Blogging and all that Malarkey

This week, I’m joined by fabulous designer Veerle Pieters to talk about whether cycling or eating toasties is the best exercise, when working on retainer for long-term projects makes sense and the right questions to ask in our customer enquiry questionnaires.

Smashing Magazine are hosting a series of one day workshops across Europe throughout November and December.

Exactly ten years ago today, on October 20th 2003, A List Apart published Doug Bowman’s Sliding Doors of CSS.

On Unfinished Business this week, Designer and author of A Pocket Guide to CSS Animations Val Head joins me to talk about practical uses for CSS animations, how small publishers have made publishing books more accessible to first time authors and, of course, The Sooty Show.

2012’s Smashing Conference in Freiburg had the best atmosphere of any European conference I’ve been to and, while I wasn’t there, I hear this year’s was pretty special too.

This week, illustrator Josh Cleland joins me to talk about how far we can go using a movie or TV character’s likeness, the differences between an illustrator’s and a web designer’s contract and Josh’s “100% satisfaction guarantee.”

In this week’s show, Alex’s friend Brad Frost, who having survived his trip to Brighton, returns to talk to me about designing ‘in the open’ and what the benefits for us and the people and organisations we’re working for can be. Listen now

On this week’s Unfinished Business, Alex’s friend Brad Frost and I talked about designing in the open, pro-bono projects for great causes like the Pittsburg Food Bank and the open project he and Melissa are starting for them.

In this week’s episode, designer and co-host of ‘ that other podcast’Liz Elcoate joins me to talk about the difficulties of working alone for long periods, the difficulties of keeping your portfolio full of new work when you work under non-disclosure agreements and why we should never apologise for working with small businesses with smaller budgets. Listen now

Special guest Dan Cederholm joins me on Unfinished Business this week to talk about making money by making things, how making great schwag makes a great impression and what happened to Foamee. We discuss why on Dribbble it’s important for business to not get in the way of a great service and with Dan’s new book coming up, we talk about the process of writing and whether second editions are worth it.