Diversity in Tech

I moved to the Netherlands to live with my lovely Dutch boyfriend in February, and I’m currently find­ing my feet as a freel­ance designer in this equally lovely coun­try. The boyfriend in ques­tion is the nerdy type — he’s a Network Engineer and all round expert for IPv6, the ‘new’ inter­net protocol that’s tech­nic­ally been around for 30 years, […]

Read more "Diversity in Tech"

Transforming academic language

One of my last tasks as Imagination’s Design Visualiser was to put together a brochure. The times­cale was tight — less than 2 weeks — and the inform­a­tion avail­able was in densely packed academic language — no good for the inten­ded audi­ence of MPs in the House of Commons, used to brief­ing papers on every subject under […]

Read more "Transforming academic language"

Maslow’s Iceberg of Needs

I decided Maslow’s pyram­idal hier­archy of needs needed an update. Pyramids are just too… safe. Solid. Architectural. Like people can just decide to move up a level, and if they tried really hard and climbed a few steps, they could. I reckon an iceberg is a better meta­phor for the human condi­tion. Slippery, unfor­giv­ing, and for the most […]

Read more "Maslow’s Iceberg of Needs"

An app for Ebola?

All the way back in September 2014, shortly after the nail‐biting nervous­ness of getting into the final of the Hack4Good Global Climate Challenge, I got a tent­at­ive email from Dan Cunningham, organ­iser extraordin­aire of Hack4Good, about whether I’d like to be involved in a little project he was help­ing put together. Six or seven of our rag‐tag group of […]

Read more "An app for Ebola?"

Production Mode — sustainable fashion

One fash­ion design website lead to another — with a differ­ent twist. Production Mode is “commit­ted to fair trade prac­tices includ­ing trans­parency through­out our supply chain, paying living wages to the weavers, tanners, cutters and stitch­ers who produce our prod­ucts, and to redu­cing our envi­ron­mental impact. It is our goal that these values become the norm […]

Read more "Production Mode — sustainable fashion"

Designing a fashion website

To say that fash­ion websites are a bit out of my comfort zone is a defin­ite under­state­ment. For all that I’ve occa­sion­ally been accused of being styl­ish (rarely, I might add, and mostly in the over­coat depart­ment), under­stand­ing the fash­ion audi­ence is a diffi­cult intu­it­ive leap for someone whose usual choices revolve around two ques­tions: a) will it fit […]

Read more "Designing a fashion website"

Service design conference

At the begin­ning of February I star­ted a bit of a career shift. From spare‐time designer and full‐time web editor, to full‐time designer. My new job meant I moved halfway across the coun­try to Lancaster (aka the Frozen North), for a job in Academia — at a design research centre called Imagination. Yes, a designer for design­ers, aka a glut­ton for punish­ment. Now […]

Read more "Service design conference"