I’m your host, Andy Clarke, and I’m writing a Hardboiled Web Design book about Art Directing for the Web. You can find out more about that at stuffandnonsense.co.uk/books. Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be discussing art directing for web with my guests, some of the most experienced art directors and designers working on the web today.

In this episode, Rob Weychert and I discuss Art Directing the Web.

Sponsor: This season of Unfinished Business is proudly sponsored by CoffeeCup Software, and in particular their new CSS Grid Builder. CSS Grid Builder is currently free while CoffeeCup develops it and if you like what they’re doing, you can throw a few dollars their way to help fund its development. Find out more and download CSS Grid Builder at https://cssgrid.cc

I’m your host, Andy Clarke, and I’m writing a Hardboiled Web Design book about Art Directing for the Web. You can find out more about that at stuffandnonsense.co.uk/books. Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be discussing art directing for web with my guests, some of the most experienced art directors and designers working on the web today.

In this episode, Stephen Hay and I discuss Art Directing the Web.

Sponsor: This season of Unfinished Business is proudly sponsored by CoffeeCup Software, and in particular their new CSS Grid Builder. CSS Grid Builder is currently free while CoffeeCup develops it and if you like what they’re doing, you can throw a few dollars their way to help fund its development. Find out more and download CSS Grid Builder at https://cssgrid.cc

I know. I know! It’s been far too long since episode 117. But fret no more, Unfinished Business fans, we’re back and back for good, every two weeks with some brilliant guests and some good old fashioned conversations. This week, I’m joined by Sean Johnson and Drew McLellan to talk fat and fitness, cruises and coach trips.

• Sean on Twitter
• Drew on Twitter
• Perch

You might remember that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s my Rotring 800 .5mm mechanical pencil.

Finally, yes finally , Anna and Andy get around to the first of two, maybe three, episodes about contacts. They talk about the ‘ Contract Killer,’ why they think it’s important to always use a contract and why some people think otherwise. They discuss the essential elements that should go into every contract and why, on top of any legal benefits, how a good contract says a lot about how you do business and why writing yours should be a creative challenge you relish.

(Don’t miss the gag reel and ice-cream banter after the show. It’s a scorcher.)

This episode wouldn’t be possible without our sponsor: GatherContent — GatherContent helps people who build websites work with their clients to plan, organise and collaborate on web content. If you sign up through that page, you’ll get 20% of your subscription.

In this week’s episode, Anna and Andy discuss Motorhead and motorcycles and how Andy’s too much of a ‘wendy’ to lift one. Really. They talk about how Stuff and Nonsense’s pattern of weekly working sometimes doesn’t work and how to deal with competing client demands when you have limited time available.

Thanks to our sponsor this week Blush — Blush does beautiful letterpress printing of cards, stationery and more for designers and artists. Support the show by supporting them.

In this week’s episode, lycra wearing, tightrope walker* Anna Debenham and moustache twiddling strong man Andy Clarke ask “who would win in a fight? Boba Fett or Batman?” “If the world was ending tomorrow, which endangered species would you eat?” and other important business questions? More importantly they talk about reviews and how they can help improve your business.

Thanks to our sponsor, Ghostlab — Synchronized cross-browser and mobile testing taken to the next level. Get 30% off at checkout with the offer code UNFINISHEDBUSINESS.

* We lied about the lycra.

In this, the 25th anniversary episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and Andrew talk about working in a supermarket (a while ago, obviously) and how Andy’s professional level skiving almost lead him to a career in supermarket management. They talk about selling an experience as well as selling design or code and how creative services are as much about putting on a show as they are about doing work.

This episode is sponsored by Perch, the little content management system for projects where you don’t want a big, complex CMS.

While Anna’s away, Andy talks to (Alex’s friend) Brad Frost about iOS7, dropping pretzels and chocolate Hobnobs. (Spoiler: Brad had no idea what they are.) In between they talk about speaking and contributing and what you gain by giving away information freely.

Thanks to our sponsor, GatherContent. GatherContent helps people who build websites work with their clients to plan, organise and collaborate on web content. Even better, if you sign up through that page, you’ll get 20% of your subscription. That’s a great offer.

In this week’s episode of Unfinished Business, Anna and Andy talk about Andy being robbed in Geneva and the implications, both personal and business of what happened to him. They talk about the importance of ensuring that insurance is up-to-date (spoiler: Andy’s wasn’t) and how to secure your iOS devices and Mac in case of theft.

