{ 21 }

Twenty-Four Thousand Pages

I have touched perhaps twenty-four thousand pages in twenty years. Almost everything they were for has quietly disappeared.

68Jul 15, 2026

How I Talk You Out of Working With Me

The most useful thing a good advisor can say is no. So here is when you should not hire me.

65Jul 14, 2026

Technology & AIAI

The Greenhouse and the Machine

A greenhouse does not replace the gardener. It protects the harvest, and that is exactly how I use AI.

122Jun 25, 2026

48Jun 23, 2009Posted Jul 16, 2026

Less, But Better

Where my restraint actually came from — not design school, but a drum kit and a hospital.

Career & ReflectionBranding

An Ad Agency Inside a Hospital

I turned an audiovisual room into a creative department, and helped a health group become Covenant. The most meaningful work yet.

74Apr 14, 2009Posted Jul 14, 2026

Craft & TasteWebAI

Why Everything Looks the Same

The web is converging on a single template, and the machine is accelerating it. The only way out is judgment.

49Jul 14, 2026

Technology & AIAI

A Machine Drew a Picture This Spring

I typed a sentence and a machine drew it back, and I am still working out what that changes about the work.

18May 17, 2022Posted Jul 28, 2026

11Feb 22, 2022Posted Jul 28, 2026

Figma, My Hammer of Choice

On loving one tool so much you start to see every problem as the kind it solves.

19Nov 23, 2021Posted Jul 28, 2026

The Great Resignation Was a Design Problem

Maybe people weren't quitting jobs so much as quitting a design that had been quietly bad for a long time.

Business & ClientsWeb

Owning Versus Renting

Most of what a business builds online sits on rented ground, and it helps to know what is actually yours to keep.

15Sep 21, 2021Posted Jul 28, 2026

12Jul 27, 2021Posted Jul 28, 2026

The Component Is the New Page

We stopped designing pages and started designing parts. Something was gained, and something quieter was lost.

19Apr 20, 2021Posted Jul 27, 2026

No-Code and the Democratization of Building

No-code lowers the floor for who can build. What it can't hand anyone is a feel for what's worth building.

16Feb 16, 2021Posted Jul 27, 2026

The Tyranny of the Speed Score

Google began scoring how fast a site feels, and I keep watching us chase the number instead of the feeling it stands for.

18Nov 24, 2020Posted Jul 27, 2026

What the Pandemic Taught Me About Essentials

A hard year took a lot away, and what it left behind showed me what I actually needed.

19Sep 29, 2020Posted Jul 27, 2026

The Great Acceleration

A decade of digital change arrived in a few months. It mostly worked, and left a quiet debt to repay.

20Jul 21, 2020Posted Jul 27, 2026

Designing for a Year Indoors

A year mostly indoors quietly changed what people want from a screen, and it wasn't what I expected.

18May 19, 2020Posted Jul 26, 2026

Taking the Pause

After fifteen years without a real break, I stopped on purpose, and sat with what that felt like.

15Mar 17, 2020Posted Jul 26, 2026

The Week Everything Went Remote

The world went home to work overnight, and mostly I kept thinking about how hard that is to do in the middle of a crisis.

17Nov 26, 2019Posted Jul 26, 2026

Remote Before It Was Required

A couple of years of working remotely, and what the distance quietly asked of me.

Craft & TasteBrandingWeb

The Polished Sameness of SaaS

Open ten software sites in a row and they blur into one. I have been trying to work out why.

20Sep 17, 2019Posted Jul 26, 2026

Craft & TasteAutomation

Design Ops and the Machine of Making

The quiet operations behind the craft, and what automating the dull parts says about what you value.

16Jun 25, 2019Posted Jul 26, 2026

Craft & TasteBranding

Brand Architecture Under One Umbrella

A couple of years spent learning how a family of brands can share values without wearing the same uniform.

21Apr 23, 2019Posted Jul 25, 2026

16Feb 19, 2019Posted Jul 25, 2026

Accessibility Is Not Optional

I spent years treating accessibility as a final checklist, until I understood how ordinary the need for it is.

