Here is my bio up untill now, so you can get to know alittle more about myself.
I know there is bit much there but its there if you wish to read.
I know there is bit much there but its there if you wish to read.
My name is Aart Tanner, im 22 years old and from Birmingham, UK. I was born and raised here, growing up I was really in to cartoons ( just like any other kid ), but not just for the antics of Tom and Jerry or for the charm of Pepe le Pew, but for the vast range of different styles of character's and the appreciation of the creative talent put into each sketch.
So with the thought that it’s possible to bring your imagination to life, I picked up a pencil, grabbed some paper and began to doodle.
I found endless hours of pleasure in drawing my own characters and sketches and when id finished I would show my drawings to my parents. To see them laugh and smile at what I had done gave me and overwhelming sense achievement, I could see that it made them just as happy to look at the drawings as I was to draw them.
I guess this is where I fell in love with imagery and not only the pleasure it brought me but also for the pleasure it brought everyone else.
As I got older and my skills had progressed, my parents had brought a PC for the family to use in which I came across Microsoft paint (not exactly industry standard software but what the hell I was 12 years old) which I pretty much attached myself to, taking the knowledge I had learned from drawing and implementing that into creating cartoon characters on the PC.
After I got used to creating shapes and using colors on the PC, my character's and pictures looked pretty cool, but then I wanted to make them move.... So I came across Microsoft PowerPoint (again, not exactly industry standard software but a good start). With PowerPoint I learnt how to animate my characters and images using slides, I would come home every day after school and sit at that PC for hours on end making my own little 3 minute sketches.
As time went by, I really wanted to try and make my characters look and feel a little more realistic, after all there is only so much you can do with paint and power point, but at this point in time I was unsure as into how it was done.
I think it was near my 16th birthday when the answer to my query was found, I was visiting my dad at a studio, and whilst I was there I sat down next to him overlooking him working, this is when I was introduced to Photoshop. My dad had seen my drawing and my cartoon sketches prior to this and he asked me if I would like to have a play around with the program, so as you can imagine I jumped at the opportunity. I was absolutely mesmerized by this program, my dad showed and told me about the brushes and gradients, and also showed my examples of the kind of graphics that Photoshop could produce. I had to get my hands on it.
Soon after that, my dad brought me my very own PC and had installed Photoshop on it. All day and all night I would sit at my computer getting to know the program, learning about the different tools and what they did, flicking through the filters and effects, it took me quite a while to head my head around it but once I got the hang of it I started to experiment abit more. After a while I decided that if I was ever going to get anywhere with this program and create graphics like the examples my dad showed me I would need to get a real education.
I enrolled my self in the CLAIT PLUS course at Josiah Mason Collage, which was a one year foundation course in using Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. To be honest, at first I was only really interested in learning more about Photoshop but whilst I was there I became quite fond of using Dreamweaver and really enjoyed putting together little web pages together and after a while I was hooked on it but using it for a few hours a day wasn't enough. A friend of mine on the course said that he had the Macromedia MX suite at home and if I would like he would give it to me to put on my computer at home so I could use it there, so armed with the right tools I set about designing my own websites.
The course was amazing, I enjoyed every second I spent there, it gave me a sense of direction in life, I knew from that point that this was the area of work that I wanted to be in, but then a month before the course was about to finish, the tutor left and the course was canceled . With know one else able to teach the course we couldn't finish, we had to leave with nothing.
I had enough knowledge to get me started but no paper documents to prove it. This really disheartened me and shattered my hopes of ever being a web designer, so I gave it up and went and got my self a regular job in a factory.
For quite some time I went from job to job doing what I could to earn some money so I could enjoy my life, which wasn’t so bad at first but after a while I became very upset. I felt numb and empty, like there was a massive hole in my life that I would never be able to fill, I had all the passion in the world for design but no route in which to take, I felt trapped.
It wasn’t until near the start of 2007 when everything changed. I was online line doing a job search, and just to see what would come up I typed in "web and graphic design". I looked through all the listing, there where quite a few but they all required that applicants must have at least one years experience in the industry which obviously I didn’t have.
Just as I was about to give up, I came across this small add near the bottom of the page that said "web designer trainee internship", I read through and it said that all applicants had to have was knowledge of Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I rushed to the phone and dialed the number to speak to the person who placed the ad.
I got an interview the next day.
I woke up the next morning as nervous as id ever been but yet also very excited, got myself together and made my way to the interview. Upon arrival I was greeted by a very pleasant guy called Raman who was the head of the company, we sat down and chatted for a while and shared our thoughts on design. He then started to ask me questions on my knowledge of the software, I knew about the basics but I crippled abit on the more advanced questions so I became very nervous, I honestly thought id blew it in comparison to the other applicants who were far more experienced than me.
The interview went on for a good 35 minute’s and as we came to the end, we shook hands and to my surprise he offered me the job. I started full time work the following week as an intern with a trial period of three months. During the course of those three months I was mainly undergoing intense training and being taught valid html, xhtml and css, also undergoing training in advanced Photoshop and Illustrator techniques.
After 3 months had passed, I had made the cut and was employed by the company as their in-house designer, working on a vast range of projects from small business cards to major websites, branding companies and much more... I enjoyed every second of it, nothing gave me greater pleasure than waking up in the morning and setting off to the studio, I would arrive hours early and leave hours late, I couldn't get enough of it, and finialy I was where I always wanted to be.
