I am a photographer, designer, web developer and coffee lover. I am also the founder of OneMetal.com. I was born in Nottingham, England and I now live in Cambridge, England. I am dyslexic, 6’4” (193 cm) tall and I have my lip and eyebrow pierced. I play the guitar, like cats, video games, comics, movies and music.
I have been designing and developing websites since 1996, initially for personal amusement and later as a profession. As a development and design consultant I have worked for clients such as the MoD, NHS, British Land and Play.com. I currently work for MBL Group ltd as the Head of Technical Design.
Starting out in 2005, I have been building up a varied photographic portfolio. Although just a hobby, I hope to progress my understanding of photography to allow me to create some high quality professional level work.
Why neotoxic, where did the name come from?
neo- (pref)
New; recent: Neolithic.
New and different: neoimpressionism.
New and abnormal: neoplasm.
New World: Neotropical.
Toxic (adj.)
Late Latin toxicus, from Latin toxicum, poison, from Greek toxikon, poison for arrows, poison, from neuter of toxikos, of a bow, from toxon,
Of, relating to, or caused by a toxin or other poison: a toxic condition; toxic hepatitis.
Capable of causing injury or death, especially by chemical means; poisonous: food preservatives that are toxic in concentrated amounts; a dump for toxic industrial wastes. See Synonyms at poisonous.
Neotoxic (n)
Designer / developer / photography who was unable to find a better, or more interesting, internet handle when he wanted a new website.
It is said that the whole can often be greater than the sum of its parts, but in this case it has nothing to do with the sum of its parts.
About this website.
Neotoxic.com is a privately owned, non-commercial, website. It is primarily the homepage of William Owen (aka neotoxic), an internet developer, designer and photographer.
It seems almost a prerequisite for a website developer to have their own website. The trouble is that as a developer, I want to redesign the site almost daily. This doesn’t give my site much chance to grow before it’s bulldozed and reborn.
How was this website built
Like almost all pages on the internet, this page was created using a combination of tools. You can design some really fantastic websites if you have the right tools. To do this requires experience and practise but much more importantly, time to play.
This site is made of WordPress, HTML, CSS, Turbine, JavaScript, jQuery, Cufon, SQL, and AJAX.
OneMetal
Snapshot of OneMetal.com taken 28th August 2010
A few years ago, I started a project that was to become a bit of an obsession. I wanted to make a website that would be independent and provide well written high quality news, reviews and articles for those people interested in broadly alternative media and events. I also wanted to make sure that it delivered a great website experience. Most of the sites aimed at the ‘alternative’ market tended to be pitched at the cliché of the spotty teenager in his bedroom, not the intelligent, articulate and diverse groups of people who I knew were interested in the things they talked about. I set about to build a site for my friends.
OneMetal has over 30 writers on its team, a weekly podcast and even its own Wikipedia page. It serves thousands of unique visitors every day and continues to grow at an alarming rate. It continues to be both an interesting and rewarding endeavour.