21Nov 27, 2018Posted Jul 25, 2026

Designing Like You Mean It

For years I hedged and called it humility. I have started to think conviction is the more honest thing.

22Sep 25, 2018Posted Jul 25, 2026

Figma Killed the Handoff

The wall between design and build is quietly gone, and I don't miss it as much as I expected to.

24Jul 17, 2018Posted Jul 25, 2026

Dark Patterns and the Cost of Tricks

A few notes on dark patterns, and why a trick played on a customer is really a debt that comes due later.

Craft & TasteBranding

Branding Equipt

Building an outdoor brand from a blank page, and what the word equipped came to mean.

19May 22, 2018Posted Jul 24, 2026

25Feb 20, 2018Posted Jul 24, 2026

Variable Fonts Finally Arrived

One file that holds a whole range of weights, and why that quietly matters.

Business & ClientsBranding

Eighty Coins and a Gold Vault

A crypto ecosystem that promised everything, and the question I've asked before every project since.

24Nov 28, 2017Posted Jul 24, 2026

23Sep 19, 2017Posted Jul 24, 2026

Design Director, Remotely

Remote work is not the same work in a nicer room. It is a different discipline, and it runs on writing.

17Jul 25, 2017Posted Jul 24, 2026

The Test

I got into Toptal this month, and what stayed with me was being tested by strangers and simply told yes.

26Apr 18, 2017Posted Jul 23, 2026

Sketch, and Then This Thing Called Figma

Leaving Sketch for a design tool that lives in the browser, and trying to tell resistance apart from good judgment.

22Feb 21, 2017Posted Jul 23, 2026

Design Tokens

A token is a name for a decision, and once a decision has a name you can finally question it.

23Nov 22, 2016Posted Jul 23, 2026

Agency, In-House, or Alone

I have done all three, and each one traded one problem for another. This year I went looking for a fourth way.

25Sep 27, 2016Posted Jul 23, 2026

The Speed Obsession

On why I work fast — not to do more, but to have room to be wrong a few more times before I land on something right.

Craft & TasteBrandingPrint

Branding Beef and Wine

After years of screens, working on brands you can hold, and the small discipline of saying only the one true thing.

20Jul 12, 2016Posted Jul 23, 2026

23Apr 19, 2016Posted Jul 22, 2026

The Invoice That Became Minimum Wage

Quote forty hours, work eighty, get offered twelve hundred. The invoice, not the design, is the part of this work I am still learning.

23Feb 23, 2016Posted Jul 22, 2026

Everything Became a Card

The card became the default unit of the web, and a default is just a decision you've stopped examining.

26Nov 24, 2015Posted Jul 22, 2026

Ten Years

Concrete, a racetrack, a hospital, a classroom, a city — one continuous argument with the same problem.

Craft & TasteBranding

Design Systems Before They Had a Name

A system worth leaving behind explains its reasoning, so a stranger can extend it rather than only copy it.

18Sep 15, 2015Posted Jul 22, 2026

20Jun 23, 2015Posted Jul 22, 2026

The Dream Team

Six of us, small enough to hold the whole problem in our heads at once. I do not think I will stop looking for that shape.

21Apr 21, 2015Posted Jul 21, 2026

Mobilegeddon

Years ago a studio I co-ran gamed the search engine and vanished from it, which is why I flinch when anyone reaches for a shortcut.

24Feb 17, 2015Posted Jul 21, 2026

Sometimes the Work Doesn't Win

Two months of work that pitched well and then went into a drawer, and learning to hold the outcome loosely.

25Nov 18, 2014Posted Jul 21, 2026

Almost a Decade In

What a decade of redesigns taught me about quality, the requests that never change, and the value of throwing work away.

Edmonton & PlaceBranding

Rebranding My Own Backyard

You can't walk away from a result you have to live inside. It made me slower, and I think better for it.

23Sep 30, 2014Posted Jul 21, 2026

Edmonton & PlaceBranding

Pitching a City

A year spent on an argument for letting Edmonton drop two small words and just say its name.

24Jul 29, 2014Posted Jul 21, 2026

24May 20, 2014Posted Jul 20, 2026

Material Design and the Return of Rules

Google wrote its design rules down, and I find I would rather argue with a floor I can see than follow conventions nobody ever named.

