web design: my background

I have almost twenty years of experience in design and marketing, in the voluntary sector as well as the private sector, which has given me a solid base of old-fashioned design and layout knowledge.

I am an experienced copy-writer. I have written everything from brochures to manuals. I am also a published novelist and journalist.

I have been active as a website design consultant since 2003, working mainly with small and medium sized businesses and with charitable organisations, advising them on their approach to offering services on-line, and suggesting more cost-effective solutions.

I became involved in the Internet in 1996, and my first website went up in 1998. I moved from marketing and information services to full-time web design and development work in 1999, employed first by the International Petroleum Exchange, a derivatives market based in the City of London, moved to Knight Frank, the international estate agency,spent some with the Office of the e-Envoy, the Cabinet Office responsible for centralised government information, and most currently as corporate webmaster for EDF Energy, a power company.

My technical skills cover hand-coding HTML, CSS, and Javascript, and in using Dreamweaver, GoLive, FrontPage, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and other web editing and imaging software.

If you need research, I can do that to: I have three degrees in history, the last one being a D.Phil. from Oxford University. A rigorous training in research techniques carries through into any area: the standards I learned then I still use now.