My New Design Life



If your a reader of this blog, then you will know that I'm both a dad to a one year old and also the creative director of a design studio. As you can imagine, I don't get too much downtime and only get to write in a very small window, often late at night and on the weekend. My family, then my commercial design work always take priority in my life and it's become more evident to me that I'm getting less time for my hobbies such as writing my blog.

I'm cool with it! I love being a family man and I'm passionate about my work. To this end, I've decided to make a couple of changes. Firstly you may have noticed that the design life site has switched to a more classic blog style. This means that the blog is now a little more focused on writing as content over the visual form. You may also notice a lot of posts over three days in July of 2015. That's simply because I ported two years worth of posts in bulk to the new blog. I thought it would be good to keep everything in one place!

I've also started using both Blogger and Tumblr as a faster way to connect with my readers. This isn't replacing my blog, but instead giving me more scope to my readership. It also allows me to write a lot faster and on the fly, making it easier to build conversation and interaction with my readers, which for me is the most important thing about any weblog. I hope you enjoy my new, more streamlined Design Life! Let me know what you think.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bass - Trademark No1

Image
In my Classic Brands series, I am going to feature interesting facts and a brief history to some of the world most iconic branding and packaging designs. I couldn't think of a better place to begin the series than with the worlds very first registered Trade Mark. A great conversational piece at any dinner party is the question, ‘what was the world’s first brand identity?’ The answer is the instantly identifiable red-triangle of the Bass Pale Ale logo. This distinctive identity was registered under the United Kingdoms 1875 Trade Mark act. Due to the fact that the act actually came into effect on 1st January 1876, an employee of Bass queued outside the registrar's office for the whole of the New Years Eve night to ensure that they were the very first in line to register the trademark the following day. Thanks to the efforts of that Bass employee, Ratcliff & Gretton Ltd received the first two registrations, the Bass Red Triangle for their pale ale and the Bass Red Diamond for
Read more

Symbol by Steven Bateman & Angus Hyland

Image
I am an avid collector of design books. Its a real love of mine. I’ve built up quite a comprehensive library and I am always suggesting or lending my books to my team. Recently, readers of this blog have also been asking for book recommendations, so I thought that I would post a few of my personal favourites. Symbol by Steven Bateman and Pentagram partner Angus Hyland has been a valuable source to me when developing logos and brand identity systems. There are over 1300 logos included with the book divided into groups that relate to their visual characteristics. There is also a number of case studies that give a great back-story to some of the worlds most recognised symbols including that of Apple, Nike and Continental Air by Soul Bass. This is a book that I can really recommend to anyone working in branding and logo development. Its also different to many other tittles I own as I rarely lend it out as it's been such a great source of reference over the years.           An overview
Read more

50 + Designers, Agencies, Books, Websites, Blogs and Conferences!

Image
At the end of 2016, as I draw closer to my final week with CTTC Design, I had been handing over as much information as I could to my then design team, to which I extend you all on this list now. I know that many have often laughed at me being such a design groupie… I promise that it comes from my love of what I do! To this end, before I left, I had decided to note down a few of the things that have helped to bring great joy, learning and passion to my design life over the years, and now wondered if you would also be interested to see what I had written.  Its really a “for what it’s worth” list of designers, books, websites and blogs. I do hope that it is of some interest to you, and also that it maybe even helps to bring some creative passion and inspiration to your lives… I also don’t mind if it’s banished to the 'read later' part of your blog readers - you know the one I mean... AKA the bin ;-). Below is what I had sent to the team at  CTTC Design, a  couple of days before le
Read more