About

Who I am

Hi, I'm Matt Grey, a keen, young and passionate graphic designer and illustrator. I have been interested in the art world from a young age, winning art competitions at primary and secondary school on several occasions. I enjoy visiting art galleries and exhibitions regularly, particular favourites for inspiration include Tate Modern, The Design Museum and The V&A. I am addicted to music and have an eclectic taste for it (as you can see here). I am listening to something nearly all the time, my tastes span from rock to rap, country, metal, alternative, classical, punk, pop, hardcore, jazz, electronic and turntablism. In my spare time I like to take photos, go rock climbing, spend time with my girlfriend and mates and generally chill.

What I do

I am studying Graphic Design at University College Falmouth having just finished my A2 Levels in Graphic Design A2 (grade A*), Media A2 (grade B) and Double Applied ICT (grade C, D). I describe my style of design as a mixture between digital, hand rendered, photograph and collage in a harmonious way. I have recently focussed some time into developing typefaces (fonts), which will be on sale on my new foundry on MyFonts.com.

What I know

I am self taught in many programs that make up Adobe© Creative Suite as well as other resources, mainly:

PhotoShop (raster graphics)
Fontographer (Font design & production)
Dreamweaver (websites)
- Including HTML, CSS, jQuery & a small amount of PHP
Illustrator (vector graphics)
Indesign (layout & publication)
Flash (interactive applications (ActionScript 2.0 only))
Basic After Effects (motion graphics)

I am experienced in website frontend development using HTML, CSS and jQuery, I also know a small amount of PHP and the development of Content Management Systems.

I have worked in a few design practices for my own peronal gain, namely in the production design department of advertising agency LeePeckGroup (http://www.leepeckgroup.com) and in the design department of Hampshire County Council http://hants.gov.uk/design.htm.

A2 (A) Levels in Graphic Design, Media Studies and Double Applied ICT and GCSEs in Art, Media Studies and Business Studies.

What I offer

Services:

The design of printed materials such as flyers, posters, CD cover and inserts, books.
A full custom font with collections of typefaces.
Set up of a fully functional, bespoke, modern and easy to update website at a relatively low cost depending on the purpose, size, and hosting specifications that you require.
Custom Google Chrome Theme Design

Take a look at some quotes and options...

What I'm Listening to

See all my loved tracks / My library

Where I have been

View Where I've been in a larger map

This Website

Sitemap

Legal information

Solutions

Design & build

All built from scratch coded by me using HTML and laid out with CSS.

The following is my inspiration, resources, systems and testing that went into the build of this site.

Design inspiration

Scripting, animation & interactivity

Jquery Javacript Library - http://jquery.com/
Last.fm record display courtesy of Jeroen Smeets - http://jeroensmeets.net/
Easy Slider - http://cssglobe.com/post/4004/easy-slider-15-the-easiest-jquery-plugin-for-sliding
Fancybox - http://fancybox.net/

Social Network links

Addthis - http://www.addthis.com/

Fonts

Bebas Neue (Embedded)
for Large titles & Page Headings - www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/bebas-neue
TEX GYRE ADVENTOR (+ Bold) (Embedded)
for smaller headings - http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/TeX-Gyre-Adventor
Helvetica
for body text (if installed, if not Arial)

CMS

Concrete5 - http://www.concrete5.org/
Concrete uses PHP - http://www.php.net/

Analytics software

Google analytics for extensive prediction and measurement
GoSquared LiveStats for realtime

Browser compatibility test results

Webkit, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome passed (older versions of browsers do not support CSS3 Borders or @font-face implimentation) works best in Chrome

Internet Explorer (don't use it, its horrific)

IE 6 - Useable, transparency problem, JQuery error, overflow problem currently trying to be fixed
IE 7 - JQuery error, graceful degrading), overflow problem currently trying to be fixed finally!
IE 8 - Passed

CSS

No CSS3 animation support or border corners for certain browsers, though this is just for aesthetic purposes, W3C does not validate CSS3 also.

No Stylesheets

Accessable, useable and clear, message on header (alternate image) to explain why it looks like it does.

No Javascript

Everything is accessable and useable, graceful degrading, scrollbars instead of slider, pop-up images and URLs (lightbox) redirect to original sources. Photo Gallery reverts to flash alternative.