Unfinished Business

On Unfinished Business this week, and with us both fresh from the Net Awards, Laura Kalbag and I talk about our experiences there. I explain why I don’t feel at home in the web design industry as it is today and how its conversations no longer reflect my interests in design.

After last week’s ‘giant’ misunderstanding about speaker fees, we also talk about the responsibilities that speakers have to themselves, to an audience and to an event and the people who’ve organised it. It’s a lively discussion. We talk about swearing, why private agreements between speakers and conferences should remain confidential and why speakers should play their part in supporting an event, before, during and after it.

Laura, I and everyone who makes Unfinished Business, wants to say an enormous “thank you” to everyone who voted for our show and put it in the final five top podcasts of 2014 at the Net Awards.

I also want to thank our sponsors this week. They are GatherContent and Hammer For Mac. As we always say, please support Unfinished Business by supporting them.

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.

We discuss Mr. Bingo’s Hate Mail series, his boundaries and how Hate Mail in real life would just be people paying to be shouted at. We also talk about his highly successful Kickstarter for his new Hate Mail book and the hilarious incentives he devised.

Content warning: As you might imagine when the two of us get together, it’s a very funny conversation. But we do swear. A lot. If you’re easily offended by four letter words, this may not be the episode for you.

Some links from this episode

• Mr Bingo on Twitter
• Mr Bingo’s kickstarter rap
• Wilfrid Wood
• Wilfrid Wood on Twitter
• Wilfrid Wood’s ‘Portraits Of Hackney Wick’
• Gin Festival
• Dismaland Bemusement Park

I love my Jolie Originals iPhone and laptop sleeves

You might remember that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s Jolie Originals’ iPhone and laptop sleeves.

Jolie Originals are a two-person team based in Amsterdam and they make Macbook sleeves, iPad sleeves, iPhone sleeves and even a nice little wallet thing for notes and credit cards. And other nice things. I like their products a lot and I think you should buy something from them.

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.

Due to technical problems, this episode very nearly didn’t get published, so I want to thank my good friend Ryan Taylor for his help making it happen.)

Some links from this episode

• Dan Edwards on Twitter
• No Divide
• Let’s Talk Design on YouTube
• Daniel Mall on Twitter
• Daniel Mall
• Superfriendly
• Businessology podcast
• Web In The Woods
• It’s a mugs game. Bodum vacuum travel mug review
• Bodum travel press set coffee maker on Amazon.co.uk

I like Cornerstone

You might remember that in the last episode I mentioned that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s Cornerstone, the shaving supplies people.

When you sign up to Cornerstone you’ll receive german-engineered razor blades and British-blended skincare products delivered as often as you want them. Choose how often you shave—I shave two or three times a week—which means I get a box every twelve weeks. That box contains Pre-Shave Face Scrub, Shave Gel, 6 Razor Blades and Post-Shave Balm. You’ll get a free aluminium razor handle engraved with your initials included with your first delivery. With Cornerstone you can change your plan any time you like and there’s no ongoing commitment.

If you sign up with Cornerstone via this website I’ll get £10 credit and you’ll get £10 off your first order. So if you shave, buy your supplies from Cornerstone and you’ll be supporting me for making this show.

In the second part of this Unfinished Business Bank Holiday double, I’m joined by owner of UX studio Simple As Milk and lead UX engineer at UnrollMe, James Seymore-Lock to ask and answer the important question. “Am I the country’s biggest Homes Under The Hammer super-fan?” (Spoiler: He has no clue, not one.)

Then things get more serious as I find out about how James has run his business while living in a different country every month for the past couple of years. We talk about why there’s a distinct lack of design talks at web conferences and whether Dribbble is a negative influence on current design trends.

Something I likelove

This week isn’t just something that I like, I absolutely love it. It’a a brand new book called “Pretty Much Everything” by my absolute favourite graphic designer Aaron Draplin. Aaron’s been on the show before and last time he talked about how much making this book was stressing him out. But by God this book is worth it. It’s not just a great book, it’s an absolute friggin’ masterpiece. Aaron’s poured literally everything into this book. It’s not just about design, it’s his whole career, his life story.

Buy Pretty Much Everything on Amazon

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.

Podcast sponsorship

From now on, I’m going to mention products or services because I really like them, not because they are paying for sponsorship. These may be from our industry or from outside, for example the people I buy my shaving supplies from. If you have a product or a service or something that you think I might like enough to talk about, let me know. Email me, send me something and if I like it, and I think that listeners would like it too, I’ll talk about on the show.

Some links from this episode

• Cennydd Bowles and on Twitter
• Noah Stokes and on Twitter
• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web
• Visual Essentials for Product Design workshop
• A tweet from Mat Hill @matthillco
• Why web design is losing its soul
• Creativity over predictability:’ Video from my talk about why web design has lost its creative soul
• Why have today's designers stopped dreaming?
• Letter To A Junior Designer
• A Different Letter to a Junior Designer

I really like Shopify and they have just released a book about how to grow your design or development business. The book’s called ‘Grow’ and it has eleven chapters by industry experts about how to attract clients, draft contracts, close deals and more. Even my Contract Killer contract gets a mention. Download your free copy of Grow.