Hi, My name is Pete Simpson and up till around two years ago (2010) I was the person behind the well known and well respected Blackdogsquare Studios. What happened about two years ago you ask? Well, I had an (early) mid life crisis and decided to see what the 'other life' was like, you know, the one where you do not work 85 hours a week to get a site finished on time, or end up doing 95 design variations for an extremely tricky client. So, what did I do? Well I went into retail - essentially a pharmacy role with retail tacked on, it's a great job with great people do not get me wrong, but it is not where my passions lie - hence the reason I am looking to get back into my 'old life' of Web and Graphic design! My old life went something like this (juicy bits only) . .. .I started Blackdogsquare in 1998 shortly after a serious bike accident (Vauxhall Corsa enema) that left me partially paralysed for six or so months, I had not much else to do so I decided to learn some HTML and build me a website.....which I did, and it was awful, but I got better with time, I also called my design skills into play (I previously worked freelance 3D level design for Epic Megagames in 1998 on the Game of the year version of Unreal Tournament - me, Mark Rein and Cliffy B were like this ( strangely, a vision of crossed fingers now enters your mind)), I was all set for a glittering career with DMA design (now Rockstar) until I decided I did not want to move to Edinburgh (IDIOT just flashed into your brainbox, I know), but everything happens for a reason so I decided to put my time to good use and started Blackdogsquare Studios instead. I had to suddenly, overnight, become a designer/coder/marketer/PR/receptionist/accountant (not so good at that one though), it was hard, hard work but over the years (I also worked full time most of this period as I liked the security of regular income) things got better, I got a great reputation and some great clients - one who I worked with for almost eleven years, things were great and the one time I actually remembered to enter a competion I came joint second (the Yorkshire Internet Awards 2006 no less), after that I got contacted by various yorkshire design agencies to handle their overflow print and web work which was brilliant but also meant I could not show as much work on my site as most of it was under an NDA or four! Then, as mentioned, sometime in 2010 I got a short circuit in the brain and quit it all, closed the business and decided to try my hand in the big bad world. My brain is now fixed and I am looking to get back into the industry I loved...