A collection of 22 posts
A few years back I heard one of my music hero’s Jono Grant from Above & Beyond talk about their process in the studio. He made a comment that stuck with me. It went along the lines of “when we kick off a new project, we recite / talk through
Read moreI wrote a short intro piece for our Software Engineering blog at Ideal Modular Homes. We’re building real-time, high-dependency software that assists with the design, manufacture and installation of our sustainable modular homes. We’ll be sharing more about of technology choices, lessons learned and our process in upcoming
Read moreWe spent today wondering around Penzance in Cornwall, England. There was a shop called CASH FOR YOUR JUNK. It looked a lot like my old grandfather’s garage. A jumble sale of odd things. Plates, lamps, tins, statues, an old petrol forecourt spinning Jet logo etc etc. Hoarder’s heaven.
Read more
This was an identity idea for an eco-friendly home builder. Cushy never got to see the light of day so sharing it here with your lovely eyes.
Read more
After a few years away from the graphics editor, I dusted off my old copy of Sketch to make a logo for a thing. Chuffed I have an excuse to use a doggo in a logo. Need @andy88jones to help me with kerning. He has a friend called Kern. Here
Read moreOne of the things I’m piss poor at is stakeholder engagement—enabling everyone see tradeoffs the way I can. Sadly the problem exacerbates as your company scales. Helpful to see Chris Thewell speaking at the UX Crunch last night. On the dial ask What are we optimising for? Unpack
Read moreIt’s easy to rest on the assumption that costs are only monetary. In product design, this misses an important point — costs are everywhere: Waiting for a webpage to load is a cost.Typing in your card details is a cost.Figuring out whether to trust a company you’ve
Read moreOnboarding customers to your new product is tricky. Onboarding customers to a new financial product is really tricky. For a mountain of security and regulatory reasons you’re required to collect and validate a towering number of data points. Of course, for each additional data point that we had to
Read more
Back in August 1972, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority introduced the late Massimo Vignelli’s new map of the subway system. New Yorkers were furious. Complaints came flooding in: “Stations seemed to be in the wrong places. The water surrounding the city was coloured beige, not blue. As for
Read moreYesterday I was in the market for some plughole unblocker. We’ve moved places recently and I forgot to put this useful little thing in our shower. So I head into Tesco and — eventually — I find the section for bleaches and plughole unblockers. I know that Mr. Muscle is a
Read moreLast month I spent some time updating my portfolio. As a product / user experience / web designer, it can be quite tricky to present your work to others. The rock star visual designers of this world can get away with presenting screenshots of their stunning visual work — job done, money due.
Read moreKeeps the doctor away. Just found this blog full of wonderful icons. This was one of my favourites.
Read moreI’ve been planning a rebuild of my blog for a while now. If I’ve learned one thing from product development, it’s know what problem you’re trying to solve. So I sat down and actually thought about my goal: To write more frequently. I wanted to worry
Read moreIt’s Sunday, late morning, and I’m right in the middle of cleaning the bathroom. In the other room I hear a frustrated girlfriend struggling to find accommodation on - lets say - website X, for our trip to the Amalfi Coast. Complaints flying left, right and centre, vented
Read moreFirstly, think about what your pages do, not what they look like. Let your design flow from the services which they will provide to your users, rather than from some overarching idea of what you want pages to look like. Let form follow function, rather than trying to take a
Read more