Tom A Lloyd One of them designer types

My very own pixels

Well, hello internet. Finally, I’ve made the decision to stop being a voyeur and get involved with the action by setting up this blog – a place where I can share stuff. The chances are a) you’ve never heard of me, b) you follow me on twitter, c) we’ve met through business, or d) you’ve known me for ages. I thought my first post would be good chance to introduce myself and outline some of the wonders that may occur on this blog (or not).

So, firstly I’m Tom. I live in south Wales with my lovely wife Kelly and my increasingly awesome son Joe.

In 2002 I graduated from an old red brick art school called the GCADT (Glamorgan Center for Art and Design Technology). Pretty frickin catchy huh? I loved that place, and spent five happy years there, burning stuff, gluing stuff, breaking stuff and getting covered in ink and candle wax.

This is where I became a graphic designer. When I left college I bobbed around doing freelance work for friends and picked up a couple of clients. One day, one of my ex-class mates, Mike Jordan rang and asked if I fancied starting a company. I said yes, and we started Bluegg. That was 10 years ago.

For those 10 years I’ve been busy, along with my amazing team, trying to build Bluegg into a great company, by creating brand identities, marketing materials and websites for hundreds of (mostly) lovely clients.

I thought it was high time, I had a place of my own to talk rubbish and share my thoughts, away from my company. That’s why this blog is here.

To be completely honest, I’m not totally sure what I’m going to do with it. I don’t have a strategy or plan; I just have stuff to say. To give you an idea of the sort of things I might cover, I’ve come up with this list of rules for myself:

It’s about design & communication
That’s what I do, so that’s what I’ll stick to. It might be about web design, branding, industrial design, social media or everything in-between. I may stray now and again, but generally it’ll be designery talk.

It’s for me
I’m not looking to win awards for saying world-changing things, so this is mainly for me. If people like it, then that’s great.

Constructive Ranting
I’m not a particularly ranty person. I don’t really go into meltdown over issues in our industry, but I do have strong opinions on some things, so they might pop out from time to time.

It’s not an advert
I’ll do my best to stay impartial. I’m not really hoping to become a famous blogger and I’m not going to bang on about Bluegg all the time (although we are great).

One last thing – I’d like to extend a massive thank you to one of the finest gents I’ve met – Paul Goodfield, who helped me put this WordPress theme together. He’s great.

That’s it really. This is my venue and you’re invited to the party. You’re welcome anytime.