I’m Ben Sekulowicz-Barclay, a twenty-something year old developer from London. I’m currently fulfilling a lifetime ambition, having recently moved to Tokyo, Japan, where I work for Cirius Technologies as a UX engineer. Prior to this, I worked for two of the biggest and brightest media agencies in Britain. I specialise in developing accessible, usable and elegant websites using HTML, CSS and Javascript. I’m also an expert in developing with the CodeIgniter MVC framework and in using the LAMP stack in general. I’ve also dabbled with ASP and Processing, with varying degrees of success.

I’ve worked with some of the biggest clients in the world in various roles including both front-end and back-end development and, most recently, as Technical Lead. Work that I’m particularly proud of can be found on here, but my full portfolio includes work for the BBC, Channel 4, Diesel, Jenson Button, Nike, Paul McCartney, Queen, the NHS and various other UK government departments.

I’m also the developer behind a few non-commercial projects. Flickrshow is a simple Javascript-based slideshow that can be embedded in almost any website and displays images from a Flickr user’s photostream, set or pool. It’s currently in the sixth revision and is serving thousands of slideshows every day. Inbentori is an open API for managing your life experiences—it’s currently under development but will be available soon. From time to time I also release PHP libraries or jQuery plugins, all of which are available on my Github page.

Away from work, I am a keen traveller, snowboarder and amateur photographer and have taken some half decent images of the Great Wall of China, wholesale tuna haggling at Tokyo’s Tsukiji market and the Mojave Desert outside of Las Vegas.

The primary function of this website has rotated through being a portfolio, a weblog, a photographic gallery and a tumblelog. The current incarnation is an attempt to return to the days before tumblelogs and twitter; an attempt by me to create well-thought out, relevant content rather than throwaway commentary on the work of others. Only time will tell if this is a success.

The design of the site exemplifies my growing interest in design as seen through the eyes of a developer, with a focus on the methodologies involved in creating a structural grid and strong typographic rhythm. The colours, (or lack of) and font choices are intended to showcase the content and concentrate the reader rather than add visual clutter—If you are using a browser that supports @font-face, and have Javascript enabled, you should be reading this in the lovely Apolline, provided by Typekit. If not, you're stuck with plain old Garamond or your system’s default serif font.

Although I’m by no means a designer, I enjoy experimenting, tweaking and rebuilding, and this site is testament to that. There are numerous previous versions, some of which I have kept around at v6, v7, v8 and v10.beseku.com.

This site is built using HTML and CSS, with a smattering of Javascript to pull the design together. Expression Engine is throwing out all of the content, and the whole thing is hosted with the guys at Slicehost (†). This site sits on the same self-administered virtualised server as Flickrshow and all of my other projects.

Unless otherwise stated, all content on this site is licenced under Creative Commons.

Like anyone who makes their living through the Internet, I make use of a number of different services and social networks which generate a lot of content on my behalf. You’ll find me on Delicious, Flickr, Last.fm, Linked In and Twitter. If you want to contact me using more conventional means, I can be reached by email.