links in the left sidebar). I’m still trying to find working batteries for the torch to cast some light down the path I’m heading down (D!? Who the hell has D batteries knocking around!?) but when I do I’ll be sure to let you know. Until then, consider this entry to be continued…