35Feb 25, 2014Posted Jul 20, 2026

The Headhunter's Call

A recruiter called about a role she couldn't fully explain, and I said yes before she finished — a note to myself about which unknowns are worth stepping into.

33Dec 10, 2013Posted Jul 20, 2026

The Year the Tools Got Opinionated

The frameworks made me faster this year. I am trying to stay honest about the choices they quietly made for me.

19Oct 15, 2013Posted Jul 20, 2026

PHP Is a Loose Language

Why I ended up teaching security to designers, and what I hope they take from it.

26Aug 27, 2013Posted Jul 20, 2026

Content Is the Design

I stopped designing around placeholder text and started asking for the real words first.

32Jun 18, 2013Posted Jul 19, 2026

iOS 7 and the End of Skeuomorphism

The leather is gone, and in stripping the fakery we also stripped the cues that told you what to touch.

Craft & TastePrint

The Long Scroll

A client wanted two and a half pages of copy in a six-inch ad. I found a clever way to fit it all, and it cost me the account.

25Feb 12, 2013Posted Jul 19, 2026

37Nov 20, 2012Posted Jul 19, 2026

Seven Years In

Seven years in, and the lessons that mattered this year were the ones I had to unlearn.

33Sep 25, 2012Posted Jul 19, 2026

The Night I Started Teaching

I started teaching evenings at NAIT, and it kept exposing the shortcuts I had been walking around for years.

22Jul 17, 2012Posted Jul 19, 2026

Flat Is Coming

Flat is arriving fast, and I'm trying to sort out how much of it is real progress and how much is just fashion.

Technology & AIMotionWeb

The Slow Death of Flash

A eulogy for Flash — the final project at DevStudios, twenty-four hours with no sleep, and a car you could rebuild in real time.

38Apr 24, 2012Posted Jul 18, 2026

38Feb 14, 2012Posted Jul 18, 2026

Retina Changed My Pixels

The pixels doubled and everything had to be made twice, which slowly convinced me to ship shapes instead of pictures.

Print & Signage

The Bulletin Board Had to Go

An accreditation had to reach every site at once, and a memo pinned to a corkboard wasn't going to do it. So we tried screens.

45Nov 29, 2011Posted Jul 18, 2026

Craft & TasteWebPrint

Wayfinding for the Web

A racetrack taught me wayfinding, Flash taught me motion, and heat maps keep reminding me that people scan a page, they don't read it.

29Sep 13, 2011Posted Jul 18, 2026

40Jul 26, 2011Posted Jul 18, 2026

A Photo App Just Out-Designed Us All

A filter app that does almost nothing is out-designing everyone, while a colleague teaches me what light really does on a real camera.

36Apr 19, 2011Posted Jul 17, 2026

The Grid Got Fluid

Media queries, percentages, and PHP up to my elbows, building microsites at the Grey Nuns while a fixed layout learns to flow.

38Feb 15, 2011Posted Jul 17, 2026

Mobile First

Not really about mobile at all. It is about being forced to have priorities early, which is why people resist it.

32Nov 30, 2010Posted Jul 17, 2026

The Print Shop Down the Hall

A wide roll printer, a control room, and a Nurses Week banner — the design that never makes a portfolio but holds a place together.

Edmonton & PlaceBranding

Building a Greater Edmonton

A contract, an agency team, and a city framework — the first time I designed for citizens rather than customers.

49Sep 21, 2010Posted Jul 17, 2026

45Jun 8, 2010Posted Jul 17, 2026

Responsive

Responsive is a word I welcome more than I fear, though building for every device at once is a weight with no easy way through.

49Apr 13, 2010Posted Jul 16, 2026

The iPad Changes the Question

Holding an iPad for the first time, and trying to name what changes when the cursor disappears.

43Feb 16, 2010Posted Jul 16, 2026

Designing for a Screen That Doesn't Exist Yet

A tablet is on the way that no one quite knows the use for, and it has me thinking about paper, batteries, and the few questions that stay true whatever the device becomes.

