Writing

• Concrete on the Tyne

  Exploring Newcastle’s former ambition to become “Brasília Of The North”.

• Brands Renewed

  An appreciation for identity programmes that seek to refine rather than reinvent.

• The Curse of ITV

  Worried? Me?

• What Goes Up, Must Come Down

  From its Roman walls to a series of modern carbuncles, Exeter has a curious mix of architecture, but not nearly as much as it once did.

• A Peek Behind the Curtain

  GDPR can’t come soon enough.

• Google Duplex

  In a society where truth and trust are a scarce resource, Google introduce an incredibly foolish product.

• Getting to Grips with JavaScript

  My relationship with JavaScript? It’s complicated.

• Time for a Redesign

  It’s that time again.

• Wallowing in Walsall

  With a pile of rubble sat before me, confirmation that a chapter of my life has reached its conclusion.

• Moving Slowly and Fixing Things

  Three aspects of my personality have proven pertinent.

• So Long Kris, and Thanks for All the Trips

  Kris Benbow, 1981-2018

• Hostage Situation

  Why do some designers choose to work for ‘evil’ corporations — and what happens to them when they get there?

• Fixing my Feeds

  Fiddling around with RSS.

• Microblogging

  Twitter is a place I visit to get annoyed. I need an alternative. That alternative could be my very own website.

• Improving the Accessibility of 24 ways

  Creating something new will always attract attention, but there’s an under celebrated nobility in improving what already exists.

• Back to Bradshaw’s

  Having copied, pasted and formatted another 115 pages of OCR’d text, Bradshaw’s Guide now contains tours throughout South West England, the West Midlands, Wales and Ireland.

• A Summer in Le Havre

  Finding the unexpected in Le Havre, the French seaside city that’s full of surprises.

• Away to Galway

  In need of a break, I headed to Galway and the far western reaches of the British Isles.

• Using Your Blog to Attract New Clients

  Blogging is a great way to showcase your expertise and raise your profile. But can you achieve this without drawing on manipulative methods of generating traffic?

• Questioning Container Queries

  Container queries are always a popular topic when discussing the future of responsive design. But do we actually need them anymore?

• Designing Systems, Part 3: Components and Composition

  The final part of my three-part essay based on the talk I gave at Smashing Conference. I look at how we might build components and consider their wider composition.

• Paradise Lost

  I had braced myself for its eventual fate, but seeing footage of Birmingham Central Library being demolished still brought a tear to my eye.

• Designing Systems, Part 2: Layers of Longevity

  In this second part of my three-part essay based on the talk I gave at Smashing Conference, I propose a model for thinking about design systems.

• Here’s to the Doctor

  Dr. James Paul Dicks, 1980-2017