What are we about?

Who am I?

Hi, I'm Clive Thomas and I own and run tlc design studio. First a little about me. I grew up as an artist into sketching, painting and modelling. Then in my early twenties I got the technology bug while I was living in Vancouver, Canada, where I built my first "computer" using a Fairchild 4040 4-bit processor!

Returning to Europe, I decided to get serious about computing and attended a BSc in Computing Science in London, this taught me more about the theory of programming and high level languages. All good fun ;) This was the mid 80's and I went through the Atari 1020, Amiga and finally rested upon the PC which is the last computer that I have ever bought. During this time the Internet was on the rise, I fondly remember playing with CSS in IE3.

Work-wise, for the last 8 years I have been teaching Multimedia, DTP and Web Design at South Thames College at all levels from National Diploma upto Degree. It was a fun job but in the last few years paper-work increased along with what I think were draconian rules and so I decided to start my own business, and what better to choose than Web Design? It combines my two loves art and technology and it helps people/business to attain their goals.

My Skills

Because of my voracious appetite for technology, I have my fingers in lots of pies:

Web Design:- 

(X)HTML, CSS, Javascript/JQuery, PHP, MySQL. CMS's such as CodeIgnitor and WordPress

Design:- 

PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash

3D:- 

Cinema3d, Poser

Film:- 

Adobe Premier

DTP:- 

Adobe Indesign

Programming:- 

Visual Basic, C++

I can also use programs such as Dreamweaver, FreeHand, FireWorks, but I choose not to as you cannot be master of all. I prefer to learn and use what I call the "core" principles so that I can work quickly and efficiently. For example: DreamWeaver, I know many designers like it, but I prefer to hand-code any language I write as it gives me far more control than any application which tends to dumb things down and hide things, plus I can work a lot faster using the Net Beans IDE. I can also provide private (single or group) tuition in a range of Web and Multimedia subjects.

My Interests

Despite my "geekiness" and near obsession for all things computing, I still have other interests ;) I enjoy carpentry and have built a lot of my own furniture. I love reading - mostly scifi. I also enjoy travelling, learning languages, hiking/walking and I still do water colors and acrylics. My ambition is to visit Egypt and finally settle down in Japan.

Thankyou for Reading

Well that's a brief outline of who I am and what I'm about. If you want to know more have a look around this site, in the Blog you will find more stuff such as my thoughts on the web, technology and some tutorials for those that like to get their hands dirty. If you have any questions or want to hire me go to the Contact page which provides a number of ways to contact me.