Richard Walker Front end developer who loves animation and illustration.

Richard Walker

01 About me

Hi, I'm Rich!

I'm a front end web developer who writes clean code, refines processes, and enjoys keeping up to date with the latest in HTML, CSS, and JS. I'm passionate about peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and facilitating regular code reviews.

My aim is to build sturdy and future-friendly responsive websites, taking accessibility and performance into consideration.

I love studying animation, furthering my skills in illustration, and playing video games.

02 Where I've worked

I've spent the last ~15 years building websites. It all started with getting a little over-excited with Adobe Flash before being plunged into the world of HTML, CSS, and WordPress (and then some!).

My developer journey started with cutting my teeth at Rufus as a flash developer. My focus at university was illustration, animation, and interactive games which transitioned nicely into my journey building websites. I learnt a lot very quickly in this role and thrived.

After two years, I moved on to Cargo Creative. Being part of a growing team over time was a great learning process - welcoming new staff and sharing knowledge to help everyone grow, including myself. Late in 2023 I became Lead Developer, which acknowledged the development of my role over the years.

As you might expect, that means I've been involved in a huge number of projects with a pretty wide range of requirements.

  • Front end development

    With a project list covering a wide range of sectors, I've been lucky enough to build websites with a huge array of requirements and visual styles. I approach each build mobile first with progressive enhancement in mind to ensure every user gets the best experience on the technology they have at hand.

  • WordPress development

    WordPress has evolved a heck of a lot over the years and exploring that has been a lot of fun. With advances in supported technology, being able to approach web builds headless has provided opportunities for performance benefits and a switch up in optional stacks with a business use case.

  • QA across front and back end development

    As lead developer, I was tasked with reviewing code and testing output as an extra step in the process. This covered ensuring the front end matched (as close as possible) to designs, the CMS fields were usable and made sense, and that code was bug free.

  • Client CMS training

    My roles have always included training clients (and colleagues alike) on how to get the most of out the project's CMS. This usually covered base WordPress with a combination of custom functionality and ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) used extensively to provide a bespoke experience.

  • Client communication

    Dealing directly with clients throughout the build process has been a key part across all of my roles. Maintaining regular updates to ensure transparency and that objectives are on track goes a long way.

  • Illustration and Design

    My degree and industry experience means I have a keen eye for design and design related concepts. I'm also a keen illustrator (hand drawn and vector) and have been involved in illustrating for client projects over the years.

  • Animation

    Have I mentioned animation? Whether animating with CSS or using software, I love making things move! I have a good understanding of when to use this to enrich the UX of a website and when not to use it - which is just as important.

  • Accessibility

    I believe all websites should be as accessible as possible. Everyturn Mental Health, as an example, required thorough testing for keyboard only and assistive technology users - ensuring colours and contrast passed where required, elements and layouts adapted when zoomed, and providing transcription options in the CMS for alternative media.

    Accessibility is an area I'm very passionate about and I'm always open to learn more to make a UX more user friendly.

03 My skills

Code stuff

The meat and 'taters of what I love doing.

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JS
  • WordPress
  • PHP
  • Gulp
  • Vagrant / Homestead
  • Git
  • Astro
  • Tailwind

Software

I've used a wide range of software over the years, but here's some that's stuck around.

  • VSCode
  • Tower (version control)
  • Arc (browser)
  • XD
  • Photoshop
  • Illustrator
  • InDesign
  • After Effects

Other things I'm exploring

I'm passionate about staying up to date with:

  • Delving deeper with Astro
  • React
  • Vue
  • Animation with After Effects and Lottie.js
  • Accessibility
  • Page speed / Optimisation
  • Affinity Designer
  • Rive

04 Projects I've been involved in

Working at Cargo for 12+ years, all of the below projects were completed during my employment there. For more information on the excellent work by Cargo, and the below projects, visit their website.

  • Everyturn Mental Health

    CMS setup and integration, front end

    We used a structured approach to flexible layouts in the CMS and had a lot of fun with the front end, adding subtle movement throughout whilst keeping a keen eye on accessibility.

    Visit the website

  • Salamander Pumps

    CMS setup and integration, front end, involved in client comms

    This project required a large number of layout components, which were tackled in 'strips'. These were cloned across structured pages but also allowed in the flexible layout template to allow total control over new pages.

    Visit the website

  • Be Modern

    CMS setup and integration, some front end

    I mostly worked on the CMS set up and integration for this project. Combining multiple sites into one and keeping the author experience consistent was quite the challenge! WordPress multisite worked great, here. We also built some custom functionality to handle aspects of the product variaton setup.

    Visit the website

  • No Grey Area

    CMS setup and integration, front end, client comms

    A project that developed to require using WordPress multisite to handle different languages - English and Arabic.

    Visit the website

  • The Bill House

    CMS setup and integration, front end, client comms

    A fun project which allowed some flare around revealing elements.

    Visit the website

  • 1440

    CMS setup and integration, front end, client comms

    A super fun project working with 1440 on their website. A clean and clear asthetic with some subtle interactions and animations snuck in to help direct the user around the site.

    Visit the website

  • Whitley Bay Ice Rink

    CMS setup and integration, front end

    I had a blast animating the figures on this project. These were done by splitting up the initial illustrations into parts, animating them in After Effects, and exporting via Lottie.

    Visit the website

  • Intelligence Fusion

    CMS setup and integration, front end

    A scroll-interaction-heavy website that required a lot of setting up. It's simpler to create the interactions now but, at the time, a few libraries were combined to create the alternating scroll direction effect.

    Visit the website

  • Ward Hadaway

    CMS setup and integration, front end, invovled in client comms

    A huge website requiring a wide range of page templates and flexibility around adding content, whilst also pushing / pulling content between other internal websites.

    Visit the website

  • SCTR

    CMS setup and integration, front end, client comms

    A great project with the aim to help up and coming creators get their work shown.

    Visit the website

05 Get in touch

If you're in search of a dedicated developer for freelance projects or have a full-time position available, please get in touch. I look forward to hearing from you!

You can download my CV here or print from this page for an alternative layout.