Keir Whitaker - Publishing occasionally since 2008

Last week I headed up to Nottingham with Kieran for the second New Adventures in Web Design hosted by Messrs Collison and Wood. I really enjoyed the inaugural event and year two was no exception. It was a great kick off to the year and a fantastic opportunity to catch up with old friends (Graham’s beard, peppermint brownies and the customary catch up in Starbucks of course being a highlight), meet new people and of course hear from some of the web’s finest practitioners.

Highlights

Whilst all eight talks were off a high standard three really stood out for me and for quite different reasons. In no particular order:

• Dan Mall – Dan works at Big Spaceship who boast clients as diverse as Crayola and Star Wars. He gave us a fascinating insight into his design process and discussed how he and his colleagues push the boundaries, sometimes with great outcomes, occasionally less successfully. I also loved the way Dan presents his iPhone designs to clients (see slide 47 for a visual explanation). Above all it was great to see that big agencies experience similar problems to the rest of us on client projects.
• Trent Walton – Trent and his colleagues at Paravel are consistently turning out inspiring work as well as creating a number of great open-source jQuery plugins. I really enjoyed listening to Trent discuss his motivation for pushing the boundaries in CSS and “web type”. I was also privileged to chat with Trent the day after the conference as he kindly agreed to be part of our upcoming Insites book.
• Cameron Koczon – I was lucky enough to attend Brooklyn Beta last year. As well as working on a range of great products Cameron is one of the organisers of BB and his passion is infectious, not just for bringing interesting people together but also for encouraging them to get out there and make something great. His quick fire delivery and message was certainly inspiring and reinforced the route that Elliot and I are taking with Viewport Industries.

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Reverting to Type from Lima Charlie on Vimeo.

Whilst not a die hard typophile like some I can’t help but admire the sheer craftsmanship embodied in the production of letterpress prints. This four minute video highlights the work of New North Press – well worth a watch.

 

This morning I woke up to the news that Open Source Scotland 2012 has been cancelled. I hadn’t actually bought a ticket, yet, but from what I have read it looks like the organisers have run into problems with PayPal retaining the ticket revenue. This is not the first time this has happened and it’s certainly not unique to conference organisers. Colly and Aral suffered the same fate last year with New Adventures and Update and I know of one or two other projects that have been affected too.

What’s the Problem?

I am writing this from memory but I believe the issue PayPal has is that they immediately think the worst when a large amount of money lands into your account. You would think a simple email exchange pointing them to your web site which shows details of your event and the booking form would be enough to resolve the issue, sadly this doesn’t appear to be the case. It also appears that there is never a rush to deposit the money in your account, even after acknowledging the fact that you are running a conference.
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At the tail end of last year Alex Duloz asked me if I would like to participate in a new venture called “The Pastry Box Project“. It’s a great idea and naturally I said yes. Here’s all you need to know:

Each year, The Pastry Box Project gathers 30 people who are each influential in their field and asks them to share thoughts regarding what they do. Those thoughts are then be published every day throughout the year at a rate of one per day, starting January 1st and ending December 31st. 2012′s topic is “Shaping The Web”.

Alex has rounded up an amazing line up of contributors, or “bakers” as he calls them – it’s an honour to be included. Each one of us has a custom portrait, mine certainly comes in the “don’t mess with me” category but I kind of like it!

My first post was published today. In it I talk about how surrounding yourself with talented people is a great way to improve your own skill set. You can’t directly comment on the site but if you have some thoughts please feel free to let me know here.

A few weeks ago Elliot and I blogged about the new company we formed called Viewport Industries. We both mentioned that one of our first releases would be a sequel to “Insites: The Tour” but with a twist. Today we are really excited to tell you more about our #bigsecretproject. Many people thought we would be taking the format to a full day conference – maybe one day but not quite yet!

Insites: The Book

We are delighted to announce that (all being well) “Insites: The Book” will be available from mid April 2012. Featuring 20 interviews with 21 of the web and tech industries leading figures it follows the same format as “Insites: The Tour”, no code, no deisgn just fasincating stories, big wins, lessons learned and much more.

Over the past few months we have conducted over half the interviews, the majority in person. It’s been fascinating listening to and learning from the people who have contributed so much to our industry. We think you’ll find it just as interesting as us.

“Insites: The Book” will be published by Viewport Industries and will build upon all the knowledge Elliot has acquired producing 8 Faces. It will be high on production values, as Elliot says “think 8 Faces on acid!” (Editors note: wasn’t that the cover of Issue #3).

Be the First to Hear

We are working to a tight deadline and are aiming for a mid April launch date. We have posted a page with further details including a selection of the people we have been privileged to chat with so far over at insitesbook.com, you can also sign up for updates or follow our fresh new Twitter account @insitesbook.

We’ll both be documenting the process over the coming weeks. We look forward to sharing the journey with you.