Unfinished Business

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...

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. Some links from this episode Brad Frost Brad on Twitter Stephen Hay Stephen on Twitter design​day conf...

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 . We talk about plans for the next Geek Mental Help week in October first. The...

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 writin...

Ellie and I talk about her Fringe and what it’s like to get a big break on a show like ‘House Of Fools.’ We discuss improv, stand-up performances and comedy clubs and whether she should watch ‘Carry On’ films. Ellie’s charming and funny and I really enjoyed talking with her. Even if you’ve not seen ‘House Of Fools,’ you’ll really like this episode. Some links from this episode Ellie White on Twitt...

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 . We start by talking about spice jars and car boot (garage) sales, but unsurprisingly our conversation soon veers wildly off topic as we discuss how Aaron’s struggling to keep up with demands on his time, how designers can make money s...

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 wel...

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 . We talk, of course, about Mad Men, its final season and the recent show finale. So if you haven’t seen Don Draper fall out of a McCann Erick...

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 al...

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 . We start by talking about magazines, including 8faces and the new edition of Lagom. Then we discuss how the perceptions that people can have about us, our companies or even how busy we are can be really different from the reality, plus an event that we’re pl...

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. Video of my ‘Counting stars: Creativity over predictability’ talk from Beyond Tellerrand in Berlin You...

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 . In a lively and wide-ranging conversation, we talk about ‘designing in a browser’ and whether or not today it’s a given (to some degree or another.) We discuss not showing clients static de...

Back for episode 103 of Unfinished Business is my favourite comedy duo, ‘Pipe and Pyjamas,’ Paul Boag and Jon Hicks . We had a list of things that we weren’t allowed to talk about, a list that was surprisingly topped by Dr. Who, food and bicycles. Instead we discuss about Paul’s green screen, his motorhome and why he left Headscape , the company he founded thirteen years ago. We end up talking abo...

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 . Despite being two experts on bleeding edge CSS layout modules, they don’t talk about CSS (much.) Instead we talk about how to keep doing when keeping going is hard and what gives us that motivation. We also discuss making big decisi...

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 . We talk about if the ways we talk about CSS today have made learning it less accessible for beginners. I worry that people are being encouraged to jump straight into Sass...

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. This being the final episode of the year, I’d like to say an enormous thank-you...

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 Unfinish...

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...

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 th...

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 we’re sponsored by the fabulous new Perch Runway and by DeviceLab . Please support our show by supporting them.

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...

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, (sor...

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. This wee...