Blogging and all that Malarkey

Our friends at Code Enigma relaunched their website at DrupalCon in Amsterdam. The launch included the branding we designed for them.

What the hell. We still have plenty of places available for mine and Brads workshops at The Web Is… next week. Come and join me for ‘CSS3 for Responsive Web Design’ and you’ll get a free copy of my Hardboiled Web Design paperback.

A few days ago was the fourth anniversary of our publishing Hardboiled Web Design. Four years since some friends and I wrote, illustrated and published a book.

Brighton-based developer Benjamin Hollway loves a burger in a brioche bun and joins me on Unfinished Business this week to talk about how young people feel excluded from some industry events and how conferences and meet-ups should cater for people who don’t want to or are too young to drink. Benjamin was shortlisted for ‘emerging talent of the year’ at the Net Awards and oh, did I mention that he’s only sixteen?

I’m researching advertising successes for a new talk that I’m writing and of course that means PG Tips and their famous chimpanzees campaign that ran for 32 years from 1956 and within two years made PG the number one tea brand in Britain and kept them there for decades.

Designer and artist Brendan Dawes is back on episode 90 of Unfinished Business this week to talk about his recent commission by Mailchimp, Six Monkeys, which explores interactions with email through physical objects named after six famous chimpanzees. Before that though, we talk more about what’s happening with Geek Mental Help Week, including whether the word ‘geek’ takes something away from the project and is somehow derogatory.

I couldn’t be happier that the brilliant Richard Wiggins and David Hughes, the pair behind Milton Keynes Geek Night, are hosting a special Mental Health evening event as part of Geek Mental Help Week.

I’ve been over the moon with messages of support and offers of help for Geek Mental Help Week. I’m going to write personally to everyone who offered to design and build the website

After talking with Laura on Unfinished Business this week, about burgers in donuts, we moved on to discuss the Geek Mental Help Week that I’ve been thinking about and planning for the last few months. Something that I sincerely hope will help those of us who suffer from mental health issues and the others who support us.

This week’s an emotional episode of Unfinished Business. After talking about why a burger in a donut should never, ever have become a thing, Laura Kalbag and I discuss mental health issues in our industry. We talk about my own struggles with depression and depersonalisation disorder, issues that stem from my father’s own mental health issues and suicide.