Hello! Thanks for stopping by I’m Shelton, a 29 year old Web Designer from Peterborough in the UK and as you’re here to read a little about me, here goes…

How I got into (Web)Design

I’d always been fairly creative from a young age, between the ages of 6 and 14 I was never more happy than when I was sat down (I’d like to say with a pencil in my hand… but I wont) drawing something. Infact when I was 10 years old I won a competition in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph with my drawing of Santa Claus. I came across it recently and was quite shocked at the quality, considering I was 10 obviously. If I manage to find it sometime soon i’ll scan it and put a photo on here.

After drawing for much of my young life it felt natural, as computers began to become a household item, that i’d ditch the pen and paper and start designing on the PC instead. I designed posters, pictures, business cards and, to be fair, anything else that I could!

Then in 1997, when I was just 16, my parents got the Internet and at that time Internet chat rooms were the big thing, it was only a matter of months before i started asking people in the chat rooms how sites were built. Luckily a webmaster for the local radio station gave me some great pointers and I’d soon built my very own website! I called it: “Choose a Chat” or, as I liked to call it “CAC” :) It was simply a plain website with a variety of Chat Rooms.

After about a year and the addition of some jokes and general tacky bits, to my surprise “Choose a Chat” started pulling in around 6,000 unique hits a week! The popularity of my first website didn’t go un-noticed from friends and family because I was soon being asked to create websites for all sorts. By the time I ended up with any free time to work on CAC again, the hits had fallen to around 2,000 unique a week and my naivety got the better of me as I decided to make it ‘under construction’ – and that’s how it stayed for over 2 years.

ChooseaChat.com is now up and alive once more, and I’m planning on adding an adult social networking aspect to it to help revive some of the popularity. It doesn’t have as many chat rooms, or he hits it once did, but as my first project it will always be something I’ll keep tinkering with in the background.

Graphic Design

After I’d finished studying Graphic Design at Peterborough Regional College and while re-making ChooseaChat.com, I had also started my first Graphic Design job since leaving education. This was at the Peterborough Evening Telegraph. Peterborough’s largest and most popular newspaper, owned by Johnston Press, the UK’s largest regional newspaper publisher and owners of Scotland’s national title ‘The Scotsman’.

My role meant I was designing newspaper adverts of all shapes and sizes, as well as designing advertorials, page features, hoarding, the lot! Even though I was a Graphic Designer I still had the urge to become a Web Designer but had no professional training. It was only when a vacancy became available within Johnston Press that I thought why not. So I went for it and managed to get the job! they agreed to train me on the hand coding side of web design and I was over the moon.

Web Design

To date I have made various sites for myself, others and through my work. Within it I have accomplished many things including the re-design of our multi million pound business directory ‘Local Pages Today’ the new ‘widget based’ Scotsman.com admin and much more.

I consider myself very hard working, eager to learn and always striving for the best.

Personal life

As far as personal life goes I thought it’s probably best to not go into too much detail. So, I’ll summarise:

• I’m an avid Manchester United fan, and have been since as long as I can remember.
• Even though i’m getting on a bit (I have grey hairs to prove it!) I still play football twice a week.
• In my attempt to beat the aging process I go to the gym almost every week day to try and stay fit and healthy.
• I love dogs!! particularly German Shepherds.
• I have a long term girlfriend (8 years now) who I’d do anything for, well within reason ;)
• I enjoy creating personal websites and try to do as much work on these as I can everyday.
• I aim to have my own Adult greeting card company one day. I have some great idea’s for it! ha.
• Unfortunately my family has been on the receiving end of Cancer, which means my family is now very small. It also means I enjoy doing things for Cancer charities – help support us on our 3 peaks challenge!

So that’s me, my journey, where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to. I hope now you get some idea of my character and what i want to achieve in life.

All the best,

Shelton