The Awful Truth

I’m Andy (or sometimes Higgs depending on who’s talking to me and how angry they are). I'm a designer with a BA in Industrial Design and Technology but despite this, my work these days is mainly concentrated on web, although I also dabble in print, photographic and other creative disciplines.

I carry this out though the company I run.

I was born and raised in Stourbridge in the West Midlands (England), and spent my high school years at Old Swinford Hospital, which despite the name, isn’t a hospital. I like to spend as much time as I can elsewhere. Not that I have anything against The ‘Bridge; I just have a sort of wanderlust. Originally this site was going to be my travel blog, but it's since turned into something much, much more vague.

I enthuse over design, art, technology (especially my Macs), P38 car bodywork filler, my work, seeing the world, sunshine, olives and being on the water or up in the mountains.

I'm a big fan of F1, enjoy the rugby, and swim quite a lot.

The best place I've ever been to is Nepal.

Colophon

If you have the vaguest interest:

• The blog is built with web standards in mind, although you may find it a little less polished than my commercial work as it's just a bit of a playground – CSS & xHTML Strict otherwise
• If you are looking for an XML/RSS feed for this site, the address you need is:
  http://feeds.feedburner.com/JustBeyondTheBridge
• This is the forth version of the site. Version 1 was a bit more grey and a lot less useful for anyone who didn’t use the ‘right’ browser. Version 2 was a lot more forgiving, including all the things that should be present in a half-decent site. Version 3 was ported from an archaic ASP and Access setup into Textpattern, but never got the lick of paint it was entitled to. This version is finally on a domain of it's own, and is running on Expression Engine. Who knows which blogging platform will I migrate to next.
• I have been blogging here since early April 2005.
• Just Beyond The Bridge refers to my travels, and the idea of moving around. It also refers to my home town, Stourbridge.
• The photo in the background is a photo I took on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas in late spring, 2007.
• The photo of me above was taken at around dawn on a sand dune in the desert near Pushkar, India (credit: Sammi Kempe)