How I got into the industry

I've been interested in web design and development since I was a young teenager, everything I have learned since then has been self-taught. I started making my first website a couple of months after my 14th birthday back in late 2002. At the time I was obsessed with the Grand Theft Auto videogames, and so I decided to make a fansite for them. It was incredibly simplistic, and terrible, really. Microsoft Frontpage (gasp!) was the only software I had available to me at the time, so that's what I used, as I didn't know any actual HTML back then - hand coding a layout would have been impossible for me. Determined to make it a success, I began teaching myself HTML, and how to use it properly. Along the way, I realised things I wanted to do just couldn't be done in plain HTML, so, with knowledge of the mark-up language now under my belt I took to learning a scripting language - PHP.

With no prior experience in syntax and coding semantics, PHP was a bit of a challenge at first, but I quickly got the hang of it and found it pretty easy going. After having used free CMS solutions for a couple of years, I became frustrated at how they wouldn't do exactly what I needed them to, so from about 2005 onwards I started coding scripts myself to alleviate my frustration.

And I've come a long way since then. The Grand Theft Auto fansite I started is still running today - The GTA Place has evolved into one of the largest English language GTA communities on the web.


Qualifications

2004 - 10.5 GCSE's
2006 - 5 A-levels (three at A2, two at AS)
2007-2011 - Currently studying for a BSc in Computer Science: Web Development at Staffordshire University


Experience

My first industry experience came in 2004 as a work experience placement with a local web design company, in which I gained practical experience in how to deal with clientelle, and also using software such as Adobe Photoshop for graphic and web design. I started freelancing in web development from early 2005, though since then I've spent a lot of my time developing my own websites and projects to further my knowledge of PHP and MySQL. However, I have had a few clients, and any notable work I've done can be seen in my portfolio. All layouts I design are table-less, and code is standards compliant to at least xHTML 1.0 transitional, with valid CSS.


Web Hosting

While I personally do not provide web hosting as such, a very good friend of mine owns a small web hosting company called ivonic. I've been with ivonic a few years now (starting from when I co-owned it) and have had no problems with them, and I always refer any clients of mine requiring web hosting to them. I would recommend you check them out if you're reading this and also looking for some decent web hosting.