A little bit about me...

My name is Stuart Norman and I am awesome an animal lover a cat owner a Whovian a Graphic Designer a Web Designer .

This website is my portfolio for all works I have done over the years, graphic and web design alike.

0 years in Graphic Design
0 years in Web Design
Top 5 Designs

About

  1. Birth - October 1993

    Born as Stuart James Norman in Scarborough, North Yorkshire (UK).

  2. Childhood

    I have always been an arts and crafts person from a very young age. In my childhood, my Nanna taught me the ways of Card Crafting (crafting hand-made greetings cards) and I've been doing it ever since.

    My favourite 'old-school' TV shows are:

    Magic Grandad

    Wizadora

    Shoe Box Zoo

    Little Bear

    The Demon Headmaster

    As a child I loved watching all the 90s and early 2000s children's TV shows, therefore it is near impossible to pick my favourite. Please check out my blog for more 'Old School' TV shows.

  3. Teenage Years

    Throughout my teen years, I have become a Whovian - big fans of Doctor Who. I'm also a big fan of Doctor Who's spin-off show Torchwood.

    In addition, I have a real passion for Egyptology (the study and Archaeology of Ancient Egyptian history), so much so that I actually wanted to become an Egytologist, but I decided against it. But I still love to watch factual documentaries and learn about Ancient Egypt.

  4. Top Favourites

    My top 5 favourite TV shows are:

    Doctor Who

    Torchwood

    Merlin

    Charmed (original)

    Once Upon A Time

    My top 5 favourite films are:

    Harry Potter (series)

    Matilda

    Marvel's Avengers (series)

    The Beach

    Titanic

    My top 5 favourite musical artists are:

    Cher

    Kylie Minogue

    ABBA

    Celine Dion

    Meat Loaf

    My top 5 favourite games are:

    Kingdom Hearts (series) - PS4

    Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain - PC/PS4

    Epic Mickey - Wii

    RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 - PC

    Skyrim - PS4

  5. Secondary School - June 2010

    I went to St Augustine's RC Secondary School in Scarborough between 2005-2010. I took GCSE Art, with the ambition of becoming an artist someday.

    However, during year 11, I became interested in the use of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) in TV shows and films due to writing a presentation on it for my GCSE Applied ICT. Of which, led me into a new ambition of becoming a CGI Artist or 3D Animator.

    I finished school in June 2010, amongst other grades, with an A in Art and a double A in Applied ICT.

  6. College - September 2010

    Due to my new found ambition, I studied Graphic Design at Yorkshire Coast College between 2010-2012.

    A few modules I enjoyed was , Game Design and .

    For the final major project, I designed a website for my Father's Business, Eastfield Joinery. See the project for more information.

    I graduated college in June 2012 with the grades Distinction*, Distinction*, Distinction; I was over-the-moon with this. All that hard work paid off!

  7. New Life, New Zealand - September 2012

    After college, me and my family emigrated to Auckland in New Zealand in September 2012 for a better life. It was beautiful, and hot on good days and an amazing experience!

    I had to be in full-time education as a stipulation of the visa, so I chose to take a 3 year 3D Animation and Visual Effects course at Media Design School. In hindsight, 3 years probably wasn't the best choice... I should have gone for a 1 year course instead.

    I finished the first year of the course on November 2013, but due to expensive international tuition fees and the lack of finances thereof, I could not study the next 2 years. So my degree is incomplete and I didn't receive a qualification. But what I did receive was experience, knowledge and friendship. I enjoyed the once in a life time experience and I am thankful of that.

    While studying 3D Animation at University, I developed a passion for Web Design, so I decided to teach myself more and more skills in the field. I loved doing the Uni work, but at one point I became more passionate about my Web Design than I was with the Animation. This is when I decided to change my ambition yet again to being a Web Designer - thus allowing me to further my skillset and better myself in the field.

  8. Web Design - 2013

    A couple of months after I moved to New Zealand, my friend from school contacted me in early 2013 to design and create his business website - FCAQ Geolotech (Please note this business is now non-trading as of January 2015 and the website is now hosted on my development server as a portfolio piece).

    I took on a rather hefty project considering the lack of skills I had back then, I literally had to learn on the job, and because of that, I decided to design his website free of charge and do it for portfolio reasons. The project was complete in August 2013. Please read the project for more information.

    Afterwards, I continued to learn more skills by improving and updating Eastfield Joinery's website (my Father's business). See the project for more information.

  9. Home Sweet Home - 2014

    After almost one and a half years in New Zealand, my family were struggling to settle in, plus the immigration office weren't being very cooperative and not allowing us permanent residence. Therefore we decided to move back to England. It was an experience of a lifetime, that I will never forget.

    Back in England, I eventually managed to get a job as a retail assistant after months of interviews and volunteering work.

    I was going to apply for a Web Design course at a local University, but they would class me as an international student since I moved to New Zealand; and I would need to be in the UK for 3 months prior to start of the course - a load of rubbish if you ask me! So, I decided to just keep working, saving money as I go and continuing to better myself in the field.

  10. Onwards and Upwards - 2017

    A few years down the line and I am now working for Sainsburys since July 2016. I am slowly building some websites in my spare time. From way back in 2012 when I had little knowledge of Web Design, I can safely say that I am so much better at it. Loads of new skills and new web technologies learnt and utilised, and I love doing it.

    Onwards and Upwards!

  11. Horizontal Timeline 2.0 - 2019

    While on a 32 hour contract at Sainsburys, I still manage to do a bit of Web Design. Throughout the last few years, I have been upgrading Eastfield Joinery's website, which is finally 100% complete as of October 2018. I worked on a personal project on and off as well. 1st February 2019 marks the release of my first jQuery plugin: Horizontal Timeline 2.0!

    It essentially creates an events timeline on the horizontal axis. In fact, this is an example of the very plugin! My plugin is an adaptation and improvement of the original javascript version by CodyHouse. It implements lots of functionality and features that was requested by users of the original version, and also has lots of new additions too. Check it out on github and view the project.

    I am really proud of my achievement and I have learned quite a bit about plugin architecture and javascript/jQuery in general. Even though it's literally just released, I am already thinking about what else I can add to it for a future version!

Work

Contact

Looking to hire me? Or just general enquiries? You can contact me below.