My name is Dan Cunningham and I’m a Professional Web Designer & Developer from Doncaster, UK.
I’ve been studing web design and web development since 1998 at the early age of 14 years old. As you can know the web has changed alot since then, so with most of my spare time I tend to enjoy working and researching web design further and continuously dive into anything remotely related to this field. I’m also a bit of a tech freak and love to read, buy & play with gadgets, computer related hardware and anything that draws me in.
This blog is in short, about web/graphic design and everything IT releated inlcduing computer gaming, web applications, and of course anything else I find interesting.
Employment History
I left College in 2003 after 2 years of studing Graphic Design, I found that I wasn’t using all my skills in just working in the general Graphic Design environment. Although my skills are good at print based Graphic Design work, I generally wanted to push myself into a more of an expert role. So having already passed my National Diploma I left college and a month later I got offered a job at Indigo Online as a Web Designer & IT Support Tech. With this I felt there was no need for me to stay on at college and having always been told that the best experience is a real working environment experience. So what better opportunity than a web design job!
Indigo Online
So for the 2 years I was with Indigo Online I designed and built websites, maintained websites, configured servers and took control of our client base for Indigo’s IT solutions that we had to offer. As well as doing all this, I did alot of work in running Indigo’s websites and sister companies that we had started as side ventures. In doing all this I was later offered a senior position after a year with Indigo and continued to work as a supervisor at Indigo Online.
Miller Brothers
I decided to leave Indigo Online in the month of Febuary 2006 to join the eCommerce web team at Miller Brothers, A well established online and high street electical retailer. Miller Brothers had over 200 Stores nation wide and the systems and websites that I was to work on for them really did help me to progress my skills.
In the early months of being with Miller Brothers they unfortunalty went into Administration and the company got bought out by a new and well formed management team that now stands as the newly upcoming Limited company known as “Miller Brothers Retail Limited”. I was in the eCommere Web team at Miller Brothers Retail Limited for over 3 years and it was such a great working environment.
Working along site the other designers and development team members is really what I definately wanted to get from the company and because of that I was constantly learning new techniques as well as bringing my own skills to the table for the team to pickup. Using HTML/XHTML, CSS Skill along with Notepad and Photoshop as my main tools in my roll I find that I have found my feet and thats why I enjoyed it.
At my time with Miller Brothers I was constantly working on and maintained a few other sites and projects e.g www.qed-uk.com, www.asda-electricals.co.uk, www.asda-direct.co.uk, ASDA Kiosk Project, and websites for a few other well known high street bluechip brands such as Lloyds TSB and EDF Energy. My roll at Miller Brothers started as a Web Designer and ended as a Team Leader in March 2009
Nineten New Media Limited
March 2009 saw me leave Miller Brothers and opened up new doors working at Nineten New Media Ltd in Doncaster. Nineten are a smell new media agency, helping others brand there business and create online presence as well as systems to maintain their day to day company tasks. From Portfolio websites for Models, eCommerce sites for online retailers, or Internal intranet systems for companies I helped and developed them all as Nineten’s Lead Web Designer and PHP Developer.
I’ve worked at Nineten since March 2009 and the role itself is great especially with the clients that Nineten have, I was working along with such Brands as “Skype”, “SAKS Hair and Beauty”, “The Dogs” and other major online brands. Although the size of the company is quite small it’s a great way to have direct input into all the project in the studio and this is what I loved about this role. However it can have its downsides, as bottled knecks can be seen in some area’s however dedication and forward planning can be a greatway to stop this for happening, So working at Nineten has given me some very invaluable sources of information and taught me a lot of leasons. Infact more than a great deal for the future. So after 3 years of working at Nineten I’ve moved onto something with a bit more of a team to work aside.
XBite
After 3 years at Nineten, I left and started in April 2012 working for XBite, A major online computer game retailer. I’ve not yet got anything to say about Xbite as its still relatively early days. But It looks promising, and I hope that this path leads to greater things!
Outside Work
Outside of work I am a freelance web designer. Baiscally doing the same work that I do throughout the day. I also run alot of sites for myself, Some of which are full blown websites and other are small blogs for friends and family by doing this I get alot of awesome people contacting me and I really enjoy talking about subjects that can help my development for my full time profession.
Contacting Me
Don’t hesitate to contact me, I try to read all of my e-mails but I can get a little bumped down with them alot of the time. Sometimes that can be the case and it may take me a while to reply but I should get around to you in the end.
About This Site
- From back to front, this site is built on WordPress.
- Under the hood you’ll find hand-crafted XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS
- I use sIFR Font replacement methods for the headings.
- Whilst keeping things to web standards, I’ve tried to keep this site clean and simple & I feel I have achived that but sometimes it tends to look a little text heavy in places
Facts & Links
- You’ll find my photos at Flickr
- I’m a member of the 9rules Network
- The reason for this site is to help myself and others with the knowledge which I find and use on a day to day basis. So its my own personal libary for all to use!