Thanks to our sponsors, Ghostlab — Synchronized cross-browser and mobile testing taken to the next level. Get 30% off at checkout with the offer code UNFINISHEDBUSINESS , and Blush.

Blush does beautiful letterpress printing of cards, stationery and more for designers and artists. Get 25% off their classic ampersands and ligatures prints with the offer code UNFINISHEDPRINTS.

If you’re an ‘everyday’ web designer or developer — instead of one who’s perhaps made of plastic or maybe carved out of soap — we think you’ll love this week’s episode of Unfinished Business.

Anna and Andy talk about being nominated for awards and being made into action figures and how that’s made them feel. They discuss whether it’s acceptable to make you or your company look bigger than you really are and whether sites such as Agencies Rated can really help freelancers.

Anna and Andy talk about their worst business mistakes and disasters, what went wrong on the worst client projects and what they learned from them. Andy also wants to know why his hotel’s housekeeping steals his soap, plus there are confessions galore about shampoo, Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber.

This week the show’s sponsored by Smashing Magazine’s CSS3 For Responsive Design workshop with Andy Clarke. It’s happening in Freiburg in Germany on June 25th. Save 15% off the ticket price with the offer code unfinished6.

And Revolution. Revolution is a conference being held in Shrewsbury, Shropshire in the UK on Friday 27th September. Speakers include Elliot Jay Stocks, Jonathon Snook, our good friend and stand-in co-host Laura Kalbag and more. Thanks to our sponsors for making this show possible.

In this week’s episode, Anna and Andy talk about secrecy, about what they can say about the business they do and what they can’t They talk about non-disclosure agreements and why it’s important for everyone to sign one, plus why Andy wrote and published his plain speaking Three Wise Monkeys NDA. Andy gets all emotional about Alex’s twenty-first birthday and can’t quite believe that Anna’s never heard of Blackpool illuminations.

This episode is sponsored by Perch, the little content management system for projects where you don’t want a big, complex CMS and by Sketch, the professional vector application for web designers, icon designers and illustrators.

While Anna’s away in Amsterdam, Andy talks with designer Laura Kalbag about Star Trek Into Darkness, how they name wifi networks and whether location really affects their businesses. They discuss about how to find good sub-contractors and the differences between working for clients direct or via third-parties.

This episode is sponsored by Slide + Stage — become a better presenter with this full-day, intensive masterclass with Aral Balkan. If you’re one of the first twenty people to use our special URL, you’ll get £20 off your ticket price. And by Ghostlab — ‘Synchronized cross-browser and mobile testing taken to the next level.’ If you use the offer code UNFINISHEDBUSINESS , you’ll get 30% off Ghostlab until June 15th.

The Unfinished Business schedule’s been a little, shall we say, up in the air, for the past few episodes. while I’ve been busy writing something. I do aim to get back to our routine and I’m sorry for the disruption.

A few weeks ago I recorded a hilarious episode with artist, illustrator and rapper Mr. Bingo. We talk about artist—and former Spitting Image puppet maker—Wilfrid Wood, Banksy’s Dismaland and why IKEA in Croydon is like a real-life bemusement park.

We discuss Mr. Bingo’s Hate Mail series, his boundaries and how Hate Mail in real life would just be people paying to be shouted at. We also talk about his highly successful Kickstarter for his new Hate Mail book and the hilarious incentives he devised.

Content warning: As you might imagine when the two of us get together, it’s a very funny conversation. But we do swear. A lot. If you’re easily offended by four letter words, this may not be the episode for you.

• Mr Bingo on Twitter
• Mr Bingo’s kickstarter rap
• Wilfrid Wood
• Wilfrid Wood on Twitter
• Wilfrid Wood’s ‘Portraits Of Hackney Wick’
• Gin Festival
• Dismaland Bemusement Park

You might remember that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s Jolie Originals’ iPhone and laptop sleeves.

Jolie Originals are a two-person team based in Amsterdam and they make Macbook sleeves, iPad sleeves, iPhone sleeves and even a nice little wallet thing for notes and credit cards. And other nice things. I like their products a lot and I think you should buy something from them.

In this week’s episode, Andy tells bad Dad jokes and Anna doesn’t laugh. They answer listeners’ questions about charging expenses and project assets to clients and when it’s appropriate to charge for ‘learning’ time. They talk about making the transition from a steady job to running a new business and why it’s important never to burn bridges, and how to compete with bargain basement website designers.

This episode is sponsored by Perch, the little content management system for projects where you don't want a big, complex CMS and Ben Frain’s fabulous new book, Sass and Compass for Designers.

