Blogging and all that Malarkey

While debating the greatest guitar solos ever with Alex and Sue last week, I suggested that the absolute best is Prince’s one-off live performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Prince played alongside George Harrison’s son Dhani, ELO’s Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, and more. This set me down a rabbit hole to find the best-ever version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

The General Election might be over, but Count Binface hasn’t abandoned us earthlings. Instead, he’s embarking on a comedy tour and this week invaded Sky News’ Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge.

Whether you’re a designer, developer, or another type of web professional, successful client projects all begin with a killer proposal. While web design project proposals have no set format, effective proposals all outline the brief, deliverables and scope, timelines, and costs.

Since I launched Contract Killer, I’ve lost track of the number of times people have asked me to make a proposal template for web designers and developers. I’m not sure why it took me so damn long, but today I’m launching “ Killer Proposals.”

When I first shared my Contract Killer in 2008, I had no idea so many people would use it. It became the most visited page on my website. After being free for thirteen years, in 2021 Contract Killer became a paid-for template. Now, there’s an update, the biggest since 2008.

This time last year, I wrapped up my Director of Product Design contract at Nozomi Networks. That was a big change but also an opportunity to evaluate what I’d enjoyed about the role and what I missed from more varied design projects.

It’s UK General Election time and the chaps have gathered to discuss it, but without mentioning politics. What would their top policies be if they were running for office? What do they think of novelty candidates like Count Binface? Plus, why are political party websites so terrible? Andy tells his story about being in the audience for BBC Question Time and the strange tale of designing for an intergalactic space warrior.

The 2024 General Election is just days away, and opinion polls suggest Labour will win with a majority bigger than 1997. Even though I’m not as excited about Labour’s vision as I was then, I still keep my fingers tightly crossed. As I found a few weeks ago, there’s barely anything left of Labour’s labourwin97.org.uk campaign website from its victory in 1997 under Tony Blair. It wasn’t archived by the Wayback Machine, so I imagined what it might’ve looked like.

During the General Election campaign, I’ve been studying political party websites, looking at their user experience and visual designs, and imagining what I’d make if they asked me to work on their designs.

From the newsletter: It’s been a strange couple of weeks for me. The UK General Election campaign is at its halfway point, and the parties are all pushing their messages to voters. I decided to study their websites to see how effective I thought they were. I wrote about what I found and how I might design things differently were the parties to come calling.