Goodbye

This year has been a tough one

Constantly fighting clients in order to create a great experience for users, having to deal with their internal politics, lack of knowledge, lack of motivation, lack of communication and sometimes even a lack of common decency; I need a break. A time out. A chance let go of everyday stresses.

To this end I am formally resigning from the position of Senior Designer at Etch. It has been one of the hardest decisions as it's by far the best job I have ever had.

Jim

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to join Red Bullet and help form Etch. Without your Westwood soundboard the office would have been a challenging place to work, I'm sure.

Andy

Thank you for apologising to clients when I've told them straight, how it is. Most of all, thanks for offering me the job even after I tried to meet you for the interview in a completely different place to the place where you actually were.

Anna

I will miss your brightly coloured outfits and your constant cheeriness. You have been a confidant, agony-aunt and friend. You've also come up with some amazing new words or 'anna-isms'.

Kev

Never do I realise how much I haven't thought about until I have a conversation with you. You can make simple things complicated and complicated things simple.

Gav

I've levelled up my JavaScript thanks to you, Gavyn McKenzie Resize. (Let's see if I show up in search results now). I've asked you to do the seemingly impossible and your answer is always "yeah, we can do that".

Dan

Your darkly comic sense of humour and unabashed desire to get to know anyone and everyone has certainly rubbed off on me. I also now realise how much I don't know about Typography (and what BRI4N could have been; amazing).

Chris

We haven't really had a chance to take the design world by storm yet but I understand now that 'flat design' isn't just a design trend. Huh, who knew?

So, what now?

Don't worry, I'm not moving to join a rival agency; and I'm not starting out on my own. Instead...

No, really. I'm moving to Canada. I'm going to live up a mountain for 6 months. I'm not even taking a computer with me. I will be enjoying the simple pleasures in life. Whilst looking like an idiot.

It's going to be an exciting experience. A designer taking time out from the web industry, putting a career on hold, stopping the world and getting off for a bit. If I don't do it now, I never will; and I know I would regret not going.

Wish me luck!

I'm sure we'll meet again but in the mean time, here are some of my favourite things overheard in the @etch office:

• “Someone's done a dirty.”
• “I'm heading to the 'Google Shed'.”
• “Clearly unrelated, note taken.”
• “That's called the shocker...”
• “Have we got any box-shadow left in stock?”
• “Well I'm not happy unless it's perfect in IE7”