On a couple of occasions the impending threat of a deadline, the possibility of missing that deadline and the consequent terror of losing the client has necessitated in some late night slogs and unadulterated caffiene abuse fuelling the sprint to the finish line. We’ve all been there—that adrenaline charged buzz you get as you race co-workers to tidy up the last fixes, polish off the editing, cram in the remaining photography and content and bash out emails left right and centre as time disappears and nerves fray, tensions run high and friends become temporary adversaries. But it’s all worth it when you hit launch, chewing on the last remains of your fingernails whilst shaking with a lethal combination of adrenaline, caffeine and low-blood sugar and eventually sit back with a near orgasmic relief as everything, hopefully, goes smoother than expected. What a fucking thrill, what a roller coaster of emotions. This is why we got into this industry, isn’t it? That rush of battling to create something and seeing it…

Spam comes in various forms, some rather tedious, some just plain offensive. This, however, is one of the greatest unsolicited sales emails I’ve ever received: Well? Have you done it yet? No of course you haven’t. So, here’s the gentle reminder you signed up for: BUY A FUCKING SHOVEL! Also, buy a sledge, and some grit. Go on, buy a shovel RIGHT NOW. Just think how smug you’ll feel this winter when the Snowpocalypse inevitably takes everybody else by surprise. Here’s a referral link to a very lovely shovel on Amazon (anything you buy through this link will earn us money towards the purchase of our own shovels): http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0038JEIGM?ie=UTF8&tag=googlesightse-21&linkCode=shr&camp=3194&creative=21330&creativeASIN=B0038JEIGM You really should do it now, as we won’t be reminding you again (in fact by the time you read this, we’ll already have deleted your email address). Have a great winter! Lots of love, Your friendly shovel-buying-reminder team. http://buyafuckingshovel.com/ The handy work of these fellas: http://rotacoo.com/ So very, very tempting…

Lessons learned. I still don’t consider myself a brilliant designer, but I now better understand what constitutes good and bad design, particularly in a commercial context. It may seem obvious, but is all to often overlooked; design it’s about so much more than just aesthetics—it’s the process of developing solutions to defined problems. It’s also an exercise in determining those problems in the first place. In fact, the design process begins long before pen touches paper. There’s no getting around the fact that 90% of the interfaces we design exist to, at some point down the line, make money. B2B, B2C, e-commerce, blogs, forums, galleries, apps, games etc; whatever the initial touch point is with the user, be it a website, mobile app, email newsletter, brochure or physical item—the primary goal may differ greatly, but the ultimate objective is almost always to convert that ‘user’ into a customer. Conversion and retention are two of the commonest goals we find ourselves…

Jake Ivill (website & twitter) is a young illustrator and aspiring web designer from Manchester. You may know him. Jake’s currently in a predicament, trying to decide which course of action to take to best further his career. To most of us who’ve discussed this with Jake, the answer’s straightforward; he’s been accepted to join the new Manchester Hyper Island academy, which is an opportunity you simply don’t turn down. The problem is that Jake’s mum isn’t confident about the Hyper Island course, which is understandable considering it’s unheard of over here, and is only in it’s first year. She feels Jake would be better off wasting his time and clawing himself into mounds of debt going to ‘normal’ university. Frankly I find this a little absurd, for several reasons. For starters, although I don’t know Jakes mum and I’m sure she only wants the best for him, she should let him make his own choices and not try to…

I love interesting methods of advertising jobs and applying for jobs. I really want to see more interesting CVs and job applications; perhaps it helps to promote the position in a more original way, like Poke’s creative approach to hunting down a new copywriter. I’d love to see some of the submissions. Witty, engaging and challenging. Pretty site as well. See Obama Stole Our Writer.

Well holey moley me haven’t we all been here before? Designers aren’t the only ones who sometimes struggle extricating payment from clients, but we sure still like to moan and meme about it (see www.clientsfromhell.net—hilarious and wretchedly true at the same time). Mike Monteiro takes half an hour of your time to look at how to reinforce your financial defence and strategy as a designer and as a businessman. Considering most lunch breaks are an hour, that gives you plenty of time to grab a sandwich and sit back and enjoy—it’s a great talk from an entertaining and interesting speaker.

This months Creative Review has gone and done something rather ‘un-Creative-Review-ish’. They’ve listed ‘The Top 20 logos of all time‘. Seems the sort of thing more suited to second rate design blogs striving for the Digg thumbs up and essentially meaningless site traffic. But of course this is Creative Review; unabashed and brazen in the eyes of the thousands, a mecca of design and creative guidance—so I reckon they’ve done a decent job and few have complained. Indeed they have done a good job. Besides a few of the regular candidates (British Rail, TATE, Apple, FedEx), there are a few curveballs such as Deutsche Bank, Woolmark and British Steel, which I found rather refreshing. What grabbed my attention was not how iconic these logos are, nor their clever use of visual puns or gestalt design principles or effectiveness in suitably representing all their respective companies stand for. It was their timelessness. In most instances the logo marks had barely changed…

Small is the new big, always in beta, meetings are toxic, speak human, growth is an illusion, we’re all publishers now, ignore the competition, innovate—don’t recreate, planning is guessing, the 4-hour work week… Over the past few years there’s been an explosion in rethinking the way we do business and the way we conduct our lives in this crazy digital age. The core components of this new paradigm in thought center around efficiency, around banishing waste in terms of time, energy and attention and essentially giving the finger to old-school mindsets. Advocates of these new initiatives include, among others, web luminaries such as Seth Godin, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jason Fried, Eric Karjalouto et al. You know the sort I’m on about. Bestselling books to their names, massively popular blogs on new business, marketing, passion and inspiration and a dash of life coaching and likely a place in the bountiful depths of the TED archives. Apologies for the lack of…