Who inspired me

There are plenty of well known people out there that inspire me, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to thank the two guys who gave me my first break.

I’d just finished uni and my sister’s boyfriend Tariq was completing his computer science degree. He’d met Anthony on his course and they had decided to form a web design agency. They’d lined up some clients and even worked on a few projects together, but they needed a designer, so after giving me some freelance work (where I was asked to illustrate an astrology board game) they offered me a job.

I learnt so much in those first 3 or 4 years. Including designing with Photoshop, slicing and optimising images, organising content and working with clients. I was even encouraged to try a bit of CSS and HTML. They were pushing table-less design too, before most of our competitors.

At the time I remember being resistant to web design, I thought that print was more interesting, so I pushed to do more branding and brochure work. But eventually I came back round, and now I love the web.

We still keep in touch but they have their own things going on these days, Tariq runs a bunch of ecommerce websites and Anthony runs a web development agency in Birmingham.

Looking back, I really feel like this was the best introduction to working in the industry. So… thanks guys.