Unfinished Business

Rob Weychert and I discuss Art Directing the Web

Stephen Hay and I discuss Art Directing the Web

David Sleight and I discuss Art Directing the Web

Rachel Andrew and I discuss Art Directing the Web and CSS Grid

Dan Mall and I discuss Art Directing the Web

Mark Porter and I discuss Art Directing the Web

To warm things up, and get the some silliness out of the way first, this season starts with a special, one-off episode. Paul Boag, Jon Hicks, and I talk about Doctor Who.

I’m warning you now, it’s a very different kind of episode of Unfinished Business this week as Rachel Andrew and I talk about our feelings on the referendum result for the UK to leave the EU. We talk about the issues that will affect us, you and our businesses in the coming months and years and what we’re already doing to help mitigate them.

In this, the first part of the Unfinished Business Bank Holiday double, I’m joined by Espen Brunborg, designer and co-founder of Primate, plus Strategic Commander of User Experience and author of ‘Psychology for Designers’ Joe Leech.

In the second part of this Unfinished Business Bank Holiday double, I’m joined by owner of UX studio Simple As Milk and lead UX engineer at UnrollMe, James Seymore-Lock to ask and answer the important question. “Am I the country’s biggest Homes Under The Hammer super-fan?” (Spoiler: He has no clue, not one.)

I know. I know! It’s been far too long since episode 117. But fret no more, Unfinished Business fans, we’re back and back for good, every two weeks with some brilliant guests and some good old fashioned conversations. This week, I’m joined by Sean Johnson and Drew McLellan to talk fat and fitness, cruises and coach trips.

The Unfinished Business schedule’s been a little, shall we say, up in the air, for the past few episodes. while I’ve been busy writing something. I do aim to get back to our routine and I’m sorry for the disruption. A few weeks ago I recorded a hilarious episode with artist, illustrator and rapper Mr. Bingo. It’s a very funny conversation, but we do swear a lot so if you’re easily offended by four letter words, this may not be the episode for you.

On Unfinished Business this week there’s no talk about mugs but Rachel Andrew is back. We’re joined by first timer Richard Rutter to discuss his upcoming book on Web Typography, why he chose to self-publish and fund the project on Kickstarter and the role of a publisher in today’s market. Of course Rachel loves to talk about VAT (irony) so we do that and she explains why she doesn’t actually owe a million Euros to Ireland.

This week on episode 115 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning guests Brad Frost and Stephen Hay. After talking about the best coffee mug in the world, we get right down it and discuss why it’s dangerous to bring computer science principles and heavy development tools into web design.

A week later than planned (sorry,) on this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning special guest, designer Dan Edwards. And because you wait all day and then two Dans come along at once, joining us is creative director, founder and director of the SuperFriendly agency in Philadelphia, Daniel (the Dan) Mall.

I’ve been looking forward to speaking with Cennydd Bowles for months and for Unfinished Business 113, Cennydd joins me and my other special guest, product designer Noah Stokes. We kick off by talking about Richard Rutter’s web typography book, but soon the conversation switches to whether, and why, current web designs are lacking ‘soul.’ This is something Noah and I have been speaking and writing over recent months and something that I partly blame on our fixation with user-experience and product design. Does Cennydd agree? You‘ll have to listen to the show to find out.

I want Unfinished Business to be, above all, entertaining and it makes me incredibly happy when entertainers take time to talk to me. This week, and after literally months of trying to set this up, my very special guest on Unfinished Business episode 112 is, actor, comedian, star of Vic and Bob’s ‘House Of Fools,’ Ellie White.

Apologies in advance if you’re German or a Turk, as this week on episode 111 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by artist Brendan Dawes and designer Aaron Draplin.

Last week was Jeffrey Zeldman’s website’s 20th birthday, so this week he joins me and Jeremy Keith on Unfinished Business 110 to talk about the anniversary. We start by discussing Jeremy’s 100 words for 100 days writing project and how it’s inspired me to change the way that I think about writing on our blog and posting to our portfolio. We talk about the importance of writing for yourself as well as for others and why writing on your own website is important. With it being the twentieth anniversary of Jeffrey’s own site, we also talk about whether it’s important to archive older designs for posterity.

