Ah Practice! What can I say about my practice?* I was trained as a Painter Illustrator; from a line stretching back to Ingres, Degas and Sickert. Which gave me a wonderfully reassuring glow: but which entirely fails to help me operate in a digital environment (see my comments below). So when I started to practice as an animator, or a new media designer, or graphic designer; I had to learn my craft again, every time. This left me with some interesting and unconventional views on the values of the systems conventionally grouped under the heading of Visual Communications. My passport used to list my occupation as Commercial Artist,any other title seemed to be a bit dishonest.

Like most other designers I did the jobs I was asked to do, as well as I could, whenever I was asked. So I did lovely work for bad people (no moral judgment made), took on jobs with unfamiliar technical dimensions (learning on the job) and always hit deadlines (made clients happy). For a decade I spent very little time questioning why we design or how we design.

So, I did lots of illustration and graphics (including screen based graphics) for the UK, European and US finance sector. I did lots of illustration and design work for the London editorial (magazine) sector. Illustration for education, I also did an eclectic bunch of projects for various international corporations (SmithKlein Beecham, Royal Mail/Parcel Force, Seimens, Hewlett-Packard, etc.). Which is nice. Now I spend time thinking about how design happens, which is better.

My work is divided into Graphics and Illustration. To me these are completely arbitrary distinctions: I honestly can't predicatively tell the diference. I made a distinction because other people think there is a distinction.

*Note: Practice not Praxis. Philosophically speaking Praxis means a patterned activity with a moral or planned aim. Like most designers I was doing Poiesis (pronounced 'PO-eee-sis) like Poetry), which is the philosophical creative partner to Praxis (there are three, the third is Theoria). Poiesis is an unthought creative urge, like bees building hives, buds bursting forth in spring: there may be a plan (DNA, instinct, etc.), but it is an unexamined plan. Most designers operate in this way: we live unexamined lives, driven by earning a living. This is not Praxis: this is craft, heuristics; this is Practice. Many design types of a deeply masturbatory nature characterise their work as Praxis: treat such claims with caution,