June 12, 2007
For those who saw my talk at @media will know that I have a dark secret. It’s something I’ve never talked about on this blog and I’m not sure why. It’s a secret that I learnt not to talk much about as it could get you in trouble. So here it is:
I have a twenty year interest in martial arts. I’ve also trained in many, many styles and achieved a black belt in one. I was an instructor, competed at national level and I’ve got a pretty good right hook.
There.
Why am I telling you this? You may well ask.
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June 11, 2007
That’s @media done for another year. Patrick put on a great event. Again. Seriously, year on year the bar is raised and he delivers. The speakers were great, the venue, the food, but most of all the location; Islington is such a great place for an event like this.
I feel like I’ve lived with @media 07 for a while. I produced the conference printed matter for San Fransisco and London, so for the best part of a month I’ve felt the looming pressure of speaking. I was very nervous about it, but I think it went ok.
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June 05, 2007
Since I started Mark Boulton Design last August, I’ve been working at home. It’s been mostly fun, but the words of Andy kept ringing in my ears loudly as time went on.
“Get out of the house as soon as you can afford it” would rattle around my head like some crazy mantra. Andy’s point was, sooner or later the two environments would merge; home and work. You’d end up doing the laundry whilst at work, and designing when you’re supposed to be enjoying a nice evening with your wife. He wasn’t wrong.
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May 16, 2007
For the past week, I’ve been designing the printed material for a certain conference. I often forget the mixed emotions that come with switching medium and designing for print again. On one hand, it’s great not to have to think about IA, usability and CSS bugs and to focus on just creating something nice and smelling paper (we’ll get on to that). On the other hand though, especially when designing to a specific deadline which can’t shift, the feeling of finality that comes with print still scares the shit out of me. If it’s wrong, that’s it.
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April 23, 2007
A while ago, Mr Hicks pointed me in the direction of a beta test for a new application by Shockingly Good Mac Software company, Panic. So, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been using Coda and, truth be told, being a terrible beta tester. Although, you could put this down to Panic producing lovely, bug-free software.
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April 12, 2007
Yep, that’s right. I’ve been neglecting my blogging duties for ages now. Not for a lack of things to talk about; there’s plenty, but it all seems to be going into the book at the moment. There is one thing that has been a blocking force though: running my own business.
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March 16, 2007
Well, it’s all over for another year. This was my third year at SxSW and despite being ridiculously sick during the first couple of days, it was probably the most interesting. I’m choosing my words carefully there.
There is little doubt that SxSW is growing at an alarming rate. I heard some people say there were close to five thousand attendees to the Interactive Festival alone this year. That’s an awful lot of people. In fact, for the first time, I wasn’t allowed into some of the panels due to lack of space. That hasn’t happened to me before and this year it happened three times. Too many people or just small rooms?
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March 06, 2007
I’ve just been pointed to a post by Andy , called Five Principles to Design By by Joshua Porter. It’s a very good post, but point 2 has set some alarm bells off in my head once again.
Design is not art. That old chestnut.
This keeps coming up recently. Why? I’ve no idea but it’s beginning to bug me. Here’s my take on it all.
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I'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for