Because clients today want awesome work for next to no money, you can shortcut your design projects by standing on the shoulders of giants. In other words, by learning from the superstars you can adapt their creative styles, ideas and innovation to your local clients and you’ll be able to achieve more with less hours.While this is not a substitute for originality and paving your own way, sometimes the budget you have defines the direction you need to take and rather than stretching yourself to breaking point, you should implement some emotional intelligence and learn to not be too precious....

08 November, 2019 /

The End of Financial Year has been and gone and it gives us an opportunity to set some goals in much the same way as New Years Day. (Such as sending my very sporadic newsletters).But as an alternative, maybe July 1 should be a day for specifically setting career and personal development goals and coincidently, last week I picked up a book on the moon landing. The book is all about the mindset of the people behind the moon landing. It’s a psychology book with a few strategies you can apply yourself.So today I’m sharing a small portion of chapter one,...

30 June, 2019 /

Is Sydney on the brink of becoming a music free zone? With the Hyde park rally on the other day I took it upon myself to create some support materials over at my sister site. I thought I'd throw them up here too!  Download and print your posters below! Learn more about the issue here and here. Download High Quality PDFs here (will redirect to other site) Buy the tshirt here for only $20  [gallery ids="3935,3932,3929,3933,3934,3928,3930"]...

05 March, 2019 /

Have you seen Free Solo? Its the new documentary in cinemas about Alex Honnold's epic desire to rock climb El Capitan… without a rope. Rock climbing is tough. I’ve been doing it for 20 years and watching him attempt a 3000ft (nearly 1km) of vertical granite without any safety gear was palm sweating insanity – and I was only watching him do it. It got me thinking about what excites me right now. Few people could compare to Honnold's desire to achieve the pinnacle of human endurance… but this in no way should lessen what it is that's exciting you right now....

12 February, 2019 /

In preparation for a clients new website I was conducting research around underlying frameworks. I was glad to come across the strategy by Tony Ulwick, (CEO of Strategyn) known as the Jobs-to-be-Done theory.After reading more about it I quickly realised that this theory is the precursor to some parts of UX theory. Its the original way of tackling User Journeys – a process I adopt which compliments my approach to web design using the Minto Pyramid Principal.I'll try to briefly explain how. Minto Pyramid Principal With regards to website design, I describe this method as a way of creating a logical content structure to...

06 September, 2018 /

These fantastic safron rice raviolis were made by Linda Miller Nicholson otherwise known as Salty SeattleThis colourful pasta is a joyous way to bring design to food. Linda works with all natural ingredients for her dyes and adds it to her pasta dough.I can't say much more about it from a design point of view other than how inspirational that someone thought to do this and then turned it into an art form and business!If you think you'll try this at home you can get her cookbook. Linda's secret is: The shorter the amount of time the pasta is in the water, the better...

29 July, 2018 /

Don't invest time, money and energy into designing and creating a product only to be let down by the photography at the point of sale. This is the message from so many ecommerce sites these days. Why would you invest your life savings and countless amounts of hours only to skimp at the end and use bad photos to display your products?Taking semi-decent shots these days has never been easier. You can invest in a simple lightbox and use your phone and do better than more than 50% of the people on the internet. It's such an easy win.Working recently with...

10 July, 2018 /

Mini screens for surfing the web seem to be here to stay – at least for the next few years. During this time I'm campaigning for a hamburger revolution.In the last two months I have designed and built three new websites. All of which were hugely different in their design approach and business need.I don't adopt a mobile first approach to web design – and the reason for that is that I find it unexciting to do so. Very few mobile websites are exciting. They are functional but not exciting. And getting clients excited needs to be part of the...

05 July, 2018 /

I've worked in busy offices for 17 years. Clocking in often well before 9 and putting in 8 to 11 hours a day, 5 days a week. Occasionally I could get a full hour for lunch but more often that not I'd be eating aldesko. So my new adventure in life to being free from the office and pursuing a contractor lifestyle has been an interesting transition. I realise now that the structure and routine of having an office and working in larger teams helped create the motivating force to get me to knuckle down and get shit done. I'm reading lots of differing...

13 June, 2018 /

As any graphic designer would know, it's a hard job convincing a client about the benefits of good design. But good design is good business. And in all my experience I think It comes down to a lack of understanding about what is actually considered to be good design – and how to recognise it. Most people in the general population don’t have an eye for good design. They can’t look at a design and see the balance, the hierarchy, the positive and negative space. They can’t see how the interplay of these principals make for a more appealing and effective presentation...

11 May, 2018 /

Having only got back from a west coast tour of America I thought I just had to share some of the design highlights.First things first, I started my trip with a good book. I wanted something that could give me a bit of perspective on local social issues while I was driving from San Francisco to Seattle. I ended up with Naomi Klein's great book No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need. If you're a designer, you may recognise Klein form her amazing book No Logo and if you haven't read that then you need to...

09 April, 2018 /

This is something I try to do every day – Take a pen and paper, wacom and tablet or anything and just play for 20 minutes. You have to have side projects that take you away from the paid work otherwise you'll probably go insane. Mine is undenk.com. I really should post there more often! I post most of my stuff on instagram because its so easy.They really need to make a better mailto function for wordpress...

20 March, 2018 /

Design can be both a benefit to society and a scourge on our senses. Think the useful design of an emergency exit sign or anti-smoking campaign then compare that to a giant red hand screaming at you on TV telling you the prices are down down. As a graphic designer which would you prefer to do? Did you know that back in 1964, designers in Britain were having the same feelings. Ken Garland along with 20 other designers, photographers and students wrote the First Things First manifesto. This was a response to the the "fast-paced and often trivial productions of mainstream advertising." Their hope...

11 March, 2018 /