Suleiman Leadbitter
Hmmmm This is me... in the Snow.
Every since I was about 7 years old I was drawing, it was me, the first thing people would say to describe me. When I started secondary school when I was eleven I met one of my best friends there James Eatock (aka Bustatoons).
From then on we would draw constantly any foolish comic creation. We would always dream of one day going to publish one of them.
In 2001 I had enough of working as a salesman and quit to pursue my dream of being an illustrator. I worked INCREDIABALLY hard and got a meaty portfolio ready. It was all going great until I found out that as a Muslim it is forbidden to draw anything that resembles having a soul, a character, a personality.
I understand why this is now, but I would be kidding myself if I thought that this didn't crush me then. I cried publically in front of my wife and sunk into a depression for quite some time.
Sounds sad I know, but drawing comics was all I knew, it defined me then.
Trouble was I still needed a creative outlet...
So a good few years on and I found CSS a couple of years back. I loved the flexibility of the design process and mainly how beautiful and clean the websites could look. So whilst doing a day job I studied when family life would allow and in September 2006 I launched 77pixels Design Studio (badly) lol.
I basically tried to run before I could walk. I could code, but not brilliantly and being the perfectionist it all had to be 110% or nothing.
So whilst doing work behind the scenes for a coupe of loyal clients (thanks guys) I stopped business to take a break and re-evaluate. That's now.
I'm working to release the new re-branded, re-focused 77pixels in a couple of months insha Allah.