About
My name is Joe Angus, and I am and have been a web developer for some years. From an extremely early age I was always facinated with computers, and was typing my name way before I learnt to write. Many nights, I spent hours and hours just watching my Dad on his computer, whilst he was dialing into remote unix machines to configure and maintain them. Before I was 8 years old I was quite familiar how to build a computer, by 10 I had my first Mac and then soon after I got my own PC.
Although bought up in a very technical background, I always had a flair for creativity. My Father’s main client base were in the pre-print industry, and it wasn’t long before I was fascinated with magazine designers, big image setters, plate setters and reading comics before they are released on film. From there I managed to get my first version of Adobe Photoshop (Version 3!) and I never really stopped playing with it!
I spent a lot of time doing all kinds of things using Photoshop, from creating my own backgrounds, creating skin textures on 3D models for game MOD teams, doing photomanipulation, digital painting, also general graphics and websites. I also did a lot of C whilst learning how to modify and use the Half-Life SDK also for MOD teams, which was great fun and set up some foundation for later programming. I’ve always loved games development, and large handful of friends I made during working on these games now work in the Industry. From IO Interactive, DICE, Guerilla Games and Gearbox Software - and I really enjoying hearing from them all and what they’re up to!
After school and then college, I was well into building my web portfolio. I made websites every chance I had, for whoever wanted one - which forced me to learn some good web based skills and techniques. I freelanced for a few years, and then decided that I wanted to get my own place which meant that I needed a steady wage that I knew could support me. During that time I went back to my technical side and learnt PHP, JS, AJAX and compliant CSS.
I now work as both a web designer and developer for a local web development and design company and have been since September 2007. I’ve had to adhere to extremely high accessibility, design and development standards, whilst working with some great clients on extremely technical and exciting projects, which has let me get the experience I needed to step up to a new level. I’m always jumping between designing and development, across a broad range of subjects.
Tag cloud
Links to friends and sites that I read
Leezon (http://www.leezon.com)
Portfolio of my best friend Chris Gardner, an amazing photographer and also a fellow designer
Chris Tufnell (http://www.crazymac.net)
Blog of a good friend of mine that works in the games pr industry, he reviews a lot of games and shares his unbiased opinions to the world
Matt Holden (http://www.imholden.com)
Matt is an awesome pencil artist, and is moving to digital vector art more recently with the creation of his eagerly awaited comic Tamashii City!
Mazy (http://www.mazy.net)
Morten Hedegren 'mazy', is an extremely talented map designer that ive known for many years, and now works for IO Interactive in Denmark. His blog is always a good read, full of various reviews and opinons
Ryans GobLog (http://www.ryansgoblog.com/)
Ryan expresses his views on video games which makes for a good read and also does a fair bit of webby stuff too
CGTalk (http://www.cgtalk.com)
CGTalk is a huge community for extremely talented designers, ranging from all types of media medium. If you want to see how far people push digital art, here's definitely the place to go, it'll blow your mind 
Mapcore (http://www.mapcore.net)
General gaming development community site, although focused upon level design and development. Lots of really nice guys on the forums, and definitely a great place to get good constructive criticism.
456 Berea St. (http://www.456bereastreet.com)
Another great resource for articles related to web development, just like above - it's a must for your RSS reader to keep up to date with latest development technology
A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com)
A List apart is full of useful information for web designers and developers, very good articles on particular aspects which have definately answered some of my questions in the past
Addedbytes (http://www.addedbytes.com/)
Yet another great resource from a UK developer, his cheat sheets are particulary useful to have a print out of and leave on your desk!
Four-Kings (http://www.four-kings.com)
Four-Kings LTD are UK's first pro-esports team. I designed all of their clothing (pre Packard Bell sponsorship) which is worn across the globe at professional gaming events like The CPL.