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Month: April 2010

Recommended Design-related blogs

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Introduction

A couple of people in the last month have asked if I’d share which blogs I read regularly. It’s a logical follow-up, I suppose, to my Things I Learned This Week posts. If I used an RSS reader this would be very easy: I’d just export my subscriptions as an OPML file. Readers could then download this and import it into their RSS reader.

But, er… I don’t any more. I made a conscious and deliberate switch to subscribing to blogs by email – either through author-provided functionality or RSS >> Email courtesy of Reblinks. Which makes things slightly more difficult (and this post necessary).

A non-design blog I subscribe to, Alan Levine’s excellent CogDogBlog, featured a post yesterday that discussed the importance of both online and offline filtering. That’s because, as Clay Shirky is always at pains to point out, it’s not information overload, it’s filter failure. Whilst serendipity and specific niche interest are both important things that shouldn’t be neglected, it’s also important to identify people who are awesome filters of information, links and connections.

The Blogs

The following blogs are design-related but also have a community element; they serve as a hub for a wider bunch of people. As such, you’ll find added value in trawling the comments section as much as the posts themselves. 😀

  1. FlowingData – I really enjoy Nathan Yau’s blog and find his simple and straightforward guides extremely useful as a beginner!
  2. Smashing Magazine – Design in the widest sense. They often have wonderful posts showcasing the best and brighest stuff on the intertubes in a given area. They also have (downloadable) monthly wallpaper contests – such as this one for April 2010.
  3. swissmiss – Tina Roth Eisenberg is a prolific blogger, to the extent that she only took a few days off from blogging after giving birth and named her baby after consulting her readers! I love the quirky stuff she posts and it always makes me smile. 🙂
  4. Information is Beautiful – David McCandless not only has a regular section in the Guardian but has written books. Awesome visualizations and infographics!
  5. Visual Complexity – The diversity of visualizations and design on this blog is truly stunning.

More?

Looking for more design blog goodness? Try this ‘Top 50 design blogs’ and, of course, AllTop’s Design section. :-p

Best 3 things about my new job?

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

I used to work in schools as a teacher then a senior leader. I’m now a Researcher/Analyst for JISC infoNet.

People have asked me recently about the differences between the two. Here’s the best 3 things about my new role:

1. Flexi-time: I can work more at times when I’m more productive and take holidays at times that suit me.

2. Social media: We’re positively encouraged to use social media at work – and there’s minimal Internet filtering!

3. Work-life balance: I now actually *have* some of the latter half of this equation…

So yes, I’m enjoying it. Do I miss being in the classroom? Of course! Do I miss all of the stuff that goes with it? No way! 🙂

If I were trapped on a Desert Island…

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

The Idea/Meme

If you were somehow trapped on a desert island but with a limited amount of internet access, which sites would you choose? As Paul Lewis (@aerotwist) helpfully pointed out, you couldn’t have sites that relied on other sites to serve content (e.g. no YouTube embeds – unless, of course, you chose YouTube as one of your sites). And there would be no point in choosing a search engine. Obviously. 😉

Motivation(s)

@BenMawhinney (via @aerotwist) after reading Ewan McIntosh’s Spotify for Desert Island Discs post.

Disclaimer

On one (many?) levels this is completely daft as if you were stuck on a desert island the websites you’d choose the websites of rescue services and charities specialising in dramatic desert island rescues.

But I’ll play the game… :-p

My Choices

If I could only access 5 websites, these* are the ones I’d choose:

  1. dougbelshaw.com – I need to write for an audience!
  2. Gmail.com – would give me contact with the outside world.
  3. Twitter.com – I’m pretty certain the people in my ‘network’ could get me off that island (if they wanted to!)
  4. Dropbox.com – that way anyone could send me pretty much anything digitally-speaking
  5. Project Gutenberg – over 100,000 free books!

I’m tempted to include Spotify, but that would open a whole can of worms and I sense there’s another post in that… 😉

Your turn!

What would YOU choose?

* Of course, if the question is really “Which websites do you visit every day?” then I’d answer BBC News, newsmap.jp (it’s my screensaver!), Techmeme, dougbelshaw.com/blog, Flickr Blog, TeuxDeux, HotUKdeals and GMail. 🙂

Image CC BY rogerbarker2

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