I love designing and building websites. More than that, I love working closely with my clients, taking them on the journey from working out what they want to a fully functioning website that they are proud of. I love it when they start out nervous, get excited, and end up delighted. I enjoy the interaction and iteration around content and design, and I am geek enough that I love the standards-based styling and programming of scripts too.
And all of this started out almost by accident. I helped my sister build a web site to sell her greetings cards from (now sadly defunct), complete with full e-commerce features, and loved it. Then a good friend who had just started out as an author wanted a website and asked me if I would design and build it for her. I said yes, and loved every minute of it. One thing led to another, word-of-mouth recommendations led to more clients, and more sites, and suddenly I turned around and realised I was now a web designer.
Not quite what I expected, although I did start out a geek, studying Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (yes, I know…). After University I moved in to technology research at HP Labs in Bristol, and after a few years discovered that I actually enjoyed managing other geeks even more. I woked there a long time, made some wonderful friends, worked with some amazingly creative and intelligent people. Then ill health forced me to leave and find a more sustainable way of life. So I now love growing flowers and vegetables too, though this doesn’t, strictly speaking, help me design better websites…
And now here I am, several years down the road, gradually building up a sustainable small business. One where I never have too many clients, so the workload never gets too much, and my clients each get prompt and responsive service. I have time for them, time to build them the site they deserve, and time to stay well and grow veg too. I am one lucky geek.
