I love Warhammer, it’s so over the top. I enjoy painting the models, working on armies and lists, and occasionally I enjoy playing the game. I was going to post about last Saturday’s Warhammer game, but I was curb stomped by Grumble.
Who brings three knights to a friendly game of beer dice? It was over by round 3 but I wanted to see what I could win points-wise; turns out not much.
I was going to write a battle report, but the game boiled down to Morvenn Vahl and her Nundams killing a Knight turn 1, her being killed turn 2 and it all going downhill from there. Celestine was brave as ever and managed to last until the end of round 5, but the rest of my army didn’t do too well. Becky’s last stand was as cinematic as ever, as she took on a knight solo after losing the rest of her unit but I’d stopped playing to win by that point. I was playing purely for the lore.
Anyway, here’s some actual footage of my Sisters getting pummelled by three knights, two tanks and a squad of Terminators.
Back in the old times, The Internet was pumped directly in to your house through a pipe. It was the same pipe that was used for the analogue telephone and so it came with various caveats that we just accepted as modern, futuristic life.
In the olden times you would be surfing The Internet Super Highway, or ‘the web’ and then suddenly your Mum’s on the phone and you’re cut off.
There was a romantic, Wild West side to this. One moment you could be reading about some obscure Australian soap, catching up on the latest Evangelion gifs, or half way through printing a 1400 page pure text walkthrough of Final Fantasy 7. You could be planning Friday night on MSN while downloading -I promise this is System Of A Down doing Legend Of Zelda this time.mp3- and then boom. Screech, Chuurn, your Aunt’s talking through the internal speaker.
The early internet was exciting, frustrating at times; but there was one thing that made it great.
There was a level of kudos in just doing, sharing knowledge and making new things. People who were online at the time were semi-confined to niche groups or interests and people in those groups tended to share fandom, development, design and general ‘internet’ knowledge. Often you’d find yourself breaking out of your little web-groups, falling down rabbit holes of interesting snapshots of people’s lives, fandoms and stories. As you found new websites and groups you discovered new ways of presenting, coding and designing things. And with that came more little snippets of knowledge that people shared, for the kudos.
The thread that kept these little pockets of the internet thriving was the idea that knowledge was something to be celebrated and shared and that you could just create something for the sake of it.
One of my first websites was an Evangelion fan site. So as a little tribute to that, I set up https://centraldogma.co.uk. Part of me looks at the web nowadays and I’m sad how commercial it’s become, like a lot of early web-tinkerers I make websites for a living now. But I think it’s important to keep the experimental and whimsical aspect of the Internet alive, have a bit of fun with it, and to foster that free flow of knowledge and ideas when you can.
A favourite Sunday activity over the last 15 years has been trying to one-life Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I’ve never managed it. I’ve been playing the game since it came out and I genuinely think it’s one of the best pieces of media ever created.
One day around 2011-ish I made it to the last level on one life. It wasn’t planned. Every jump was hit perfectly, every roll, bounce and spin had been executed to perfection. It was zen; for 20 minutes I was inside the matrix. Of course the moment I realised I hadn’t lost a life the fear set in and I immediately died. That’s when my personal quest began. I can consistently make it to the final stages on pure muscle memory but something always gives.
The rules are simple. If Sonic dies, the game is reset. No ifs, no buts.
I have a varied Sonic 2 diet. As well as living rent-free in my head it lives on pretty much every video game platform I own. My all-time favourite version is the SEGA 3D classics version on the 3DS, the colourful sprites and parallax backgrounds mixed with layered 3D are pure eye candy. A nostalgic serotonin blast for the jaded millennial.
Fans of the 16-bit games will tell you that Sonic 3 is the best game. They’re wrong of course. It’s a great game but Sonic 2 is platforming perfected, it’s just too pure not to be the standard.
So what happens when I eventually do one-life Sonic 2? No idea, I like to think it’s not possible and to be honest I don’t need that hole in my life but until that day I’ll keep picking away one level at a time.
I set up this domain name in 2006 to host my first portfolio which helped me to get my first studio job at Door4. I lost it around 2013, completely due to negligence. It was picked up by another Pete Morley, a poet and digital artist – cool for him but annoying for me because I had to switch to a trendy .me domain for my next job application.
