Keir Whitaker - Publishing occasionally since 2008

Having worked on a number of responsive designs over the last year and a half I thought it was about time to update my own site. Coupled with the ambition to write more in 2012 I spent some time over the last few months tweaking my old theme before throwing it out and starting a fresh.

The result is simple, as always, but it feels good to have employed some of the techniques I have picked up over the last year. Here’s to a year of more words and less theme tinkering!

It’s been pretty quiet round here since my last post in July. “Too busy to blog!”, how many times have we all said that. For the most part it’s true. Working for yourself, as I am sure most of my freelance friends will testify, is both extremely satisfying but also all-encompassing. Throw in a couple of young children and there’s not that much time left in the day to blog, however it’s something I intend to do more of once I get that redesign out of the door!

Freelancing so Far

The last 10 months have been amazing work wise. I have been very privileged to work with amazing clients across the world on a variety of projects taking in front end development, WordPress, editorial work at Smashing Magazine as well finding time to work on pet projects like BreadApp.

Insites Tour

One of my personal highlights for 2011 was undoubtedly the Insites Tour which I co-organised with long time friend Elliot Jay Stocks. We packed our bags and crossed the country for four evening events and chatted to 13 web industry leaders about their beginnings, big wins, lessons learned and much more. Not only was it insightful, apologies but it’s hard to avoid the word, but so much fun. To top it all off the feedback we got from those who attended was fantastic.

Elliot and I have been friends for a long time. I actually met him when I came down to Bath for my first interview at Carsonified in late 2007. Although he moved on in early 2008 we kept in touch and have shared many good times and the occasional Belgian ale over the years. We’ve often chatted about collaborating and it was great to finally do so on Insites Tour. We’ve also shared many ideas, some of which we have decided to turn into reality.
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In a few days time Elliot and I head out on the road for the first Insites Tour. It’s going to be a fun four nights chatting about industry experiences, the good the bad and the ugly, with 13 of the finest web professionals living and working in the UK.

In particular I am looking forward to visiting Manchester, a city I haven’t been to since 1994! You can of course find out more about the tour on the Insites site and can register (only £29 including drinks and snacks) via Amiando.

MailChimp Coasters

Elliot and I have both been privileged to have worked with MailChimp on previous projects and were delighted when they agreed to get involved in Insites. They wanted to do something a little different and offered to produce a series of coasters for each leg of the tour.

We were excited when we saw the initial sketches, more excited when we saw a photo of the real thing and mildly ecstatic when UPS delivered them. They look and feel amazing. Don’t forget to grab yours if you are coming along.
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A recent post on Smashing Magazine (look for the section titled “Add Body Classes Based on Special Conditions”) got me thinking about how I use the body tag in WordPress.

When marking up a design I will often add the “page name” to the body as a class or id. I mainly use this to style current page links in a navigation menu. For example in BreadApp I do the following to highlight the current section:

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/* Nav hover styles */
header nav .primary li a:hover,
#latest header nav .primary li a.latest,
#design header nav .primary li a.design,
#development header nav .primary li a.development,
#mobile header nav .primary li a.mobile,
#tags header nav .primary li a.tags { background: #E9E7DC url(/img/light_background_tile.jpg); color: #545351; text-shadow: none; }

It’s a common technique and a useful aid to targeting certain elements based on the current page. Although WordPress does automatically add a number of classes to the body tag it does require you to have specific knowledge of things like the template name and page id.
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Whenever I click on the Remember The Milk icon in my browser I can’t help but think of the logo of that “classic” UK 90′s band The Inspiral Carpets, surely I can’t be the only one.

In another bizarre twist of “Madchester” fate the Inspirals also had a campaign where they used a milk bottle to promote one of their singles.

Update

Thanks to the wonder of Twitter Mr. Inspirals himself Clint Boon found this post! I literally did a double take when that came through.