My time at the company was among one of the greatest experiences I have ever had, I learned an awful lot, not just about web design and graphic techniques but about the industry it’s self. I had found my identity and became very confident within my self and my work.
I am now working as a freelance Designer and producing work for a range on different clients and companies.
To view my work please visits my Portfolio.
So with the thought that it’s possible to bring your imagination to life, I picked up a pencil, grabbed some paper and began to doodle.
I found endless hours of pleasure in drawing my own characters and sketches and when id finished I would show my drawings to my parents. To see them laugh and smile at what I had done gave me and overwhelming sense achievement, I could see that it made them just as happy to look at the drawings as I was to draw them.
I guess this is where I fell in love with imagery and not only the pleasure it brought me but also for the pleasure it brought everyone else.
As I got older and my skills had progressed, my parents had brought a PC for the family to use in which I came across Microsoft paint (not exactly industry standard software but what the hell I was 12 years old) which I pretty much attached myself to, taking the knowledge I had learned from drawing and implementing that into creating cartoon characters on the PC.
After I got used to creating shapes and using colors on the PC, my character's and pictures looked pretty cool, but then I wanted to make them move.... So I came across Microsoft PowerPoint (again, not exactly industry standard software but a good start). With PowerPoint I learnt how to animate my characters and images using slides, I would come home every day after school and sit at that PC for hours on end making my own little 3 minute sketches.
As time went by, I really wanted to try and make my characters look and feel a little more realistic, after all there is only so much you can do with paint and power point, but at this point in time I was unsure as into how it was done.
I think it was near my 16th birthday when the answer to my query was found, I was visiting my dad at a studio, and whilst I was there I sat down next to him overlooking him working, this is when I was introduced to Photoshop. My dad had seen my drawing and my cartoon sketches prior to this and he asked me if I would like to have a play around with the program, so as you can imagine I jumped at the opportunity. I was absolutely mesmerized by this program, my dad showed and told me about the brushes and gradients, and also showed my examples of the kind of graphics that Photoshop could produce. I had to get my hands on it.
Soon after that, my dad brought me my very own PC and had installed Photoshop on it. All day and all night I would sit at my computer getting to know the program, learning about the different tools and what they did, flicking through the filters and effects, it took me quite a while to head my head around it but once I got the hang of it I started to experiment abit more. After a while I decided that if I was ever going to get anywhere with this program and create graphics like the examples my dad showed me I would need to get a real education.
I enrolled my self in the CLAIT PLUS course at Josiah Mason Collage, which was a one year foundation course in using Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver. To be honest, at first I was only really interested in learning more about Photoshop but whilst I was there I became quite fond of using Dreamweaver and really enjoyed putting together little web pages together and after a while I was hooked on it but using it for a few hours a day wasn't enough. A friend of mine on the course said that he had the Macromedia MX suite at home and if I would like he would give it to me to put on my computer at home so I could use it there, so armed with the right tools I set about designing my own websites.
The course was amazing, I enjoyed every second I spent there, it gave me a sense of direction in life, I knew from that point that this was the area of work that I wanted to be in, but then a month before the course was about to finish, the tutor left and the course was canceled . With know one else able to teach the course we couldn't finish, we had to leave with nothing.
I had enough knowledge to get me started but no paper documents to prove it. This really disheartened me and shattered my hopes of ever being a web designer, so I gave it up and went and got my self a regular job in a factory.
For quite some time I went from job to job doing what I could to earn some money so I could enjoy my life, which wasn’t so bad at first but after a while I became very upset. I felt numb and empty, like there was a massive hole in my life that I would never be able to fill, I had all the passion in the world for design but no route in which to take, I felt trapped.
It wasn’t until near the start of 2007 when everything changed. I was online line doing a job search, and just to see what would come up I typed in "web and graphic design". I looked through all the listing, there where quite a few but they all required that applicants must have at least one years experience in the industry which obviously I didn’t have.
Just as I was about to give up, I came across this small add near the bottom of the page that said "web designer trainee internship", I read through and it said that all applicants had to have was knowledge of Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I rushed to the phone and dialed the number to speak to the person who placed the ad.
I got an interview the next day.
I woke up the next morning as nervous as id ever been but yet also very excited, got myself together and made my way to the interview. Upon arrival I was greeted by a very pleasant guy called Raman who was the head of the company, we sat down and chatted for a while and shared our thoughts on design. He then started to ask me questions on my knowledge of the software, I knew about the basics but I crippled abit on the more advanced questions so I became very nervous, I honestly thought id blew it in comparison to the other applicants who were far more experienced than me.
The interview went on for a good 35 minute’s and as we came to the end, we shook hands and to my surprise he offered me the job. I started full time work the following week as an intern with a trial period of three months. During the course of those three months I was mainly undergoing intense training and being taught valid html, xhtml and css, also undergoing training in advanced Photoshop and Illustrator techniques.
After 3 months had passed, I had made the cut and was employed by the company as their in-house designer, working on a vast range of projects from small business cards to major websites, branding companies and much more... I enjoyed every second of it, nothing gave me greater pleasure than waking up in the morning and setting off to the studio, I would arrive hours early and leave hours late, I couldn't get enough of it, and finialy I was where I always wanted to be.
My time at the company was among one of the greatest experiences I have ever had, I learned an awful lot, not just about web design and graphic techniques but about the industry it’s self. I had found my identity and became very confident within my self and my work.
I am now working as a freelance Designer and producing work for a range on different clients and companies.
To view my work please visits my Portfolio.
copyright © 2008 Aart-Tanner.co.uk
