“I think it’s just another place where the more famous designers just pat each other on the back, regardless of what they actually produce.
It’s too elitist and the more known designers only follow each other, leaving less known people following them but their own work barely been seen. This in turn fuels the cycle—the famous get more so, while the more humble designers go unnoticed. I am seriously unimpressed with Dribbble”

So, if you’re really really wanting a Dribbble invite, don’t worry; you’re not missing much.

While I have written several resources in my spare time, and thoroughly enjoyed each, they are very time consuming. The exposure and nice comments they bring are great, but sometimes it’s hard to keep on putting in hours and hours of work in exchange for a pat on the back—that’s why so few people actually take the time to do it.

Photo by @suzehaworth

So, having gotten back into trials lately, combined with improving weather, I’m devoting more spare time to that at the moment. Evenings not spent with Suze will most likely be spent riding. Not at my PC.

This is not to say I won’t be writing articles any more, far from it. I love writing articles, and as CSS Wizardry’s exposure has rocketed recently (thanks to people like yourself) writing articles is even more rewarding than ever, and the quality of the comments and feedback is increasing too. I have article ideas all the time, and will post whenever I have the chance. All that’s happening at the moment is I’m stepping back from the PC for a bit, for my health and sanity more than anything. Too much time at the PC can’t be doing me much good. A result of which is that I haven’t been on email for a couple of weeks now…

If you have emailed and it is urgent, I apologise. Please tweet at me as I’m always on Twitter. I’ve also had emails regarding permission to translate Web Design+—if you’d like to translate it that’d be great, you have my permission to do so (provided you don’t pass it off as your own, of course).

Also, regarding freelance work; I shan’t be undertaking any form of freelance for the foreseeable future, sorry…

Keep following me on Twitter though, as I’ll still be posting links and things as ever, and add the CSS Wizardry RSS feed so any articles I do write, you’ll hear about first.

I’m not going, just relaxing. And I think you should too. Move away from your computer, get outside and have fun!

Cheers,
Harry

Oh, and the post title is a reference to this song.

Today, Suze and I decided to head out for a few hours so I could ride, and she could take some pictures with her iPhone (yes, the following were all taken and edited on her iPhone!).

Apologies for poor video quality.

Drop gap

Small drop

Stoppie

To back wheel

Gap

On top

I’d been trying this one for ages. We’re talking months…

Going down

…gotta get back down after though.

Wait, no seat?

I know, I know; there’s no seat. It’s meant to be like that for a few reasons:

1. The shape of the frame means that the pedals come up to higher than any seat would.
2. You spend so little time sat down when riding trials that a seat is almost entirely redundant.
3. The place where a seat would be means it could cause (males in particular) some serious damage.

Do I need an iPhone?

Of course I don’t, but I do have one, and that’s what I’m used to. However, after a few days I kind of got used to, and almost enjoyed (almost) not being connected to the internet, the internet that I spend 8+ hours a day sat connected to.

The problem

Sure, the first few days were okay. And I had bought into a policy whereby the damaged item is replaced in 48 hours. I rang up and was told the it would in fact take 10–12 days. It took 30. Anyone who owns an iPhone surely knows that that just isn’t easy.

The insurers name? Read the opening paragraph again, closely ;) Shh…

Anyway, anyone following me on Twitter will know that this whole farce has really wound me up, with error after error on the insurers part. You will also know that I have refused to name them. This was for the sake of professionalism, while ever they were messing around, and I was keeping it amicable, they were 100% in the wrong, nothing could come back to me, nor could my actions influence theirs (i.e. me being rude making them even slower etc.). It didn’t really work to my advantage, but still, better that than be a rude shouty b*stard to them, eh?

Too much time on my hands!

Thai • Po • graph • e

Photo by Simon Wiffen.

Sense Internet

I applied the job at Sense when I was 17. My interviewer was my soon to be boss and Creative Director Tony Jacobs. Just from seeing the company and meeting Tony I knew this was where I wanted to work.

After starting at Sense on 14 July, 2008, I got to meet some amazing people, who were excellent at their jobs, great to get on with and an all round top team. I worked on a range of projects of varying sizes with different roles and responsibilities. I was allowed to exercise my skills, and learn from others. I could voice my opinion in as much as I listened to what others had to offer. It was an excellent creative and skilled environment.

One of Sense’s greatest assets is its people and it provided me with friends, colleagues, and above all my beautiful girlfriend Suzanna. We were both fortunate enough to work with people who became good friends to the both of us. Working with someone you’re in a relationship with, some would say, is inadvisable, but I loved every minute of it. It was something that made my next decision all the more difficult…

The decision

After, for one reason or another, losing friends, colleagues and mentors from Sense things began feeling a little different. It’s more than fair to say Sense was still an amazing company, and probably the best I have will ever worked for, however things just didn’t feel the same. I had no views to leaving Sense at all, I was still happy there, until I was granted an opportunity to work once more with the massively talented Dan Metcalfe, and my previous ‘mentor’, Simon Wiffen.

That opportunity was to work for entrepreneur Justin Whitston at his new startup, Venturelab. After meeting Justin and hearing his ideas, as well as his business plan and impressive portfolio, I was loving the idea of a fresh new challenge. Over the next month I had some really big decisions to make.

I could stay at Sense where, owing to their position, I had the chance to shape a team and become a senior developer. I would stay with friends in a job I was more than happy with, working with and for some great people. Or, I could take a risk, up and leave and work with two friends for a brand new company building websites for entrepreneurs and, whereas Sense worked with large household names, on unknown projects and clients. It was traditional agency work vs. a chance to work in a more fast paced business centred environment.

