Written at 8am on 06.10.08
Filed under Web Design / Life In The Real World / ALL CATEGORIES / The Business
17 comments
Before I took the plunge and left full-time employment to set up my own business, there was one piece of advice that was given to me by almost every design professional I spoke to: Prepare to work a lot more hours.
So I went into it with a level head, prepared for this seemingly inevitable sacrifice. But I also went into it with a concerted effort to turn this stereotype around. In my mind, if I was sensible about the way I worked […]
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Written at 12pm on 18.09.08
Filed under Tutorials & Resources / ALL CATEGORIES / Wordpress
24 comments
UPDATED 29.09.2008 - Please see this comment for info
Since I released my naked, bare-bones, blank-canvas, starting-point WordPress theme ‘Starkers’ back in January, a huge amount of people appear to be using it as the basis for their own projects, and it’s become much more popular than I ever imagined. As a result, I’ve finally updated the theme to be fully compatible with the latest (at the time of writing) stable release of WordPress: version 2.6.2.
If you’d like to get it, just click on the big shiny button below. […]
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Written at 1pm on 09.09.08
Filed under Travel / ALL CATEGORIES / Speaking Engagements
12 comments
UPDATE: I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be speaking at Spletne Urice in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 29th October. The itinerary below has been updated.
SkillSwap Brighton
I spoke at the Bristol wing of SkillSwap last year and had a great time. This time around, I’ll be sharing the stage with my mate Paul Annett (Senior Designer at ClearLeft), who has a great-sounding discussion lined […]
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Written at 1pm on 01.09.08
Filed under Web Design / ALL CATEGORIES / Publication & Recognition / Writing
16 comments
Remember back in April when I blogged about my ‘Create The Perfect Logo’ feature in .net magazine? You guessed it: this post is of a similar ilk (read: shameless plug).
Some of you will know how I’ve talked about design theft in the past, as it’s happened to me on more than one occasion. It’s a subject close to my heart, so when .net asked me to write an article about it, I jumped at the chance.
Like the logo feature, this one’s made […]
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Written at 1pm on 27.08.08
Filed under Web Design / Software / That Internet Thing / ALL CATEGORIES
58 comments
Today - 27th August - is the day that Internet Explorer 6 was unleashed unto the world seven years ago. Seven years ago!
M. Dave Auayan thinks it’s high time we stopped supporting this horrid little piece of software and has launched the IE Death March, a site dedicated to discontinuing IE6 support by March 2009. He’s listing sites that have stopped / will stop IE6 support; little pieces of the web you may have heard of such as Facebook, Mobile Me, and 37signals, to name but […]
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Written at 4pm on 13.08.08
Filed under ALL CATEGORIES / Speaking Engagements
3 comments
It’s that time of year again, when we of the design-centric blogosphere pimp our panel submissions for SXSW. This year, I’m asking if you wouldn’t mind taking a brief moment to vote for two:
“Thinking Outside The Box? There Is No Box!”
Vote for this panel
I’m proposing a dual presentation with my pal Bryan Veloso, the man you know and love behind Avalonstar and Revyver, one of the splendid chaps from Sidebar Creative, and the web design world’s undisputed king of Dance Dance Revolution. […]
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Written at 7pm on 11.08.08
Filed under Software / ALL CATEGORIES
23 comments
So del.icio.us is now just delicious.com, eh? And a less-than-spectacular redesign, too?
This has reminded me to post something about how I use the Delicious service rather than its website. I’ve never been one for social bookmarking. Not that I’m a miserable old git who likes to keep all my goodies to myself (well, just a tad), but I’ve always been put off by the sites that offer the service. I like my bookmarks in my browser menu, goddamit, and that’s where I’ll have them!
Not only that; personally […]
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Written at 3pm on 16.07.08
Filed under Life In The Real World / ALL CATEGORIES / Publication & Recognition / The Business
8 comments
Last month, while I was in Norway (yes, I’m back in Blighty now), I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the lovely Paul Boag on episode #125 of the Boagworld podcast, which crept into the wild last week. Boagworld is the longest running and most popular web design podcast, so I was thoroughly chuffed to be on it!
Me, on going freelance
When Paul invited me to appear on the show, he asked if I could talk about my recent experience of leaving the world of […]
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Written at 4pm on 09.07.08
Filed under Web Design / ALL CATEGORIES / Wordpress
31 comments
Today sees the launch of WooThemes, a project that offers a whole new world of ‘premium’ WordPress themes. Instead of paying for individual themes, you can subscribe to the WooThemes Club and receive every single theme we release over the course of your subscription, including the entire back catalogue. Behind all this is the team from the Premium News Themes - WordPress ‘rockstar’ Adii, Mark Forrester, and Magnus Jepson - and now me.
The first theme I’ve designed […]
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Written at 5pm on 28.06.08
Filed under Tutorials & Resources / ALL CATEGORIES
16 comments
It seems that a fair amount of people want to know how I create background images like the one on this site. Well, the lovely chaps at .net magazine have given me permission to re-publish the tutorials I write for the mag on elliotjaystocks.com, so, from issue #168, here’s the first (of many) web graphics tutorials - now completely free! You’ll want to download the source files, by the way, and here’s a preview of the end result. Click the thumbnail images to […]
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Written at 8pm on 09.06.08
Filed under Apple / ALL CATEGORIES
42 comments
You know I’m an Apple fanboy, but even I was disappointed at the relatively minor upgrades Apple have just announced to The Wonder Machine.
Yes, it’s got 3G. Yes, it’s got GPS. These were features that iPhone 1.0 users were desperately crying out for, and it’s great that they’re here. But if there’s one complaint that has come up time and time again when I’ve spoken to friends, family, and colleagues about the iPhone, it’s about the camera.
Firstly, the iPhone 1.0 camera only has a 2 megapixel sensor and so […]
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Written at 2pm on 23.05.08
Filed under That Internet Thing / ALL CATEGORIES
46 comments
I’m not the first person to write a relatively long and thoughtful article about Twitter; nor shall I be the last. But this has been brewing for quite some time, so here you go. Twitter fans, you’ll no doubt feel affinity with what you’re about to read, but newcomers and naysayers, this is for you too: five reasons why Twitter is important.
Oh, and due to the following collection of words sitting somewhere between a longer-than-usual blog entry and a mini essay, I’m using the tongue-in-cheek term ‘blessay’, coined by […]
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