Blogging and all that malarkey

Andrew Fairlie tweeted to tell me that he’d open sourced his company’s ‘Getting Good Feedback’ document.

Inspired by @Malarkey’s Contract Killer, I’ve started a “Good Design Feedback” open source project https://t.co/zVe6WPTCyX

It looks like Geek Mental Help Week 2015 is getting off to a good start with two mental health related events, both happening on Thursday evening.

Last year’s Geek Mental Help Week was, by all accounts, well received and a terrific success. Despite the fact that we pulled it together with sticky tape and string, people told their stories about how mental health issues had affected them and the people who care for them. Those stories were honest and humbling to everyone who read them. I hope that next week, Geek Mental Help Week 2015 can do something similar.

I have some very special news to announce about my book. It’s a brand new Fifth Anniversary Edition of Hardboiled ’Web Design that’s published by Smashing Magazine.

Hot on the heels of announcing the new Hardboiled Web Design Fifth Anniversary Edition, I’m also incredibly excited and nervous to let you know about three new Hardboiled Web Design books that will be published throughout the course of next year. We’re calling them ‘Hardboiled Web Design Shots.’

Today Microsoft announced that end of support is coming for older versions of Internet Explorer. This is great news for designers and developers who suffer from having to support legacy versions of that browser and it prompted me to update the public version of my Contract Killer, the popular open-source contract for web designers and developers.

The Unfinished Business schedule’s been a little, shall we say, up in the air, for the past few episodes. while I’ve been busy writing something. I do aim to get back to our routine and I’m sorry for the disruption. A few weeks ago I recorded a hilarious episode with artist, illustrator and rapper Mr. Bingo. We talk about artist—and former Spitting Image puppet maker—Wilfrid Wood, Banksy’s Dismaland and why IKEA in Croydon is like a real-life bemusement park.

I can’t quite believe that it’s been almost two years since we launched the previous, Go, go, go, rillas! design of the Stuff & Nonsense website. Today, I’m very pleased to present our next design, ‘It’s the taste.’

On Unfinished Business this week there’s no talk about mugs but Rachel Andrew is back. We’re joined by first timer Richard Rutter to discuss his upcoming book on Web Typography, why he chose to self-publish and fund the project on Kickstarter and the role of a publisher in today’s market. Of course Rachel loves to talk about VAT (irony) so we do that and she explains why she doesn’t actually owe a million Euros to Ireland.

This week on episode 115 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning guests Brad Frost and Stephen Hay. After talking about the best coffee mug in the world, we get right down it and discuss why it’s dangerous to bring computer science principles and heavy development tools into web design.

A week later than planned (sorry,) on this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning special guest, designer Dan Edwards. And because you wait all day and then two Dans come along at once, joining us is creative director, founder and director of the SuperFriendly agency in Philadelphia, Daniel (the Dan) Mall. We talk about plans for the next Geek Mental Help week in October first. Then, because I’m currently deep into a redesign of Stuff & Nonsense, why working on your own site always feel harder than working on a client sites. We discuss using our portfolios to attract the ‘right’ type of projects and if case studies are the best way to demonstrate what we do.

I’ve been looking forward to speaking with Cennydd Bowles for months and for Unfinished Business 113, Cennydd joins me and my other special guest, product designer Noah Stokes. We kick off by talking about Richard Rutter’s web typography book, but soon the conversation switches to whether, and why, current web designs are lacking ‘soul.’ This is something Noah and I have been speaking and writing over recent months and something that I partly blame on our fixation with user-experience and product design. Does Cennydd agree? You‘ll have to listen to the show to find out.

I want Unfinished Business to be, above all, entertaining and it makes me incredibly happy when entertainers take time to talk to me. This week, and after literally months of trying to set this up, my very special guest on Unfinished Business episode 112 is, actor, comedian, star of Vic and Bob’s ‘House Of Fools,’ Ellie White.

Apologies in advance if you’re German or a Turk, as this week on episode 111 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by artist Brendan Dawes and designer Aaron Draplin.

We start by talking about spice jars and car boot (garage) sales, but unsurprisingly our conversation soon veers wildly off topic as we discuss how Aaron’s struggling to keep up with demands on his time, how designers can make money selling merchandise and more, much, much more. If you know either Aaron or Brendan, you’ll also know that you’re in for a fast-paced, fun-filled sixty minutes.

This week at Smashing Conference in New York, I had the very great pleasure of meeting Chris Lilley. I recognised Chris’ name, but it took me a day to remember that he had been the chairman of the ‘Style and Formatting Properties Working Group’ at the W3C, a precursor to the CSS Working Group. Chris is a hugely important person in the history of the web.

When we were in Australia earlier this year, we stopped in Sydney to speak at John Allsopp’s Respond Conference and to teach a workshop. A few weeks before those events, John emailed me:

The folks at SydCSS are fantastic supporters of our events, and last year we did a couple of shared events with them. I’ve dobbed you and I to do a short presentation (it will be the night of Respond.)

Last week was Jeffrey Zeldman’s website’s 20th birthday, so this week he joins me and Jeremy Keith on Unfinished Business 110 to talk about the anniversary. We start by discussing Jeremy’s 100 words for 100 days writing project and how it’s inspired me to change the way that I think about writing on our blog and posting to our portfolio. We talk about the importance of writing for yourself as well as for others and why writing on your own website is important. With it being the twentieth anniversary of Jeffrey’s own site, we also talk about whether it’s important to archive older designs for posterity.

Oh, and please don’t skip this week’s after show segment as boy-oh-boy (girl-oh-girl, man-oh-man, woman-oh-woman) do the sparks fly! We discuss Mad Men, Mad Max and whether advertising can ever be considered as important as a book or a film and, let’s just say, things get very heated.

I’ve always enjoyed attending the Shropgeek (R)Evolution events in the past and been slightly jealous of the people that Kirsty’s asked to speak. This year, I couldn’t be happier that she’s asked me to do the final talk of the final (R)Evolution conference on September 25th in beautiful Shrewsbury.

This week is a special Mad Men episode of Unfinished Business and I’m joined live from New York by Jen Simmons–the incredible host of The Web Ahead podcast–and our very special guest, the actor and comedian who plays Lou Avery on TV’s Mad Men, Allan Havey.

If you’re not sick of the sight of me in video by now, WP Elevation’s Troy Dean has published a short interview that we recorded on my visit to Melbourne in March.

Last week, Creative Bloq published Noah Stokes’ article on “Why web design is losing its soul.” It’s a good read on exactly the same subject that I’ve been talking about since I spoke at Beyond Tellerrand in Berlin last year.

I imagine if I told people in advance that I was talking to director of UX at MailChimp Aarron Walter and Founder of User Interface Engineering Jared Spool on Unfinished Business this week, they’d imagine we’d talk about user experience design and possibly education. Instead, they and I talk about action figures and Action Man and whether fighting Nazis is cooler than fighting aliens.

Fresh from our adventures at Smashing Conference in Santa Monica, on this week’s Unfinished Business I’m joined by user-experience professional, author (of some CSS book or another) and director at ClearLeft, Andy Budd. Joining us was one of my favourite people; designer, author and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll.

On this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by designers’ designer Dan Edwards and, one of my favourite people, designer Veerle Pieters. We start by talking about magazines, including 8faces and the new edition of Lagom.