Keith Martin
email Keith
London, UK

I've done quite a bit since 1982, although I must admit most of it was without much of a plan. So no surprise there! Here's an off the cuff walk through the last twenty years:

1980s...
I came back to England after the summer of 1982. In late '82 to early '83 I studied computer programming (COBOL mainly), before deciding that it really wasn't for me. I worked in bars and pubs a bit (a very different trade in the UK; fairly respectable, in a sense), then started a screenprint company with a friend. After a while that fell apart. (Business and friends aren't an easy combination!) I went on to work in other print companies, and helped a different friend start a much more successful specialist screenprint company.

During that time I started going out with Bridget, someone I'd known from my school in England, before Ben Lippen. (She was in the year above me, so back then I was barely noticed.)

1986...
By this time I was getting rather bored with the grunt-work side of printing, not to mention the excess of chemicals involved, so I applied for a two-year general design course, and was accepted. During this course I married Bridget and we had a son (Felix). No, that wasn't the best timing, but that's life! During this time I started getting involved in using Macintosh computers. That would play a big part in things later on.

1989...
I then went on to do a graphic design degree at the London College of Printing (LCP). I was most definitely a mature student by then, being the only one over 25, the only one married, and the only one with a child. And during the summer between the second and the final year Bridget and I had another son (Max).

I was also the only one with a beard. And what a beard that was! I'd been cultivating it through much of the 1980s. I ended up having a sponsored beard-shaving ceremony to raise money for the degree show. I grew it back not long after, but I did end up losing it for good a few years later.

1992...
I graduated from LCP, and started work at a fairly big design consultancy. I was there as both a junior designer and as a teacher, training all the existing designers in how to use computers for their creative work. At the same time I'd started writing the occasional review for MacUser magazine, and experimenting with multimedia and very (very) early Web design.

Mid 1990s...
I'd worked at a couple of different design companies by now, and I'd been getting more and more involved in screen-based design work. I worked freelance for a while, with my time split between writing and design work. Then in 1997 I had the chance to join MacUser as technical editor.

Now I work in central London, experimenting with and breaking Mac-related things, then writing about them. Bridget, the boys (now 10 and approaching 14) and I live in south London. I keep telling her we need to live in the US for a while (North Carolina, naturally), but so far she's stonewalled me on that. Still, perhaps she'll think differently when she sees the Blue Ridge next summer!

I spend my time writing, designing and playing with all sorts of stuff. I qualified for the London yoyo championships two years ago (didn't get any further though), I'm learning to ride a unicycle, and I just finished helping Felix build a 1/4-pipe skateboard ramp.

Whew! Is that enough of a catch-up?

Please let us know what you've been doing, and don't feel you have to ramble as much as me - or feel you can't write more, for that matter!

- Keith

Me, Bridget, Max and Felix - in Richmond Park a few years ago.

Felix and Max taking dares - below the cliffs of Portland Bill, the south coast of England, the weekend of the eclipse.

Late 1980s student era. I was actually smiling under all that, honest! (A bit, anyway.) Don't worry, it is long gone.

Hickory Nut Gap, Summer 1998 - the last time I was in North Carolina.