Stuff & Nonsense product and website design

Posts about Design

Last week in the studio (CW21-26)

In this regular “Last week in the studio” series, I write about what I worked on during the previous week. Last week was one without a solid piece of work to tackle. Instead, I spent it on some updates to a client’s design and on making a little website for myself.

Last week in the studio (CW20-26)

In this regular “Last week in the studio” series, I write about what I worked on during the previous week. Last week was spent on a more business-focused but no less creative project

Making my view options toolbar more intuitive

The view options toolbar at the bottom of my animated banners has irked me for a while. It had grown one button at a time, and the result looked ill-considered rather than designed. With a few minutes to spare at the end of last week, I finally redesigned it.

Last week in the studio (CW18-26)

In this regular “Last week in the studio” series, I write about what I worked on during the previous week. Last week was quiet enough for me to take an afternoon off to enjoy the sunny weather, but I still got plenty done.

Militant masthead logo (r)evolution

Militant was a British socialist newspaper associated with the Militant ‘tendency,’ a left-wing political movement whose members were ultimately expelled from the mainstream Labour Party. I looked back at how the Militant masthead logo evolved between 1964 and 1997.

Last week in the studio (CW17-26)

In this regular “Last week in the studio” series, I write about what I worked on during the previous week. Last week was a good one as I could concentrate on just one thing.

I added a spring mode to my animated SVG landscape

I’ve added a “spring mode” to my animated SVG desert. Flowers bloom, colours shift, and the whole scene feels more alive—all without creating a separate version. Instead, I’m layering changes on top of the same SVG and letting CSS and JavaScript do the work.

Last week in the studio (CW16-26)

I thought it might be interesting to document what I work on during the week, so I started a regular “Last week in the studio” series. Last week was a bit productive but bitty.

The Timex x Pan Am Waterbury Automatic Ace

Talk to my family and friends, and they’ll tell you I never bloody stop talking about the IWC Big Pilot 43 watch that I bought to celebrate my 60th in November. Mechanical watches are all over my social media feeds, and the other day I did a double-take when the algorithm suggested I might like a new design from, of all companies, Timex.

Designing banners for the Academy of Scoring Arts

While the smart people finish the Academy of Scoring Arts website’s CMS development, I’ve been rummaging through my design files and rediscovered several concepts that didn’t make it into the final design.

Can you catch ’em all?

I’d been tinkering with animations last week and wondered what else I could do with my Magnificent 7 characters. I love surprising people with hidden Easter Eggs, so I decided to use them in a little hidden game.

More Magnificent 7 Malarkey

I had some spare time earlier this week to add a little more finesse to my Magnificent 7 animated graphics, so I added a new background to my blog pages’ illustrations, which has some hidden features.

Say hello to my Magnificent 7

When I started writing for CSS-Tricks, Geoff and I talked about what to put in my bio. He called me a “veteran” web designer. Geez, I felt old enough. So we settled on “pioneer.” That word stuck—and it’s what inspired the new set of animated pioneers now roaming my website.

Comic book layouts as web design inspiration

Yours truly over at the Envato blog: “What if we thought of web design more like a comic book? Comic book nerd and web design pioneer Andy Clarke shows you how the structure of comic book layouts—panels, gutters, and rhythm—can inspire more expressive and narrative-driven web designs.”

Colour palette inspiration from B-movie posters

Yours truly over at the Envato blog: “What do giant spiders, invaders from Mars, and a 50-foot woman have in common? Incredible color. B-movie buff and web design pioneer Andy Clarke shows you how the over-the-top palettes of horror and sci-fi posters can inspire memorable color choices for modern websites.”

Web design inspiration from retro wrestling

Yours truly over at the Envato blog: “How can a collection of dog-eared posters from the golden age of British wrestling influence the design of today’s websites? Web design pioneer Andy Clarke steps into the ring to give us the lowdown.”

Retro Reboot: What ’90s web design can teach us today

Website design in the ’90s was messy, but it was also magical. It was frequently fraught with accessibility, performance, and usability problems that took us years to solve. But while we addressed them, we discarded much of what was captivating about early websites and replaced them with conservative, commodity designs.

Web design Smash Hits

Yours truly over at the Envato blog: “How can a long-defunct popular music magazine for teens influence the design of today’s websites?”

Movie poster-inspired web design

Yours truly over at the Envato blog: “What do you see when you look at a movie poster? Is it simply advertising to promote a movie or a piece of artwork you’d potentially hang on your wall at home or in an office?”


Andy Clarke. Web design pioneer

About Andy

Hello. I’m a designer, writer, and unapologetic champion of art direction on the web. I work with product and website owners who want more than just a template layout—they want personality, story, and something people will remember.


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