Matt Andrews
Web developer, writer, music nerd
Hi, my name is Matt – welcome to my vanity homepage. I'm a creative technologist currently at BBC's Digital Guerrillas team in Birmingham. Prior to that, I worked for five years as a client-side developer and manager at the Guardian in London. When I'm not writing HTML, CSS & JavaScript I'm a keen writer, musician, cyclist and homebrewer. I also speak at conferences and teach a variety of technical classes – more on these below.
Follow me on Twitter on @mattpointblank or email me on matt@mattandrews.info
My recent writing
-
Learnings so far after leaving my old job
Thursday 10 September @ 10:09 PM
It’s been three months, give or take a few days, since I left the Guardian—and London—to move to the BBC (I know, how imaginative…) in Birmingham. It’s flown by. Tomorrow I’m off for a visit to the capital where I’ll be seeing some former colleagues I haven’t seen since I left. Thinking about that has […] -
Past, present and future
Friday 05 June @ 12:06 PM
By the time I press “Publish” on this entry, my employment at the Guardian will be over after just shy of five years working as a developer there. I’m also days away from leaving London, the city I moved to in order to work at the newspaper. I’ll be moving to Birmingham to start a […] -
Guardian Hack Day February 2015 – liveblog
Friday 27 February @ 08:02 PM
It’s that time again – the Guardian’s Digital Development team is having its quarterly Hack Day. Follow along to see what gets built (and how much coffee gets drunk)
Dominic Kendrick takes the award for most amusing hack with his cautionary environmental tale Choose Wisely.
The Graham Tackley memorial award for most valuable hack controversially goes to Do you come here often?
-
An apology
Wednesday 18 February @ 11:02 PM
On Monday night I posted a ranty tweet which I followed up on Tuesday. In essence, I was registering my surprise that a digital journalist at an internal event admitted they didn’t know what “CMS” stood for. There were a couple of reactions to the tweet, mostly from people arguing (skilfully) that not knowing the […]
Talks I've given
My speaking schedule
-
Online "newspapers" and changing reading & writing habits
How digital journalism changes how we read and write online
5th November 2014 • the Royal College of Art, London
I gave a talk and held a group discussion for MA students studying Critical Writing in Art and Design, covering ideas developed by the Guardian and others which change the way we consume and produce news on the internet.
-
Moderation in Moderation
Working with online communities
26th October 2014 • Mozilla Festival 2014, London
I proposed and facilitated an hour-long session at the annual Mozilla Festival on their Source Code for Journalism track. Along with some Guardian colleagues we helped a few dozen attendees work out the challenges their online communities faced work together to solve them. Read more...
-
Surviving the multi-device news challenge
How the Guardian uses APIs and open data
23rd January 2014 • Hacks & Hackers Berlin
"I'd like to explain to begin with what I mean by "the multi-device news challenge". Here are a couple of big numbers: 322: the number of unique browser versions the Guardian gets traffic from in a month." Read more...
-
Responsive design at the Guardian
Why you should make your website future-friendly – right now.
10th October 2013 • CanvasConf 2013
"A few weeks ago I was in central London near the river, waiting to cross the road. Just before the traffic lights changed, a huge yellow and blue truck-like vehicle came rolling past." Read more...
-
Responsive design at the Guardian
How I learned to stop worrying and love the mobile web
10th May 2013 • Port80 2013
"It's the most talked-about web development technique of the past few years and it's officially reached the mainstream: responsive web design is being used by huge content sites like the Boston Globe, the BBC, Channel 4, and now the Guardian." Read more...
Past talks & classes
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Wednesday 03 September - Wednesday 24 September
-
How to work with web developers
Guardian Masterclass
Monday 28 April
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Wednesday 16 April - Wednesday 07 May
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Thursday 06 March - Thursday 27 March
-
Digital journalism bootcamp
Guardian Masterclass
Tuesday 25 February - Tuesday 18 March
-
Surviving the multi-device news challenge
Hacks & Hackers Berlin
Thursday 23 January
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Wednesday 15 January - Wednesday 05 February
-
Responsive design at the Guardian
CanvasConf 2013, Birmingham
Thursday 10 October
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Tuesday 24 September - Tuesday 15 October
-
How web developers work... and what they wish you knew
Guardian Masterclass
Monday 22 July
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Tuesday 04 June - Tuesday 25 June
-
Responsive design at the Guardian
Port80 Conference 2013, Newport
Friday 10 May
-
How to be a digital journalist
Guardian Masterclass
Saturday 23 March - Sunday 24 March
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Wednesday 27 February - Wednesday 20 March
-
How to be a digital journalist
Guardian Masterclass
Saturday 12 January - Sunday 13 January
-
Building websites using HTML, CSS and JavaScript
Guardian Masterclass
Wednesday 21 November - Thursday 13 December
Videos of talks
Ignite talk: Fermi's Paradox
Christmas 2014
Ignite talk: how to homebrew beer
Easter 2014
Ignite talk: North Korea – the Hermit Kingdom
Christmas 2013
Testimonials & links
Feedback from course attendees / conference audiences
- “Matt is a very enthusiastic and proficient teacher. He frequently checked with us that were following ok and was happy to take questions at all times. All done with a great sense of humour and he remembered everyone's names.”
- “Matt's course handouts and PDFs are excellent, well laid out and full of relevant and helpful information. An invaluable resource for future reference.”
- “Matt is a clear, well-organised presenter, with excellent slides and handouts. He speaks – on his own admission – quickly and you have to pay close attention. But overall an inspiring teacher – with solid experience to draw on.”
- “Matt creates a fun atmosphere and his enthusiasm is infectious. He communicates the concepts in very clear and down to earth fashion.”
- “Really good to learn from someone who knew the subject so well and uses it in such a stimulating setting.”
- “Matt was excellent – both in how he explained things and made them accessible and his relaxed personal style.”
- “@mattpointblank's talk was one of the best I've ever seen, anywhere. Let's hope @canvasconf stick some videos online.”
- “Brilliantly paced, well considered and comprehensive presentations.”