Also, our work couldn’t have been any more different.
Well it turns out, .co.uk became available again. And so here we are 13 years later. Chewie, I’m home.
Over the last 25 or so years I’ve found myself checking in on a handful of Pete Morleys, seeing what they’re up to online. There was Pete Morley the Australian comedian. Pete Morley the photographer, Pete Morley Singer/Songwriter and as mentioned; Pete Morley the poet/digital artist.
I’ve noticed that Archive.org has managed to save some of Pete’s poems as well as some parts of my original websites, so just in case anybody was looking for him (or if he’s some kind of oddball who googles his own name), you can see his old website here.
Let’s be controversial. Some advice for digital graphic designers
The worst piece of self-affirming advice I see and it’s been thrown around for the last 15 or so years. This really wasn’t the mindset, and it’s stunted a generation of web designers.
Graphic designers don’t need to know how to code.
It’s an idea that gets repeated, usually as reassurance. On the surface, it sounds liberating; especially if you’re a designer who has no interest in becoming a developer.
But it’s also one of the most limiting pieces of advice in modern web design.
If you design for the web and you don’t understand how the web is built, you’re designing in the dark. I’ll go as far as to suggest that you aren’t designing anything at all; you’re just making pictures.
Should I, as a graphic designer understand how to code?
Yes. Yes, you fucking should.
I’m not saying that you need to know how to build an accessible, lean WordPress theme from scratch, or that you should know how to plug a front end in to a custom CMS. You don’t need to know how to develop web apps in Laravel, React, or interpret complex database systems. In fact, I’d suggest you don’t even look at those things unless you find dev enjoyable (which I do, because it’s actually quite fun).
You don’t need to know APIs, SEO, GEO or any three word acronyms other than CSS.
But the absolute fact — and this is true of every single creative endeavour — is that the more you do know about the entire process, the better you will be as a designer.
This isn’t art. The end product, and it is a product, has to answer to the clients question: It needs to convert, raise awareness, increase sales, convince investors. Impact should be measurable. It also has to be accessible, scalable, on brand, on budget and, possible to build.
The more you know about the post design process, the further you can push your creative work.
What’s interesting is that all these disciplines start with HTML and CSS then quickly bleed in to each other. If you can build up the websites you design as static HTML and CSS front ends, you’ll quickly start to streamline your work. You’ll begin breaking sections in to reusable components because it’s efficient. You’ll build out a CSS framework with a solid starting point and foundation to save time. Your code will get leaner. You’ll quickly refine a library of modules and parts that complement your design style as you revisit your design process to see how far you can push them.
So break out notepad and start building some of your frontends. You’ll become a better designer because of it, developers will want to work with you and we will all live in harmony.
You’ll be seeing a lot of this. Unapologetically big fan of birds, most nature in fact. It feels like it’s been a long winter so it’s nice to see the local wildlife waking up.
I’m lucky to have Alexandra Park and Chorlton Ees within walking distance, so it’s a perfect excuse to go for a walk with the camera.
I have had blogs before but nothing I’ve kept up with (good start). Work and life tends to get in the way. Truth be told my blogging career used to work around a website or portfolio refresh before looking for a new job but over the last 9 years I’ve been running my own creative studio, Typeface.
Good friend and fellow freelancing peer Rhys Wynne has inspired me to stop complaining about how shit and impersonal the internet is these days and to do something about it, so here we are.
I’ll be keeping most of my design-focused thoughts on the Typeface website but many of my interests and hobbies cross over with my professional life so I’ll probably talk about the odd Typeface article in an informal way here.
It’s 2026 …
… And honestly, I’ve been fed up of social media for a couple of years now. As somebody who has been creating for, writing and posting on the web since the late 90s; I miss the days of RSS feeds, webrings, top 100 website lists and forums. Maybe it’s time to get some little pockets of human nonsense back online in that sea of sales, advertising, and AI.
So what (or who) is this blog for?
For me to be honest. Mainly things I can’t put on the Typeface website, a personal journal and digital footprint of sorts. It’s also a place to talk about design and photography, a home for photos, painting projects, illustrations and drawings.
