Hello, don't be alarmed I'm NOT leaving deviantart .. all I'm doing is changing my name! I've made a tough decision but one I think will actually benefit me in the long run.

My artwork and my professional IT identity have become too merged online and I feel that my IT professionalism could be compromised by being thought of as too arty (I've had negative feedback on this so it isn't imaginary). It hasn't happened from many but I've just been made redundant and I don't want the fact that I'm opening up into being a freelancer to hurt the fact that I'm first an IT specialist.

While I am a creative artist, I'm also very much an IT professional with 10 years of academics backing me and 7 years in industry at the same time as studying.

I want to make a clean break, so I'm retiring my entire designgeek online personality .. as a name I love it and it describes me perfectly. However in the social media world that name is now describing a lot of different people and how on earth would a potential client know it was me or not?! tricky one isn't it.

So I've re-branded myself and while I'm not going to share my new freelance business name, if anyone personally knows me from this account and feels like they will die without knowing my 'bright shiny self' then send me a note!

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I've been walking in circles in my mind for a while now about leaving my digital name that I've had for the last 7 years and while it's heartbreaking in a way it's giving me a new lease on life. One that hopefully will have a finer balance between private and public .. when chatting with a friend I was surprised to hear him say 'spoken like a true artist' .. I guess its true. With our work being intended for the public, just how public should we be with ours lives along with our work?

I'll leave that for you to figure out for yourselves.

In the mean time this account's work has been privately stored and I've opened a new one at deviantart. All my other designgeek accounts spread through the internet will also be closed, yup, that means my flickr one too.

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You know what my ego is finding hardest?! Leaving my 'senior status and the fact that this account clearly states I've been here since 2002. I've lived and loved and met so many great friends through this account. I grew tremendously as an artist and crafted the 'eye' that I now have and I'm going to continue to grow.

Wish me well on my journey, I've made great strides, you've seen me through two degrees and sweat blood to get them. You've seen me with a point and shoot, a D70 and now my D300. My first illustrations and pen strokes through to gradient meshes and my immortalisation of our dear Angie .. my web design skills grew and then ebbed. Well now they are growing again and soon maybe as soon as 6 months from now I'm going to be kick ass again and I've got my learning plan all scheduled out for teaching myself all the latest things that occured in the web2 world since I started my masters degrees and finally finished the second one to a full MSc status. You guys don't know how freeing that moment was and I get to celebrate my freedom from academia education in a few months.

Now I'm a professional student of life, photographer, IT specialist and everything in between. While I'm sad to leave you as designgeek, I'm glad to have known you and have you know me.

Here's a recent project I joined and a quote that I want to leave you with.