I’m new here

My name’s Matthew and I love the web. I got into tech and typography in my teens and have always been fascinated with technology and how we use it. Playing with computers, both hardware and software, was my first port of call and I started off my career in IT. After doing a degree in Creative Music Technology at Falmouth University where I was introduced to my current favourite CMS, WordPress, I was very lucky to be given the chance to build websites professionally for the very first time.

After ~7 years of agency work I went full-time freelance at the end of 2020 and founded MGHD. Being a perfectionist I have high standards for myself and going freelance has given me the opportunity to really hone my craft and put time into areas of development I wasn’t able to previously. There’s still so much to learn and that’s one of the things that attracted me to web development in the first place – the landscape is in a constant state of change and this is something that resonates with me on a personal level as well as professional, being a big fan of mindful meditation (a story for another day!)

Now in its fourth iteration, the MGHD WordPress theme takes advantage of various tools I use day-to-day such as Advanced Custom Fields and Timber, along with others I’m playing with for the first time like BarbaJS, a JavaScript framework for handling page transitions. I’ll be going into more detail about all of these tools in future posts, providing tips and solutions to problems I encounter (of which there are many), as well as sharing insights into my own WordPress build process and homegrown boilerplate, Spark™.

The concept for the MGHD theme design is steps. We take steps in many directions in life: sometimes forward, sometimes back, and often sideways. I won’t lie, it’s been scary going full-time freelance but I would categorically say I’ve only moved forward since taking the plunge and I can’t wait to see what’s around the corner. If you’d like to join me on the journey in any way, you’re very welcome!