This week is a special Mad Men episode of Unfinished Business and I’m joined live from New York by Jen Simmons–the incredible host of The Web Ahead podcast–and our very special guest, the actor and comedian who plays Lou Avery on TV’s Mad Men, Allan Havey.

I imagine if I told people in advance that I was talking to director of UX at MailChimp Aarron Walter and Founder of User Interface Engineering Jared Spool on Unfinished Business this week, they’d imagine we’d talk about user experience design and possibly education. Instead, they and I talk about action figures and Action Man and whether fighting Nazis is cooler than fighting aliens. It’s not all Smurfs and Stretch Armstrong though, because we also discuss the art of public speaking, how to prepare for a talk and tips for a successful presentation, whether you’re speaking at a conference or pitching an idea to a manager or a concept to a client.

Fresh from our adventures at Smashing Conference in Santa Monica, on this week’s Unfinished Business I’m joined by user-experience professional, author (of some CSS book or another) and director at ClearLeft, Andy Budd. Joining us was one of my favourite people; designer, author and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll.

On this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by designers’ designer Dan Edwards and, one of my favourite people, designer Veerle Pieters.

I‘ve been looking forward to publishing this episode of Unfinished Business for over a month and I looked forward to recording it for even longer, because I got to talk about art direction and creativity on the web with two of the creative people that I respect most, Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman.

The best podcasts listen to interesting people having interesting conversations about work, and life and for episode 104 of Unfinished Business I’m joined by two fascinating folk. Trent Walton and Stephen Hay.

Back for episode 103 of Unfinished Business is my favourite comedy duo, ‘Pipe and Pyjamas,’ Paul Boag and Jon Hicks.

A little later than advertised (and by “a little” I actually mean a week) I’m joined on Unfinished Business. Episode 102 by Rachel Andrew and Zoe Mickley Gillenwater.

We’re back. Back in business. Unfinished Business. Episode 101. For this, the first episode of 2015, I’m joined by two of the best well-known writers about how to implement CSS on a large scale Harry Roberts and Jonathan Snook.

This week is the one-hundredth episode of Unfinished Business and who better to join me than the person who helped me start it all, almost two years ago, Anna Debenham. We celebrate by talking about what went right and wrong in 2014 and our resolutions for 2015. Then we talk about meetings and how we can improve them.

On the penultimate episode of Unfinished Business of 2014, I’m joined by my design hero Trent Walton to talk about if an integrated responsive design and development workflow makes working out what and how to charge more difficult. We discuss Paravel, the three person studio that he helps run, how their business works, how they charge and if they negotiate on price. Of course, this being Unfinished Business, I couldn’t help talking about burgers and this week’s stupid cheeseburger stuffed crust pizza.

Conference impresario John Davey joins me again on Unfinished Business this week. We talk about anticipation and scarceness, how some cinemas create an experience around watching a film, how looking at album artwork in a record shop enhanced the experience of buying music and whether the experiences we’ve lost were valuable enough to revive in new and different ways.

It’s a special week this week on Unfinished Business as I’m joined by not one, but two regular co-hosts, Ashley Baxter and Laura Kalbag. In a bumper episode, we talk about cakes, brightly coloured fizzy drinks and Yorkshire pudding burgers. We discuss podcasting, sounding good as a podcast guest, then whether we allow Christmas decorations in our offices. Finally we talk about what we’ve achieved this year and what our goals are for 2015. It’s a fast and fun episode. I think you’ll really enjoy it.

Artist and designer Brendan Dawes is back on Unfinished Business this week. We get started by talking about past popular pop princes and princesses S Club 7, The Handsome Family and Bren’s one day trip to Argentina. For the remainder of the show, we talk about when it’s acceptable to give our time for free and when we should say no. Why every project should include a ‘goodwill’ budget and what the heck are those party paper and whistle things that come out of Christmas crackers called?

A complete change of subject for this week’s Unfinished Business, Relly Annett-Baker and I talk about parenting and education and specifically how she’s homeschooling her two young children.

This week on Unfinished Business, Paul Boag, Jon Hicks and I dispense with any pretence that this is a show about business and spend 90 minutes talking about something much more interesting. Peter Capaldi’s first series as Doctor Who. We talk about our thoughts on Peter Capaldi’s Doctor and the best (and worst) episodes of the season. Then we finish up by discussing the series finale, Clara and Danny Pink and of course Missy. If you haven’t seen the final episode of this season, there are spoilers galore.