34Nov 24, 2009Posted Jul 16, 2026

Clients Are People, Especially When Money Is Tight

Two recession years taught me that when money gets tight, a client's fear wears the mask of unreasonableness, and the work is to listen for the fear instead of fighting the objection.

35Sep 15, 2009Posted Jul 16, 2026

The Mobile Web Is Not a Smaller Desk

Not a shrunken monitor but a different place, with a thumb, a few seconds, and one honest question.

44Feb 10, 2009Posted Jul 14, 2026

Twitter and the Art of 140 Characters

A small box that sharpens everything inside it. How brevity changed my writing and my design.

39Dec 16, 2008Posted Jul 14, 2026

The Web Grew Up This Year

The easy money left and the serious question arrived. Launching Forfame, and learning to make things under my own name.

55Oct 21, 2008Posted Jul 13, 2026

When Budgets Vanish, Restraint Wins

Cutting to the core, finding the fat was never needed, and the difference between cheap and lean.

Technology & AIAppWeb

There's an App for That

The App Store opened, and I felt it in my hands before most. Why the real question was never app or website.

43Aug 12, 2008Posted Jul 13, 2026

68May 6, 2008Posted Jul 13, 2026

Designing Through a Downturn

The crash reached my clients, and taught me a discount habit I am still trying to break. The price is the price.

52Feb 19, 2008Posted Jul 13, 2026

jQuery and the Joy of Less Code

Pre-built modules that felt like magic, and the quiet worry of knowing less about my own code. Learning that tools always change.

73Dec 20, 2007Posted Jul 13, 2026

Two Years In

Still a designer, still an impostor in my own head, and standing at a crossroads. What I would tell myself heading into 2008.

41Nov 14, 2007Posted Jul 13, 2026

A Client Asked for a Blog

DesignHouse wanted to publish for themselves. What early WordPress taught me about keys, weeds, and the human need to be heard.

67Sep 25, 2007Posted Jul 12, 2026

Nine Fonts and a Workaround

A September spent designing with only nine fonts, and the day real type will finally reach the web.

49Jul 9, 2007Posted Jul 12, 2026

The Glass in My Pocket

Apple shipped a telephone last month. I think it just rewrote my job.

73Mar 8, 2007Posted Jul 12, 2026

The Fold Is a Lie We Tell Clients

The fold became a superstition. The target-ring game I use instead, and why a website is a conduit, not a destination.

42Nov 30, 2006Posted Jul 12, 2026

Print Is Not Dead, But It Is Quieter

Not shrinking, exactly, just quieter as the web arrives beside it. What print taught me about permanence and proportion.

58Sep 12, 2006Posted Jul 11, 2026

Designing for the Wild, Democratized Web

Suddenly everyone had a page and everyone was a designer. Holding taste in a loud and crowded room.

Technology & AIMotionWeb

Flash and the Cult of Motion

I built everything in Flash and loved it, even as I sensed the seams. The intoxication of motion, and the loophole at its heart.

62Jun 27, 2006Posted Jul 12, 2026

63Apr 18, 2006Posted Jul 12, 2026

The Year I Took the Web Seriously

Dreamweaver, CSS, and a back end that actually did something. The year the web stopped being decoration and became architecture.

70Feb 21, 2006Posted Jul 11, 2026

Everything Got Glossy

Web 2.0 arrived in gradients and reflections, and I loved every shiny minute. What the gloss was really teaching us.

65Dec 15, 2005Posted Jul 10, 2026

What School Could Not Teach Me

The lowball offers, the impostor years, and the lessons that only the field can teach.

58Oct 28, 2005Posted Jul 10, 2026

Ink, Lights, and Two in the Morning

A ten-foot printer, three hundred feet of vinyl lost to a colour drift, and the night I learned design is a symphony.

60Sep 19, 2005Posted Jul 10, 2026

The Things a Crowd Never Sees

The wayfinding, the angles cut for a camera, the typo caught at three in the morning. The work that disappears into a good day.

68Jul 24, 2005Posted Jul 10, 2026

My First Real Deadline Came at 250 km/h

I graduated in the spring. By July I was printing a racetrack.