A quick update this month so I keep to schedule.
Overall, more travel throughout the UK. I’ve mostly been travelling between London, Glasgow and Newcastle. With a couple of visits to Manchester in between.
I also went further afield than usual and flew to Milan for 24 hours, before dashing back for my daughter’s 8th birthday celebrations. Continue reading…
Lots of travel all over the UK this month.
In-between work travel we had a great family break at Forest Holidays near Maldan in North Yorkshire, with a day trip to Whitby for fish & chips. There was snow on the first day of the trip which caught us a little off guard. Continue reading…
I’m trying a new approach to writing and publishing his year.
In my end of year review for 2017 I said that I needed to think about how and where I publish blog posts.
I’m now only publishing new blog posts on my Medium account. It’s much easier and faster for me to write down and share my thoughts using Medium (especially using the mobile app). Continue reading…
I’ve published an end of year review for a few years now (2015, 2016). It’s good to look back and reflect on what’s happened.
It’s been another busy year.
The biggest change for me this year was leaving my role at DWP Digital and joining FutureGov as Design Director in August. Continue reading…
In a world where so many of us carry screens in our pockets, does the world need more, and increasingly, larger screens in our public spaces?
This is a picture taken in Manchester Central Library.
There’s an increasingly amount of touch screen interfaces appearing in physical spaces which doesn’t feel very digital to me. Continue reading…
This article caught my attention last summer: one in five high street estate agents risk going bust.
We’re already seeing this play out with startups like Purple Bricks and HouseSimple establishing themselves.
There’s a lack of digital innovation from traditional estate agents. Continue reading…
Earlier this year I wrote about sticks in the ground. My belief that design has to be bold. It has to start with an idea.
It’s arrogant to think you can change the world. But it’s also necessary
I was reminded yesterday of some of the great examples of civic architecture we have in the UK. Continue reading…
In my last blog post I wrote about attention-driven design versus connection-driven design.
While thinking about this over the past few months, this article was particularly uncomfortable reading: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?
Continue reading…The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression.
Last week I wrote about the opportunity of designing for connection.
I‘d been inspired to think about this more recently after watching a TED talk by Tristan Harris: The manipulative tricks tech companies use to keep your attention.
Designing for attention is marketing, supporting a business model built on advertising. Continue reading…
Some thoughts on digital publishing.
There’s not enough experimentation in the news industry, especially within traditional news formats.
In the UK the i Newspaper as a format is interesting, as is the freemium business model introduced by established regional papers like the London Evening Standard and the Manchester Evening News (i.e. Continue reading…