The week’s Unfinished Business was recorded live at The Web Is… conference in Cardiff, as part of Geek Mental Help week. I was joined on-stage by Christopher Murphy, Cole Henley, Relly Annett-Baker and Dr. Clare Symons to talk about a wide range of mental heath and mental illness issues. I put the lower audio quality this week down to everyone wearing lapel, not using condenser microphones, (sorry about that,) but recording live in front of an audience was fun, and I’ll definitely do it again. There are no sponsors this week, as it didn’t seem appropriate.

This week is Geek Mental Help week and on Unfinished Business I’m joined by Liz Elcoate, one of the people who helped to spark the idea. We ask if our industry attracts people with issues or cause them, does our working environment add to our problems and what we hope the outcomes from this week will be? But not before we talk sport, Liz’s obsession with wrestling and my Uncle Haystacks.

Brighton-based developer Benjamin Hollway loves a burger in a brioche bun and joins me on Unfinished Business this week to talk about how young people feel excluded from some industry events and how conferences and meet-ups should cater for people who don’t want to or are too young to drink. Benjamin was shortlisted for ‘emerging talent of the year’ at the Net Awards and oh, did I mention that he’s only sixteen?

Designer and artist Brendan Dawes is back on episode 90 of Unfinished Business this week to talk about his recent commission by Mailchimp, Six Monkeys, which explores interactions with email through physical objects named after six famous chimpanzees. Before that though, we talk more about what’s happening with Geek Mental Help Week, including whether the word ‘geek’ takes something away from the project and is somehow derogatory.

This week’s an emotional episode of Unfinished Business. After talking about why a burger in a donut should never, ever have become a thing, Laura Kalbag and I discuss mental health issues in our industry. We talk about my own struggles with depression and depersonalisation disorder, issues that stem from my father’s own mental health issues and suicide.

This week on Unfinished Business, Harry Roberts and I have some pretty big, Boag-shaped, boots to fill after last week’s episode. Harry takes the opposite view to Paul about sharing personal struggles in a work context and worries about the impression that sharing give to prospective clients. Then we talk about how clients’ commissioning process for creative services is largely broken, the differences between an open conversation starter, an RFP and a brief and how we, as designers and developers, can help clients to commission what we do better.

This week on Unfinished Business, I had planned to talk with Paul Boag about client briefs and managing expectations. But when we sat down to talk, we were both in the mood to talk about something much, more personal. We discussed how we feel about how Twitter has changed, Erin Kissane’s ‘Ditching Twitter,’ Dan Edwards’ ‘Treading through treacle’ and our general sense of melancholy about our industry. Then we talk about how, contrary to what we often hear, our industry is filled with acts of kindness. We discuss how we maintain our optimism and the steps we take to protect ourselves emotionally. If you think you know Paul and I from our public personas, I think that you’ll be very surprised by this episode. If you haven’t listened to Unfinished Business for a while (or at all) I urge you to listen this week.

In the second part of our icon designer double bill, this week on Unfinished Business, I’m joined by designer, illustrator the and iconographer behind Symbolicons, Jory Raphael. We talk about how we feel about the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus announcement, the design of the Apple Watch software and whether it looks at home on the watch’s hardware. We discuss Jory’s illustration work including his artwork for the 5by5 podcast network and of course, those long shadows. Finally we talk about making a business from making and selling icons.

Icon designer Jon Hicks joins me this week on Unfinished Business to discuss our experiences of recent conferences including dConstruct (me) and An Event Apart (him.) We narrowly avoid talking about our predictions for the upcoming Apple event and instead discuss how to keep work and home life separate, whether it‘s right to be connected to work outside work hours and how having an office can help with work/life balance. Of course, all of this is just a thinly disguised ruse for what we really want to talk about, Doctor Who. In the after-show section, we look back at Matt Smith’s final episode, talk about Peter Capaldi’s new Doctor so far and if Doctor Who needs longer than one hour per episode to tell a good story. Oh. And Clara bloody Oswald.