Venturelab

After much deliberation I decided to head to Venturelab. I wasn’t really ready to leave Sense, but opportunities like this don’t come around that often. It was something I had to do now, while I could. Being 19 I can afford to take career risks right now that maybe I couldn’t later on.

So, as of 11 January, 2010, I was employed by Venturelab. I miss Sense and all its wonderful characters and working environment a lot, but the idea of new challenges is exciting to me. I now have the opportunity to break away from your ‘typical’ web work and a chance to help businesses really grow. Plus the technical aspects of being a web developer at Venturelab is amazing—I have submitted and had accepted a proposal for the dev team to adopt a progressive enhancement approach across the board, using CSS3 as standard on all builds.

Sense people: Amy Littlefair, Simon Wiffen, Matt Tarbit, Ben Tappin, Wes Mason, Dan Metcalfe, Connor Wilkinson, Jonny Stirling, Richard Harwood, Mark Barrett, Gemma Lawson, Gaz Battersby, Vince Pickering, Andy Mason, Rob Farnell, George Kamsika, Darren Armstrong, Suzanna Haworth, Aidan Cook, Paul Allen, Dan Bentley, Tony Jacobs, Ro Ramtohul (sorry if I missed anyone).

Final word

Working at Sense was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had. The work, the people, the company, everything. I do almost feel like I wasn’t ready to leave, but Venturelab was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up on—the new environment, the chance to work with Si and Dan once more and an opportunity for more varied responsibilities.

I’d like to thank Sense; the people I met, the opportunity I was given, their faith in a 17 year old developer and the amazing environment in which they ‘employ’ their team (I use the term employ lightly, as Sense never felt like a normal job). It has been an absolutely fantastic time—with too many good times to even try and remember—and I hope we cross paths again sometime in the future.

To Aidan, Sense, and everyone there; thank you.
Harry

The good

It’s nice to be able to say that lately I’ve been noticing an increase in good customer service rather than bad. Instead of boring you with reams of storytelling and recounts, I’ll just give a list and a few points on why I enjoyed dealing with each:

• Moo: I used Moo’s online system to make my new business cards. They quality was amazing, the delivery was speedy, the process was smooth and the company is great. I’d definitely recommend them.
• Tampopo: Suze and I headed to Tampopo yesterday for some lunch. If you live near a Tampopo and have never been, I urge you to go. The food is outstanding, the service is quick and the staff are extremely friendly.
• La Bottega Milanese: This is a tiny little coffee shop that has recently opened by my house. It’s not a franchise or a chain, it’s one guy who has opened up a lovely little shop. The coffee was excellent, he was extremely friendly, the shop was nice and it was just a more enjoyable experience than your typical Starbucks type coffee.
• North Bar: North Bar is a gorgeous little bar in the centre of Leeds, and a personal favourite of mine. The beers there are out of this world and the service is always superb. If you like world beers, you’ll love North Bar.

The bad

Unfortunately there is a flip-side. There are places where the service is not that good.

• PC World: Just after Christmas I bought myself a Dell Inspiron Netbook from PC World. I Suze called up the night before to reserve one black Netbook at the online price of £249. We arrived at the store the next day to find they’d reserved two red ones at £279. When we mentioned this they seemed to think it was our fault. ‘It says here you wanted red. It says here you want two. You don’t want to pay for extra security?!’
• Oporto, Jake’s Bar and Bar Room Bar: This might just be ‘one of those things’ but anyone following me on Twitter will know that this got me absolutely livid. I headed out with a good friend Joe Whitley for a few drinks in Leeds only to be turned away from three bars because they weren’t prepared to let two guys in without any female company. So much for organising a night out with a male friend. Three of the better bars in Leeds, plus my favourite, Oporto, really managed to annoy and alienate me last night…

In short…

So, in short, the products of all the above are completely acceptable, and worth the amount you pay for them. What made all the difference however is the non-monetary value added (or subtracted) through customer service. It’s something all businesses should definitely try and focus on more.

Any stories of good or bad customer services yourselves?

Naturally I designed the cards in Illustrator but my initial thoughts were to flatten these vector files and send them off to a print company to be done by them. However, after remembering Moo, I decided to give them a shot and get a limited run of just fifty cards made—this was because I wasn’t sure on just how good the quality might be…

The main reason for my concerns about quality was the fact that I was to print the cards from a .jpg image, rather than a lossless vector format. However, when they arrived I was amazed to find they were perfectly legible, totally flawless and perfectly finished. Nothing was even slightly questionable about the cards or their quality, I was pretty impressed!

As well as the quality of the cards themselves I was delighted to find they were presented in a gorgeous heavy card case along with some sorting tags for ‘Mine’ and ‘Theirs’ business cards. A beautiful way to present some top quality cards.

Moo MiniCards

As well as getting myself some business cards from Moo I decided to surprise Suze with some MiniCards with a few photos from her Flickr stream. The cards were, again, top quality, presented in a lovely shallow box. She was really pleased with them! Although she is wondering what exactly to do with them, so please post any suggestions!

A firm recommendation…

After the speed with which the cards were printed and delivered, their outstanding quality, the beautiful presentation and the sheer pleasure of using Moo (not to mention the extremely attractive prices) I will, without a shadow of a doubt, be using Moo again, and definitely recommending them to anyone who requires professional business cards or something novelty like their MiniCards. Five star service.

A little tilt-shift one I got:

A shot of Park Square by @suzehaworth:

A shot of Leeds Town hall by @suzehaworth: