My interests are as follows:;xNLx;I love dogs, and I've always had dogs as far back as I can remember, we've had Jack Russells, to Lassie Dogs and more recently Rotweillers.;xSTx;br;xETx;;xNLx;I also love a game of golf, although I don't actually get time to play it all that often which is annoying.;xSTx;br;xETx;;xNLx;I enjoy cycling and My Wing Chun both of which I haven't done for quite some time now.;xSTx;br;xETx;;xNLx;I used to draw, A LOT but like a lot of things I haven't managed to find the time to do that recently either.
In a little town called Edinburgh a little baby boy was born at the Western General Hospital... This isn't my scan by the way, don't think the technology was around when I was born.
Just me and my bro chillin as you do... But which one am I?
I attended Silverknowes primary school which is sadly no longer there. You could alway find me round at my gran and pops at lunchtime. This is where I first found my love of drawing and painting and I was pretty good at it back then, winning prizes for illustrations I had added to reports and projects. Some interesting facts, from when I was in primary school - We used to live next door to Gordon Strachan in Muirhouse, apparently he wasn't very nice, according to my dad anyway. - Sean Connery used to deliver my grans milk.
My dads cousin Tony Sibson, was a professional boxer and has won many title over the years, but this has to be one his most famous fight. This was a World Middleweight Title fight against 'Marvelous Marvin Haggler', Tony lasted about six rounds when Tony was put down by a TKO. By my reckoning Tony's career gifted him with: 55 wins, 7 losses and 1 draw. He also won the Commonwealth Middle Weight title 4 times.
I attended Craigroyston Community High school and had a good time doing it. Again like my primary school, the high school i attended is sadly no longer there, it was burnt to the ground in 2010. In first and second year I was still all about the art and design, but then I was seduced by the power of technology. Our third year class where one of the first classes in the UK to be introduced to the new Apple MacIntosh computers, now they call them Mac Classics. As I couldn't study both IT and Art and Design, my art fell to the way side ;(.
As I stayed on for Sixth year at school, I found that I had missed my art and design A LOT, and decided that I wanted to try for my higher grade in this subject. Now this is strictly not allowed unless you have completed the 'O' grade, but my art teacher Mr White fought in my corner and I was allowed to take this class and subsequently passed. The painting opposite, is one that I called Nirvana as it was just so peaceful.
I passed my driving test first time on this date... And what was my first car? A canary yellow Mini Meatro. OH YEAH!!!!!! This was a perfect little car, it seemed fast back then, but by todays standards it was a snail.
Started work at The Scotsman Publications. I was one of the first of many Mac Operators that where brougth in to take over from the old time typsetters. During this time I was responsible for setting full spreads, adverts and other items for The Scotsman, The Evening News and The Herald and Post papers.
This gig has to be easily one of the best gigs I ever attended in my youth and I've been to a few, such as Reading and Leeds festivals and the Charlatans at Ingleston. The Roller Coaster Tour consisted of four bands, 'My Bloody Valentine', 'The Jesus and the Marychain', 'Blur' and 'Dinosaur Jnr'. The bands where excellent and the atmosphere was electric, Damon Albarn from Blur was nuts and at one point was sat upon one of the very large speakers singers when he suddenly dived into the drummer. And My Bloody Valentine did their usual and left a guitar standing up against a speaker for about ten minutes.
It was around this time that I got married to my first wife, it only lasted a couple of years. But we where never actually divorced only separated.
My daughter was born on this day in the old Royal Victoria Hospital in the centre of town, in the Simpsons Suite. She was so beautiful when she was born, and luckely enough I was granted the priviledge of being the first person to hold her. The photo opposite is of my daughter Courtney Mary Hannah Sibson at her big cousins wedding, unfortunately I had already moved to Yorkshire at this point.
Started Studies for an HND in Graphic Design. Unfortunately due to personal issues I had to drop out after the first year. But whilst I was there, I learnt a lot, the image opposite was an answer to a brief for a mock WineBar. Basically we had to design an image for an old style hanging sign, as I love Salvador Dalis work I styled my effort using some of his techniques. The wine glass that resembles a face for instance.
It was at a gig through in the Glasgow Barrowlands, that I met the guys from Radio head. The best thing was that Johnny Greenwood, the lead guitarist complimented me on my hair (yes I had long hair, it was more of a bob really). Anyway the next time I saw him on Top of the Pops (if anyone remembers that show) he had the exact same hair do as me. Also managed to have a chance meeting with some of the guys from James too.
Although I'm not so much a fan nowadays, back at this point I did enjoy their music. This gig was another good one, sat on the side of a massive hill in Balloch Park, the sun shining watching an excellent set with some brilliant tunes including a cover of 'I am the Walrus' by the Beatles.
Well not really a chance encounter, a blind date is more accurate. This is the date I met my lovely wife, drinks in the Bank Hotel on the Royal MIle.
After much deliberation, and after getting my old job back at the Scotsman, I decided to take what seemed like a better offer and move down South to West Yorkshire. I started life down there working for a little known company called Waddingtons, yes the board game manufacturers famous for Monopoly and the like. But this was their Direct Mail/Print devision and was actually called Waddington/Chorleys, I was responsible for setting up various pieces of direct mail for a huge printing press called the Scitex, which is basically an oversized ink jet printer. Over the years I produced some pretty interesting items, the one that sticks in my mind though was a mailing for DFS which was run in conjunction with Linda Barker. Basically we had a completely blank sheet of paper, which would then be split whilst hurrling through the machine, one half would become the highly personalised letter complete with variable text, personalisation and highlighting and the other side would become the fully formed envelope complete with name, address and stamp. By the time both pieces of paper got to the end of the machine, the envelope had been created, the letter had been fully printed and stuffed inside the envelope ready for sealing at the end of the line. This was a pretty inovative product and I think we where one of the only printers in the country that could create what we called a self mailer.
For this one we broke societies norm, as Rebecca actually proposed to me. It was very quick in the beginning, but over fifteen years later we are still together, which isn't bad going, considering I'm a pain in the preverbial to live with.
After being in America with work for a 10 day training course at the Scitex facility in Dayton Ohio. I had decided when I was over there to purchase the engagement ring. It was about two weeks before Christmas 1999 when I gave my wife her engagement ring and she was thrilled. The ring opposite is very similar to the simple engagement ring that I bought my wife.
Started studying Wing Chun Kung Fu, this style of Kung Fu was made famous by the late great Bruce Lee as this is what he was taught whilst growing up in Hong Kong. It is a formidable style of Kung Fu, which can take as little as six months to master. I studied this for around three to four years and forged some excellent friendships and met some interesting people. One of the friendships I forged was with my SIFU (Chinese for teacher or master) Pedro Acha, he was trained in the traditional style of Wing Chun by one of the UKs leading instructors who was incidently taught by Master Ip Chun son of Grand Master Ip Man who taught Bruce Lee in Hong Kong. I enjoyed Pedros method of teaching as he didn't conform to traditions, if there was a better way of performing a move then he would investigate that and eventually incorporate it into our classes, he also taught us how to defend our self in modern day situations. By far one of the most interesting and colourful people I met during my studies was a US Navy Seal called John, he studied the popular art of Hung Gar (Praying Mantice style) Kung Fu and held a seminar which we attended. The image oposite shows Bruce Lee playing a game called Chi Sau with his Sifu Grand Master Ip Man, this is a training technique designed to enhance the senses, the idea is to attempt to hit your opponant whilst they try to defend against your strikes and vice versa. This was very relaxing and eventually would be performed with your eyes closed or blind folded.
This was the point when I had to give up my Kung Fu training as I was working full time and then began a home study course in web development. The course took me about a year to complete due to some personal circumstances, but would normally only have taken about six months. It did stand me in good stead for what was to come, it also shifted my perception of what I wanted to do next. I was of the opinion that the kind of print work that I was associated with was going to die out eventually and so a shift to a more sustainable online form of communication seemed the right thing to do.
This was a pretty dark time, although I hadn't spoken to my estranged wife for quite some time, I was in the throws of filing for a divorce. When a phone call comes out of the blue telling me that my ex-wife had died suddenly, a brain aneurysm had struck in the early hours.
The marriage of Scott and Rebecca, Location Gretna Green, the day St Andrews day. As we wanted to get married in Scotland and in a church the closest we could get to this was the setting at Gretna Green, which was an old Catholic Church.
This is when I started to want to learn more and more about the actual design side of web design. Again this was a home study course and was run by The Interactive Design Institute (based up here in Musselburgh) in conjunction with the University of Hertfordshire. This should have been a three year degree course but unfortunately due to lack of interest in studying this course online it was axed after my second year which was very disappointing. During my studies I met some interesting and talented people, including one of my tutors Phil Holt who runs his own web development agency in Edinburgh called The Web Foundry and has done some work for The Gate. The image opposite shows a site that I designed and built using Joomla whilst studying the module that Phil was teaching. The url for this site is: http://www.sibbo-designs.co.uk/Content-Management/Joomla/
This is the first time we get to see my baby boy, see how cute he is... Rotweillers have a bad rep, but to be honest I believe there are no bad dogs, just bad owners. We've had two Rotweillers now and neither of them have been agressive in any way, stubborn yes but never agressive. We chose the unusual name RAUM as it means 'Hero' in German and is also the name of a fallen angel.
And a few short years later, Raum is coming up for the ripe old age of three. But he still loves is cuddly toys and the one he has here is his cuddle bunny lol. What a big softy.
So after a months trial/freelancing for The Gate Interactive, I was offered the opportunity to join the business on a full time basis. Thoroughly enjoying it, working with a great bunch of people and working on some interesting projects. And even getting me out of my comfort zone, for instance this presentation. And that was some of the highlights of my short forty one years on planet earth.
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