Last week in the studio (CW24-26)

In this regular series, I write about what I worked on during the previous week. I’ve missed a couple of weeks of reporting because a) I haven’t been in the studio, and b) this site has had major surgery.

Out of the studio, into Germany

When I was invited to speak at Webinale in Berlin, we decided that instead of flying in and out, we’d combine the conference with a trip to see Alex in Mainz. So we drove over as usual and spent the first week hanging out at Alex’s flat.

I had a couple of things to do during the first week, including making a printed brochure and catalogue for Codeboxx. My first draft was tidy enough:

But a few small layout changes and full-bleed images made the second iteration feel much more polished:

Then, Black Mountain Honey asked me to create a simple set of identity guidelines for a new social channel, hosted by young beekeeper Natasje.

But, first and foremost, my attention was on preparing and practising for my talk at Webinale.

Speaking in Berlin

Last Monday morning, Sue and I took a fabulously long train ride from Mainz, via Frankfurt, to Berlin. My talk wasn’t until Thursday morning, so we had a couple of days being tourists again. The last time we were in Berlin was in 2019, so to get our bearings again, we bought a two-day ticket on one of those hop-on, hop-off buses. To be honest, the first day we didn’t hop off very often, but we enjoyed the views from the top deck, especially after the rain stopped and the roof was pulled back. On the second day, we explored a bit more on foot, including taking in the fabulous views from the Reichstag dome.

Thursday morning was talk time, and by lunchtime we were heading out again for a cruise along the river and then exploring a part of the city we hadn’t been to before. Friday was spent in museums and at Berlin Cathedral, including climbing the many steps inside its dome for more views across the city. Then, on Saturday, we headed back to Mainz by train.

This site has had major surgery

A lull in client work over the past couple of weeks also meant I could pay attention to this website, including migrating it from a Statamic CMS to Eleventy and hosting from DigitalOcean to Netlify. Needless to say, if you’re reading this, I did most of it right.