This week on Unfinished Business, I’m joined by Cole Henley, technical director at Mud. We discuss his latest Freelance rates survey, how the results have changed over the last three years and what he’s learned from making the survey. I admire Cole’s Mud very much, so we talk about how to grow a business, when to hire new people and the importance of regular advice from someone on the outside. If you like the business side of Unfinished Business, you’ll love this episode. What’s an episode of Unfinished Business without some talk of comics or films? In an after-show special, starting at 1:11:30, Cole and I talk about vintage 2000AD comics, Harlem Heroes, Flesh and of course, Judge Dredd. I want to know if Stallone’s Judge Dredd film a guilty pleasure and why, oh why, doesn’t Hollywood make films from classic 2000AD stories?

Laura Kalbag and Ashley Baxter did a wonderful job hosting Unfinished Business for the last three weeks and this week Laura hands it back to me. We talk about how we interpret the ‘business’ theme of Unfinished Business differently and how that changes the focus of the podcast. As we’re both small business owners and we’ve both been on holiday recently, we discuss how we handle keeping on top of business while we’re away from it. How we handle email and client enquiries and even work that going on while we’re away. Finally we talk about “Smartphone stress: Are you a victim of ‘always on’ culture?” If smartphones have become “tyrants in our pockets” and how being connected affects how we relax when we’re not supposed to be working.

Ashley Baxter and Laura Kalbag are back for their final takeover episode of Unfinished Business. We talk about using social media for your business and whether writing and speaking are a scalable part of your business model. We had a couple of questions from Shane Hudson and Simon MacFadyen on forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and advice to a designer just starting out. This episode is sponsored by Espresso and Native Summit. You can get a 10% discount on Espresso with the offer code unfinished. Native Summit are giving away 20 free tickers to the first 20 listeners who visit their site and use the offer code unfinished.

Ashley Baxter and Laura Kalbag are back again for this week’s episode of Unfinished Business. We talk about the common myths around working for yourself, particularly as a solo entity working from home. We have some great questions from Elliot Davis, Simon Cox, and Shane Prendergast, resulting in us talking about photo manipulation and what do we both want to achieve before we retire? This episode is sponsored by GatherContent and SimplyFixIt. You can get 20% off your subscription to GatherContent forever with the offer code unfinished. You can get 10% off any iPhone or iPad repair with SimplyFixIt plus a free upgrade from the standard warranty to three-month’s accidental cover with the offer code unfinished.

While Andy’s on holiday, Ashley Baxter and Laura Kalbag take over this week’s episode of Unfinished Business. We talk about all things business insurance, including public liability, professional indemnity, business contents and copyright infringement. And it’s not boring, honest! This episode is sponsored by Devicelab, Perch and dConstruct. Get your ticket to dConstruct for only £125+VAT (£150) when you use the offer code unfinished.

Before we go any further, I need to let people know that there is absolutely zero business content in the show this week. (Thousands of people are thinking now, “when is there ever?”) That‘s because this is a spoiler filled ‘Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’ cinema special episode with my guests and film buff friends Brendan Dawes and Jeremy Keith. It’s a wild show. We ask whether there should be a new Oscar category for performance capture and if Andy Serkis should win everything? We talk about the other seven Planet Of The Apes films, starting with the original five and if Tim Burton’s 2001 reimagining is a guilty pleasure. Then we get in deep with the new ‘Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes’ before asking ourselves the important questions; When will apes wear clothes? When and how will humans become mute, and why should you avoid watching an apes film in Rhyl? Even if you’re not an Apes aficionado, I think you’ll enjoy listening to this episode of Unfinished Business as much as we enjoyed making it, which was a lot. This special episode was made possible by two special sponsors, the ShropGeek Revolution Conference and BigBoard. Get 15% off your ticket to ShropGeek Revolution when you use the offer code unfinished.

I’ve been looking forward to speaking with Sara Soueidan on this week’s episode of Unfinished Business for a long while, not least because I’m a huge, huge, fan of her work. She’s been writing what I consider to be the best articles about CSS and SVG. We talk about those, yes, but we also talk about what it’s like for her, living and working as a web developer in her home country of Lebanon. We discuss the preconceptions and misconceptions that people in the West have about Lebanon, its people and its customs. I think you’ll find what she has to say fascinating. I know I did. This episode is kindly sponsored by two UK conferences, Native Summit and dConstruct. Get your ticket to dConstruct for only £125+VAT (£150) when you use the offer code unfinished.