This is the personal website of Andrew Marchant.

You will find a variety of things here; some useful, some personal, and some that are neither.

System Requirements
The site is designed to be easy to read on large high resolution displays while still being usable at 800x600 resolution and with 256 colours. Only basic html is used so almost any browser should be able to display the site correctly, and a super fast internet connection is not assumed.

Written in Notepad
No, I don't do things the hard way for fun. But writing in Notepad allows good control of the page layout while minimising the download size of each page. No flash, java or server side programs are used - just html and images. There are no annoying pop-ups asking if you want notifications - nor to approve cookies because they are not used.

Design and Influences
The site is intended to be clean and easy to read. Just because there is space on a page does not mean it needs to be filled with something. Web browsers and html make a reasonable job of typographic layout (displaying text in a readable way) so as little interference as possible is used. That said, white space control and colour blocking is employed using the single pixel gif trick, and line length is controlled with tables.

The design of this site is heavily influenced by David Siegel, or rather the information about web design freely offered on his site in the mid 90s. David wrote one of the most important (if not the first) web design books "Creating Killer Web Sites". His lessons on readability, communication and layout that I first read back in 1997 still have relevance today, and despite how far the internet and web browsers have moved on, some sites could still learn a lot from what David gave away free.

Mobile Browsing
Without it ever being a specific intention, all the above means the site remains fast, clear, functional and easy to read on most mobile devices, without the need for a mobile-specific version of the site. Funny that...