I was born in South Africa into a meat-loving, DIY-proud family with ties to German, Dutch and English ancestry. My highly inquisitive nature and photographic memory leads me to pursue a wide array of hobbies and interests in what may be observed as a rather random fashion.
My website is no different. You’ll find me posting about whatever interests me at any given point in time and when looking at historic content, you may be surprised at just how many topics I’ve gone through in the last decade.
Welcome to my brain.
The Martipedia Emblem
Roots, branches, and everything in between
Every element of this emblem was chosen deliberately. It’s not decoration — it’s a map of where I come from and everything I’ve grown into.
The idea started simply enough: I wanted a logo that captured the breadth of what Martipedia actually is. Not a brand, not a business — just one person’s relentless need to make things, learn things, and get outdoors. What emerged was something that surprised even me in how well it told that story.
At its heart, the emblem is a tree. But it’s also a wheel. The two ideas collapsed into one when I realised they were always the same thing — the limbs radiating outward like spokes, the circular rim containing everything within it. That duality ended up being the most honest thing about it.
Reading the Emblem
The Rim — The Wheel
The outer border is a cartwright’s wheel — timber planks, iron rivets, worn with age. My forebears came to the southern hemisphere from Europe as wheelwrights and blacksmiths. This ring is theirs. Everything inside it grew from what they built.
The Tree — The Self
The ancient, gnarled tree is the constant — the trunk that connects heritage below to pursuits above. Twisted and weathered, but still growing. The tree fills the wheel not by accident; the wheel exists because of the tree, and the tree stands because of the wheel.
Top Left — The Hunt
A hunter stands at the tree line, rifle raised, silhouetted against an Australian bush sky. Hunting here is about patience, self-reliance, and respect for the land — values that run through everything else in this emblem.
Top Right — The Deep
A diver descends into dark water, fish and coral scattered around them. The underwater world demands the same focused presence as the bush — you’re a visitor, operating on its terms. Two very different environments, the same mindset.
Left — Radio Control
An RC buggy tears across the ground while a fixed-wing model aircraft banks overhead. Scale models, real engineering. There’s no age limit on this hobby and I’ve never pretended otherwise.
Right — The Workshop
Two scenes share this side: a maker bent over a workbench laying out blades, a 3D printer visible behind him; and beside him, a welder with sparks flying at the forge. This is where most of my time actually goes.
The Roots — The Inheritance
Below the ground line, the roots mirror the branches — radiating outward with the same energy, but anchored in the past. Nestled among them: a spoked cartwright’s wheel on the left, and a blacksmith’s anvil on the right. Two trades, one family, one foundation. I didn’t choose to be a maker — I inherited it.
The black and gold aren’t arbitrary either. Gold on black is the colour of things made to last — engraved plaques, wax seals, maker’s marks. It felt right for something meant to carry a bit of weight.