Articles tagged with “design”

Feedback. We all need it in order to improve. Growing up we had our families to provide feedback and help us course-correct and grow. It was normal and expected when your parents might have told you…

A year ago this week my wife and I took our kids out of school to travel most of the world. Over the course of 6 months we travelled to 10 countries across 3 continents. We unschooled our kids and…

A long time ago I started a side project that died on the vine, called WIKN (What I know Now). The intention was to share warts-n-all advice to new designers, helping them navigate their careers,…

This is an introspective recap of my first year at ASquared: a Brighton-based, purpose-driven digital agency putting social and environmental issues at the heart of everything they do. As Design…

A couple weeks back the wonderful Aamna Hussain invited me to talk about agile and design (and other things) on her great Product podcast. I do love talking shop – especially around processes and how d…

Moving from managing pixels to managing people isn’t a straightforward decision. Many of us underestimate the change in pace, scope and challenges that come with a design management or leadership p…

It’s never a dull moment round here. Having had a month between jobs to lay low, I was itching to get back into the swing of things. The month rolled by rather uneventfully, barring some domestic and a…

By all accounts the Kim Scott book ‘Radical Cando(u)r’ has become a bible in Silicon Valley and tech circles. And rightly so, as the need for honest and open feedback cannot be underestimated. For tho…

In my binging of recent podcast episodes there was another from the Design Better show that caught my eye 👁 / ear 👂. In the show with Scott Berkun I was reminded of the difference between fictional, specu…

Meet Sophie. A business leader at a large organisation, Sophie oversees multiple products. She works with both her in-house product and design teams, as well as external partners. One of the products…

Imposter Syndrome. That feeling when you doubt yourself, asking whether you’re deserving of your accomplishments. You can't help but feel it's only a matter of time until you’re exposed as a fraud. I suf…

I really like talking to people. Introvert or not, I’m curious by nature and enjoy understanding what people are up to, what they do, and how they do it. So at the tail end of the tumultuous year t…

When I spoke at the recent MUX London’s ‘Festival of UX & Design’ in September, I knew things would be different thanks to Covid-19. I just don’t think I realised how awkward it would be to hear your own voi…

Agile and design. Like oil and water, the two don’t play well together. Yet as we create more complex digital products and services, they need to work to a common goal. How might we keep the delivery a…

Digital transformation. It sounds so grandiose, doesn’t it? Like some sort of beautiful metamorphosis: an ugly caterpillar of old tech🐛 magically becoming a beautiful butterfly🦋, resplendent in its new dig…

I’ve just finished a long stint working within a large, risk-averse organisation. Being product-side for a change has been an incredibly eye-opening experience. It’s the first time in more than a dec…

The retrospective is — in my opinion — one of the most important activities in any project. Routine post-sprint retros are a great indicator of project health, but end-of-project wash-ups are where the real ge…

Sign-off. As Andy rightly points out in his recent post, it’s a thing that shouldn’t be part of the modern digital designer’s lexicon. I totally agree, and in some cases this is the reality. But sadly…

I’m all for design systems. I’ve designed and created many, and they’re a great way of unifying patterns, usage and language. They reduce time, save on costs and promote modular, systems-based think…

Are designers evolving from just UX designers or just visual designers into multi-disciplinary generalists? There seems to be higher-quality design all-rounders coming back into vogue.…

As a visual designer working on agile projects, I’ve said before how it’s easy to lose sight of the larger visual language in agile sprints. When you’re tackling user stories with your head down, it’s …

A few years ago when Mark wrote his article on performance budgets, we were working together on a redesign for a luxury travel holiday website. The use of large images and typography to create a…

A look into my use of Strava and how it's positively affected my behaviour over time. My name is Jon, and I'm a Strava user. I never thought I could be as fundamentally affected by an app as I have…

When designing a site, app or digital product, all of the elements on screen need to work together. They need to sing together, harmonise with one another and form something greater than their…

Always nice getting a shout-out on a podcast, this time regarding the Code for America work and element collages.

This article was originally posted on the Clearleft blog. Most Hack Farm projects start as someone's itch that needs scratching. Last year's TinyPlanner was Boxman's need for a backwards to-do list.…

This article was originally posted on the Clearleft blog Arguably the key deliverable we hand over to our clients is our pattern portfolio, comprised of two main components: The component library is…

Better late than never, right? In retrospect, my 2012 was pretty huge, both professionally and personally. On new additions In the early summer we welcomed another Aizlewood into the world - Indiana…

In early November, Quality English were kind enough to Eurostar me down to Paris to present to their member schools on digital marketing. The presentation, entitled ' The demise of the desktop:…

It's finally happened. After almost a year of waiting, a team of web designers, web developers, an agency and many talented others have been working with a well-known newspaper to launch the…

Should websites be built around the content, or should content be created to fit the design? Here’s an argument for creating content first – or at least thinking about content first. What is a web…

Things have been pretty busy lately, hence the lack of posts. However, one piece of news worth sharing: CarbonGraffiti was selected to design and build the website for the inaugural Brighton Digital…

It’s been a crazy start to 2011. In fact, the last few months have been an absolute whirlwind. Here are some noteworthy the projects we’ve been working on, with services ranging from consulting to cus…

Using A List Apart's article on Responsive Web Design (by Ethan Marcotte) as inspiration, this site now uses CSS media queries to determine a visitor's screen resolution and serve up an appropriate…

Well, it's been a long time coming, but CarbonGraffiti has finally been picked up, dusted off, reconfigured, rethought, rebranded, rewritten and repolished within an inch of its life. Not bad. Just 8…

Argos. Clearly doing well as the UK's most popular 'catalogue showroom retailing' store in the UK. More than 700 stores, 130m customers and £4.3b in sales in 2008 isn't bad. They also take 26% of …

The English Premier League is big money. EPL clubs are as much businesses as they are generational sporting institutions, a point proven when cumulative wage bills total £1.2bn, revenues top £2bn, a…

Here are the top 10 most-read CarbonGraffiti articles for April 2008: Free Email Marketing templates Outlook 2007, Part II Best of March - Email design round-up Design the perfect email: Dimensions &…