Product designer and creative technologist
Eleven million Spanish speakers in the U.S lack access to the mental health care they require. Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash The Brief Design a telehealth platform that connects Spanish speaking Latinos in the United States, with licensed behavioral health and substance use counsellors based in Latin America. Compás (Spanish for “compass” and colloquial for “friend”), will provide culturally…
Lightfall is a new and independent photo sharing community created for photographers of all levels. It’s an open platform for connecting and sharing your favourite shots, without algorithms, advertising or the noise of mainstream social media. The Brief To design the Lightfall logo and marketing website. Create a compelling brand that embodies Lightfall’s core values of openness, authenticity, and…
69% of children in the US read below grade level — 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress, NAEP Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash The Brief Inspire young children (aged 5–11) to fall in love with learning. To improve reading and literacy levels in students and unlock every child’s potential through personalised and engaging learning experiences. Challenges We identified three core…
When reviewing which projects to put in my portfolio, it struck me how ephemeral my work can be . There are very few sites that last for more than a few years, leaving me to rely on patchy archives in the Wayback Machine. I don’t think all work deserves to be kept; the Internet is full of dubious old content and design. It does however leave me pondering why some sites last and others don’t. Photo…
Talk is a lightweight and accessible mobile app for the neurodivergent community; a place to connect, make friends and support each other. The following concept was developed to support an investment pitch, showcasing initial ideas and potential functionality for the app. The Brief Design and develop a prototype chat app with a focus on accessibility, emotional safety and user customisation.…
Contents: The Philosophy The Hardware The Software Designing for Resilience This project is something I started tinkering on just over two years ago. It’s not perfect, but I feel I have gotten it to a point where it is resilient enough to share. It is easy to underestimate how much power is needed to sustain modern life and this experiment has given me a whole new appreciation for how power hungry…
This project details how I set up my self hosted Fediverse server and connected it to the outside world from my home network. I will cover the why, my technology choices and some of the more technical details but won’t give you too much of an onboarding as to what the Fediverse is and how it works. There are plenty of great sites that cover that already . Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash The…
I think the Internet is still mourning the closure of Google Reader . Google likes to shut things down, but Google Reader was well loved and well used. It didn’t and still doesn’t make sense. Photo by Katja-Anna Krug on Unsplash I often wonder how much that one decision impacted digital life. It took a huge number of eyeballs away from blogs and pushed people towards social media. Now we all spend…
With over 2 million installations, WP Super Cache is one of the most popular open source caching plugins for WordPress. I like to think of it as one of the original static site generators. This project was a short exploration to understand how WP Super Cache could be modernised and become part of the Jetpack suite of products, alongside Jetpack and Jetpack Boost. As an exploratory project, it was…
Gwisk Lowen sells sustainable clothing for little ones and is Cornish for “Happy Clothes”. All of the clothes are hand picked from sustainable manufacturers, with the hope they become your everyday favourites. The Brief Create a fun, child friendly brand to be used across a new e-commerce website and marketing materials. Branding The logo conveys the playful, joyful personality of the company.…
I have been setting up lots of Raspberry Pis, mostly for use with my home automation projects . It’s time to document how I setup and get the most out of these fantastic little machines. Photo by Vishnu Mohanan on Unsplash Grab Raspberry Pi OS Lite Head over to raspberrypi.org and download the latest copy of the Raspberry Pi OS (Lite). Every single Pi I have ever setup has been a headless machine…
Search has typically been a challenge with WordPress, especially for larger sites with extensive content archives. Jetpack Search was created as a simple way to bring the power of Elastic Search to WordPress. Jetpack Search was originally only available as part of the higher tier Jetpack plans. In early 2020, we embarked on a project to create a standalone product that brought improvements to…
Jetpack is a open source WordPress plugin for self-hosted WordPress users. Jetpack provides stats, email subscriptions, backups, malware scanning, anti-spam, and more. The wide range of features make it extremely popular with over 5 million active installs. Challenges In 2019, market research indicated that security and malware remained the top concerns for WordPress users. Jetpack had backups,…
I believe it was some time in 2016 when the UK set out plans install smart energy meters in all UK homes. At first glance it seemed like a good idea. It would remove the need to report meter readings manually each month and allow home owners to see (in realtime) their energy consumption. Hopefully that would lead them to adjust their usage, saving both energy and money. It raised two concerns for…
Earlier this year Gemma and I took a short trip to Berlin. It is a place we have always wanted to visit and it didn’t disappoint. It is a city full of history, interesting architecture and most importantly, great food! Walking back to our hotel one evening, we discovered a building that stood out to us. It was a huge, abandoned and had ‘Stop Wars’ painted in red across the front. The lettering was…
I have a guilty pleasure. On a Sunday afternoon when the weather is bad I like nothing more than to sit down to an episode of Columbo . We have the entire box set and have made our way though every episode, including the pilots of Mrs Columbo. Watching a random episode is now just an: “Alexa, ask Plex to play Columbo” away. Bliss. Today is no exception and watching the way he interrogates,…
WordCamp Europe is a community-organised gathering of WordPress enthusiasts — from casual users to Core developers. We come together from across Europe (and beyond) to discuss all things WordPress, share ideas and get to know each other. WordCamp Europe is often the largest event on the WordCamp calendar and roams from city to city. In 2017, the host city was Paris . I formed part of the volunteer…
When we moved into our first house in a small village on the Surrey / Hampshire border, we were offered some space at our local allotments. Being both young and hungry, we jumped at the opportunity. Suddenly we became those people who are fixated on the forecast — would our veggies survive the next deluge, snow shower or heat wave? Our nearest official weather station was in the next town, outside…
WordCamps are community conferences dedicated to everything WordPress. WordCamp London 2015 was a 3 day conference held at London Metropolitan University from 20th — 22nd March. As with all WordCamps, it was organised by volunteers who are passionate about WordPress, the community and open source software. The Brief To deliver a memorable event that would create lasting connections across the…
Toggle was a boutique gadget case company on a mission to do good. Each case a handmade labour of love, designed to protect your precious gadgets, and give them a little extra personality. The company was created to offer an alternative to the mass produced, environmentally destructive, synthetic cases that had flooded the market since the release of the first iPhone. The bet was that if people…
Look away from the screen (for just a second or two). Everything you have just witnessed has been designed. The placement of trees, the shaping of fields for agriculture, the street furniture, carpet, your chair and wrist watch have all been considered. Our influence on our surrounding environment is beyond remarkable. In our profession it is very easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Our days…