Surface is my web development freelance endeavour. I will be working with design agencies and other web development companies to bring my services of both front- and back-end development to their teams.

My main aim is to allow purely print-based design agencies the perfect path in to the online market place, handling web projects from start to completion.

I am available for contract work, adding extra capacity for any web development work required. I can work competently with existing codebases or help your internal team move to new best practices and adopt appropriate frameworks.

This short role was focused on upgrading a legacy application, moving it to Laravel 8. This included refactoring the codebase to modern PHP best practices, as well as improving coding standards using PHPCS and PHPStan.

I have been responsible for providing advice in building ground-up service APIs using Node. My main focus was to build multiple UI interfaces – both client and internal facing. These were built from the ground up using Laravel, TailwindCSS and included developing a custom SDK shared between them. I setup a full development and deployment suite, with Docker, using unit tests and code coverage, code linters, best practices including commit messages and branching using Git Flow and deployment on the Google Cloud Platform.

Invited back to help the development team complete their new platform. Working with a small team on two-week sprints, writing tests, deploying with a continuous integration pipeline built on Jenkins, we release new features quickly and with confidence, helping add value to the company.

Contracted to work on a fledgling platform which is built using a VueJS frontend on top of a Laravel-based backend and managed with Kubernetes. Working with a small team on two-week sprints, writing tests, deploying with a continuous integration pipeline built on Jenkins, we release new features quickly and with confidence, helping add value to the company.

I was contracted on an initial three-month period to add extra development resource to an existing large CodeIgniter-based project. The contract was extended three times where I worked on new systems using Laravel 5 and a large bespoke management system built in CodeIgniter. Finally I was tasked to pick-up and then lead a complex Cold Fusion-based system, fix bugs and integrate new functionality.

Working with a large team of both front- and back-end developers and designers, developing bespoke content-managed ecommerce websites for a range of clients. I built large ecommerce websites from the ground-up as well as from existing database structures and code. Each project usually has a team of developers.

Since joining Interactive Web Solutions I was the lead developer in working with the Zend Framework, and taking steps to unify the codebase used throughout the company.

As a developer I worked on every aspect of the development process. This included writing HTML templates, CSS and jQuery, as well as complete back-end code, in the form of the Zend Framework. I also liaised with designers and write specifications.

As the sole web developer at Creation, I worked every aspect of the web development process, excluding visual design. I structured and implemented the databases, developed the server-side code (PHP). Front-end code consists of semantic HTML styled with CSS and progressively enhanced with JavaScript (custom or jQuery).

I also advised on best practices for usability and interface design when creating the design visuals. Because of this process we are quashing the belief that accessible websites are boring – our websites are accessible and beautiful.

I started university studying Cybernetics. In my free time, however, I ventured into the basics of dynamic websites by learning PHP and MySQL. I also improved my knowledge of best practices in HTML and CSS. In my second year I moved to a new department and course which better reflected my passion —” “Internet Product Design”.

My final year project was entitled ‘Unrestricted Access’, a website built using web standards, with articles and interviews about web standards. The site also showcased the flexibility of semantic markup and CSS, with multiple style sheets changing the entire look and feel.

View Unrestricted Access.

An opinion piece in the printed net magazine, issue #216 (July 2011) about building a digital community in your area.

An article for the hugely popular Smashing Magazine about a twist on the common sprite technique that many developers already use on their projects. Using transparency within the sprite means that you can use it on different coloured backgrounds.

Read: smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/31/transparent-css-sprites

An article for 24 Ways, the yearly advent calendar for web developers, discusses best practices when developing a jQuery plugin. It includes a full step-by-step explaination of the plugin and example showcasing what can be achieved.

Read: 24ways.org/2009/front-end-code-reusability-with-css-and-javascript

An article for Treehouse, a web development magazine, about styling form submit buttons. The article discusses ideology, cross-browser caveats & fixes and best practices.

Features an interview with myself conducted by David Travis, a usability expert, about dispelling the myth that accessible websites can’t be beautiful. Also showcasing the work I did to recreate the Nokia and Vodafone websites with semantic markup and CSS to make them accessible.

Read: userfocus.co.uk/articles/makeovers.html