Digging Deeper: Me

My name is Stephen Macvean, and I am a 21 year old Digital Interaction Design student at the University of Dundee. Originally from Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, I moved to Dundee in September of this year to begin the degree. I lived in the same home for 21 years in the North-Western Edinurgh suburb, Blackhall, where I went to the local primary school and then on to the local secondary school, The Royal High School.  Here I didn’t take much interest in any art or design related subjects, much prefering subjects like geography instead. However, in my free time I began to take interest in design as a hobby.

Towards the end of secondary school my interest in geography began to waver and so I decided to withdraw my applications to study it at university. By this time I was becoming much more enthusiastic towards web design, though knowing that I would not be accepted to a course with no previous related qualifications, the next best option was to study for a Higher National Diploma at college. I chose to study Interactive Media at Edinburgh’s Telford College. Interactive Media covered many different areas of the subject including HCI, Professional and Legal Issues, Developing for the WWW, Animation and many more. As the course was so broad and covered so many areas it gave me an opportunity to see what I enjoyed out with web design.

What drove me to study for a degree in digital interaction design was the keen interest in web design and user interfaces that I have; an interest which grew in my free time several years back after ‘acquiring’ Adobe Photoshop CS2. A lack of strong HTML and CSS skills, though, has meant that the majority of the interfaces and designs that I have created have never gone live on the web. Somewhat of a Macvean family tradition is to either be a professional photographer or have a keen interest in it. I also have a keen interest in much more general design.

Most of what I do is created using Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator. Through college I was introduced to Flash and ActionScript 3.0 and so got the opportunity to produce much more interactive projects. The majority of what I create never sees the light of day, but I hope to rectify this and show the work which I will be completing through the digital interaction design course.

Pictures to follow soon…