About Matt

My Name is Matt Sigmon

I am a North Carolina native that has always looked at the world in a more visual way. Even as a youngster I would watch cartoons and judge the quality of animation and style of art. Of course I didn’t realize it at first but it soon became apparent I wasn’t watching Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the same way as my friends I was actually judging these cartoons on the merits of their art.

As I got older my fondness for art, specifically comics and animation, grew and I began drawing my own comics in my spare time passing them out to my friends at school. Admittedly those first attempts were rough around the edges to say the least but they laid the groundwork for the path I would eventually take in life.

My College Years

As my love for art had grown I decided I needed to go to college for art, much to the chagrin of my father who thought I may be better suited to choose a more useful major. Nonetheless, he supported my decision and helped me through school both financially and emotionally. It was in college that I had my first taste of web development. In one of my classes we were given a project to create a single page personal website utilizing HTML and CSS. Keep in mind this was in the early days of the internet and the technology was much less robust than it is today. However, it gave me insight into how I could bring art to the masses despite the limitations of the time.

Early Professional Career

After graduation I began my career in graphic design. My first job was at a sign shop creating simple text layouts for vinyl signs and running a plotter which cut out the vinyl lettering that was to applied to glass doors, vehicles, aluminum signs and various other media. It was the art world’s version of grunt work but it taught me valuable lessons in typography, spacing and font selection. Eventually I moved to working for a local newspaper publication designing advertisements, editing photos and colorizing political cartoons. It was here I was reintroduced to web development as I was tasked to manage the paper’s website which consisted of HTML, CSS and a new language to me, PHP. At first PHP was daunting because of my lack of formal server side development experience but I soon discovered I was able to understand the basics of the language by thinking of the task logically. I may not have known the exact specifics of the syntax I was using but I did understand its purpose.

Moving Forward

I soon realized if I wanted to expand my career