Blogging and all that Malarkey

I don’t remember exactly when—but it was around 20 years ago— Back in 2005, * Rob Weychert turned his (and our) pal Jason Santa Maria into a talking head of Jason’s alter-ego, Virtual Stan. Stan had a backstory, which I don’t fully remember, plus a robot pal called Zorthron.

I don’t look at my analytics often, but after last week’s site revamp, I thought I’d check to see which pages were popular. Oddly, a post in my ancient archives about CSS specificity had been getting a fair few Google referrals, so I decided to spend a few hours updating that, too.

This week, I launched Design Chatter. It’s a weekly one-hour Zoom call where like-minded designers can give each other constructive, friendly feedback.

From the newsletter: It’s me, Andy Clarke, and you’ve received this email because you either bought a product from Stuff & Nonsense or you signed up for my mailing list. I hope you enjoy this newsletter, but you are, of course, able to unsubscribe at any time.

The nerds of a feather are back for another episode. They talk about whether social media is now either dead or useless for promoting our work and whether old-fashioned email is replacing it. Paul explains his monthly newsletter strategy and how, for him, it’s replaced social media. Then, the boys discuss what they should do next, as they’ve (obviously) reached the pinnacle of their careers.

It’s been almost a year since I left Nozomi Networks, and between now and then, I’ve had plenty of time to think about the types of projects I would like to work on. I learned a lot from working alongside developers building products, but my passion has always been for using design to communicate ideas and messages, not simply problem-solving.

Although there have been periods over the past few years where I’ve worked as part of a team, I’ve mainly worked by myself, at home. My wife has a keen eye for detail and often has off-the-wall ideas. My clients are also wonderful, and they seem to appreciate my process, which involves talking every day and sharing work as it develops. But there have often been times when I’ve felt working mostly alone was isolating.

One of my favourite CSS writers Ahmad Shadeed has written about CSS Masking and I thought I could put his techniques to good use on Emma’s website.

For years now, I’ve kept sauce sachets in my car’s glove box—I mean, who actually keeps gloves in that compartment?—just in case I needed it for a burger or bag of chips. That’s why I was really pleased when The Cheeky Condiment Company got in touch asking me to design a website for their condiment-carrying charm bracelets and necklaces.

Emma Bodger is a film/television producer, and recently, I’ve spent time working on her visual identity and a new website. It’s been a lot of fun, and I also learned more about SVG while working on it. I’m digging into the details this week, and today I’ll reveal the Easter Egg theme which I hid on Emma’s website.