I was born into the swinging Liverpool of the 1960s, just 3 days before the Beatles released She Loves You, which in terms of web designers makes me immensely old. That said, I survived the 70s without too much documentary evidence of impeccably bad taste in clothes so I'm one-up there.
I grew up in one of the rougher bits of Liverpool and was educated by the Christian Brothers in an all-boys Grammar school (I fancied the all-girls one down the road but they had moral reservations. Surely the first time they ever did!)

After school I had a short career as a student but wanted to get out and be in the 'real' world, and there I've stayed. My 'career' since has been almost entirely self-employed. I had 19 years in retail and wholesale, loved dealing with clients and still have long phone conversations with some of them (they occasionally even manage to get a word in!).

Sgraffi was born out of a realisation that one thing I had inherited from one of my grandparents was a love of art and design and that a computer felt like the natural medium for me to express it. (He was a seaman and a docker all of his life, but was a self-taught art enthusiast. Thanks Grandad.)

'Sgraffi' was a way of combining Sgrafitti (a design painted onto a wall)and Scruffy (a pretty accurate description of me) in one word, which also came out looking a bit Welsh!

Now I live in a fantastically beautiful part of rural Anglesey with Hazel my wonderful partner of over 25 years (post-grad enviromentalist, organic gardener and cat lover. Sadly, no-ones perfect...) and our 1 3/4 cats, both of which are co-incidentally called Charlie, though one is a discount cat as he's only got 3 legs. I work from a laptop in various locations around the house, always hyperactively and frequently in an Ian Anderson 'standing on one leg' pose in the kitchen. When I'm not working I'm probably up a mountain or caving under one, usually my beloved Parys Mountain, the 4000 year old mine complex I can see from our front garden.
I assuage my guilt of being a running dog lackey of the capitalist system by giving the Citizens Advice Bureau the benefit of my incompetence as IT support and am attempting an experiment in alcohol off-setting by single-handedly keeping the UK cider industry afloat. If you want to read all the usual CV stuff about influences etc, click here, but be warned, it wil read lika load of pretentious rubbish.

If you hire me you get an obsessive-compulsive who will frequently be working at 2 in the morning and back on the job at 7 the next. You will be hounded until we get the best images and layout we can, frankly, you won't be left alone until I'm convinced you've got exactly the web site you want and no matter how much you argue I won't bill you until its achieved.
Incidentally, can I just apologise here for the fact that I really can't be bothered with corporate speak stuff and hard-sell. I've never advertised in my life and frankly can't be bothered paying for it. I like the idea that my clients generally get recommended to me, but if we've not met get in touch and lets talk!

If you have any questions please never hesitate to ask, if you want to just phone for a natter, why not!