About Me

Hello! My name is Keir Whitaker and I am a web developer, co-founder of Viewport Industries, host of The Back to Front Show podcast and Shopify Design Advocate. You can find me on Twitter unsurprisingly as @keirwhitaker. By the way the guy holding the beer – that’s me!

Keir bio picture

Currently

I am very fortunate to work with many amazingly talented people and inspiring companies.

Viewport Industries

I co-founded and run Viewport Industries with Elliot Jay Stocks. We focus on producing digital and analogue products for web professionals. These include Insites: The Tour and Insites: The Book - a beautifully produced 256 page limited edition book featuring interviews with 21 of the web and tech industry’s leading lights. We are currently working on a number of boutique events and print publications for 2013. Learn more:

Shopify

In addition to these projects I work closely with Shopify in the role of Design Advocate. This has seen me write a number of articles for online publications as well as deliver workshops in the UK and USA. Learn more about Shopify and read some of my recent tutorials:

Podcast

I also co-host a weekly(ish) podcast called The Back to Front Show with Kieran Masterton. Learn more about our podcast:

Weekly Miscellany

In 2013 I started to record links that I find each week as a weekly blog post called “Weekly Miscellany“. I have failed miserably at recording links in online bookmarking tools for years so thought there was no better place than my own site.

You can also subscribe to my mailing list and receive the post in your inbox each week. Thanks to MailChimp for making that happen.

Previously

For much of 2011 I worked as freelance web developer, with a focus on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and WordPress.

From May 2011 until April 2012 I was honoured to work with the amazing team at Smashing Magazine on their Coding section. I helped curate and edit the articles that appear weekly and have been privileged to work with amazing writers at the forefront of the web industry.

2008 – 2010 was spent working in a variety of roles at Carsonified (acquired in 2011), the UK based company well known for web focused events such as The Future of Web Design and The Future of Web Apps. I hosted and produced the podcast “Think Vitamin Radio” (site no longer active). The show made the shortlist for the annual .net awards two years running, which was nice. If asked I say it came joint second in 2010!

Prior to moving to Bath in 2008 I worked at a small London development agency with a focus on large scale data driven web applications.

After many years residing in and around the East End of London I now live and work in Bath, in the South West of England, with my partner and two children Evie and Noah.

Content

keirwhitaker.com is a personal collection of posts and links to things I find interesting – mainly web related but also covering other passions including, coffee, cocktails and paper based media.

Colophon

Personal thanks to Chris Lea for his help setting it all up.

(Photo Credit: Ubelly)