About Me
Firstly may I say welcome, again to my web portfolio. My name is Andrea Hooper though I've always preferred going by Andrea Murray, that being my father's last name.
I was born in 1989 in a small town called Richmond in the Hawkesbury District in Western Sydney when my mother fled her home in the country after my father's death. The first thing I can clearly remember doing is painting the kitchen in Vegemite. I honestly think that was the day I knew I had to be involved in something creative.
We weren't in Richmond for very long before we moved up to Bowen Mountain, it's a quaint very homey town in the bush land on the skirting of the Hawkesbury. I remember two houses up there, one we weren't in for more than two years I would say and the other we lived in for most of my child hood.
With easy access to the bush trail out back and a huge yard I was a major fan of digging trenches for Ken to save Barbie. Playing in my cubby house and swinging around on the clothesline that was on the water tank were also a few favourites. Alas, these pleasures; the wind blowing through my hair as I crashed my Razor down the hill and got a nice gash in my brow; were really just filler.
The thing I enjoyed most was my chalk board, and if the chalk dried my fingers out too much I tended to just use the white board on back. My colouring books were something I treasured as well and with my many diaries filled with whatever pop band I was crushing on really spurred me to put the two together and write stories.
When I was eight, we got the first family computer and I remember the first game I got installed was 'Pandemonium'. I don't think even now I really even understood the purpose of the game. it was just so exciting, like a storey being played out on a screen, and sure "That's what movies are for ..." I hear you say but ... No.
I absolutely fell in love with it, it fascinated me, as did the Sims when it came out and I will proudly say I still play God in that game to this day. Sorry, besides the point really isn't it. This machine, that everyone seemed to have in their house was like the epitome of awesome. I could paint, albeit with crappy 'Paint' as Microsoft so cleverly dubbed it, but it was still great and was after all where the realisation that pretty pictured could be made on one of these 'computers'.
It wasn't until high school, year eleven to be exact that I started to learn more about how those images were made, and while yes, Paint introduced me to the HEX value Photoshop really showed me the way. I graduated the HSC having gotten terrible marks in Maths and Legal, but I won't two gold medals for my Ceramics work, an award for my Photography and marks in Visual arts that I was more than happy with.
Of course, everything and everyone pointed at Graphic design, but let's be honest most of my content is not drawings, and I cannot draw. Apparently, that's not what they tell you when you start your course in Graphic Design. The whole thing is ... Drawing. I did realise something while I was there. I loved Typography, and what's more, I was good at it.
By the way, somewhere in there I managed to find an amazing Manx boyfriend now Fiancé who directed me, to the course he'd just finished, which was Multimedia. I'd already decided halfway through my Diploma that I wanted to do Multimedia, the course anyway. So I did, and I rocked it with the equivalent to a High Distinction. It was my passport into Geeksville.
With a funny little website about a honey and bee's and what not I decided that was plenty enough experience to throw myself into the certificate four in web design. In my brain, it went a little along the lines of; I have done the majority of a Design course, I'll ace the design part of the Certificate Four in Web Design. I've covered basic HTML and CSS in my Multimedia course, along with getting to know half the Adobe Suit. Why on Earth not; Except I would never say 'Why on Earth' although I've heard it's a good alternative.
So in conclusion, if you've read this far you'll know me, reasonably well, and there'll be no awkward "So, I really hate scooters and cubby houses and Barbie's. How're you?" conversations. I've built websites, designed websites, learnt a hell of a lot of PHP and JavaScript that whispered words of encouragement in the pulling my hair out stages. I loved it all though, even the bits where I screamed at the computer and told it I hated it. I don't, I luv it, as the non-committed lover type would say.
All 16 GB's of RAM and 8 CPU's amazingness.
Thanks for Reading.
Andrea