Anna and Andy talk about biscuits and business software. Anna explains how she uses FreeAgent to keep track of her finances and berates Andy for not trying it. They talk about back-up software and how Stuff and Nonsense use Dropbox to collaborate with clients during projects. Andy runs through his favourite design tools including Gridset and Typecast and no discussion about software would be complete without bemoaning how Adobe are abandoning Fireworks.

This episode is sponsored by 8faces, a limited edition typography magazine, and Handheld, the conference for all things mobile that’s happening in Cardiff, Wales in November 2013. Get 10% off your ticket with the offer code unfinishedbz.

Anna and Andy exchange notes on their workplace setups and some of the tools they use, from hardware to software, and Andy gets distracted by Mutton Bustin'.

This episode is sponsored by Hammer for Mac, the nifty development tool for designers and developers, and Handheld, the conference for all things mobile that’s happening in Cardiff, Wales in November 2013. Get 10% off your ticket with the offer code unfinishedbz.

This week, Andy’s back from two weeks in Japan and he and Anna talk about his trip Tokyo and Hiroshima. Andy explains why he thinks everyone should visit Hiroshima at least once and Anna opens her presents with loud rustling. They answer listener questions about weekly working, pricing and invoicing and then discuss whether it's a good idea to work while on holiday.

This episode is sponsored by Hammer for Mac, the nifty development tool for designers and developers, and Five Simple Steps and Collection Two of their Pocket Guide series. Tweet your favourite short business tip with the hash tag #pockettip before Friday 26th April for a chance to be one of two people to win Collection Two of the Pocket Guides, or the very lucky person to win an entire set of Pocket Guides.

While waiting for Andy's return, Anna chats with her "big brother", the righteous Ryan Taylor. They discuss working from home, apprenticeships, front-end portfolios, and working with a hybrid designer/developer.

This episode is sponsored by Hammer for Mac, the nifty development tool for designers and developers, and Beyond Tellerrand, a conference and workshop event for the web community. Beyond Tellerrand is happening May 27th to the 29th in Düsseldorf in Germany. Use the offer code unfinished4 for 10% off the standard price.

While Andy is in Japan, Anna is joined by the amazing Ashley Baxter, who took over her dad's insurance business at 18. They talk about starting out young, learning new skills, determination, vision and overcoming fear.

This episode is sponsored by Hammer for Mac, the nifty development tool for designers and developers, and Five Simple Steps and their Pocket Guide series. Get 10% off Collection One by using the code UNFINISHEDPGC10 at checkout between the 8th and 15th of April.

While Anna is en vacance en France, Andrew’s joined by guest co-host, designer Laura Kalbag to talk about mentoring students and how to give them, and other newcomers, valuable commercial project experience. Laura also talks about how best to ask for, and deal with, client feedback while Andrew remembers Mickey, the world’s cleverest chimpanzee. This episode is sponsored by Blush, beautiful letterpress printing of cards, stationery and more for designers and artists and Beyond Tellerrand a conference and workshop event for the web community. Beyond Tellerrand is happening May 27th to the 29th in Düsseldorf in Germany. Use the offer code unfinished3 for 10% off the standard price.

Following his visit to the University of Ulster in Belfast this week, Anna and Andrew talk about how hard it is to keep up with new technologies and techniques and how to decide what aspects of web design and development to learn next.

This episode is sponsored by Jon Hicks’ The Icon Handbook from at Five Simple Steps. Between now and the 1st April you’ll get 10% off all formats using the offer code UNFINISHEDICON10.

Industry Conference is an event for web professionals that’s happening in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK on April 24th. Use the code unfinished to get 40% off conference and workshop tickets.

Anna and Andy talk about Anna's new limited company, why she needed to set up a company and how she went about doing it. Andy moans about not understanding GitHub (again) and why developer tools often make him feel stupid. After hours, they talk about an episode of Anna's favourite cartoon, Adventure Time. (Andy would like to apologise for the scratchy audio in this week's episode. His beard was itchy but he promises it won't happen again.) This episode is sponsored by Typecast; quickly style type in the browser and check for readability, rendering and beauty as you work, and Beyond Tellerrand a conference and workshop event for the web community. Beyond Tellerrand is happening May 27th to the 29th in Düsseldorf in Germany. Use the offer code unfinished2 for 10% off the standard price.

Anna and Andy talk about the benefits Stuff and Nonsense gained when they ditched daily rates and fixed project pricing and switched to estimating, working and billing in weekly patterns. Andy explains how agile methods can benefit designers and clients, even though he doesn't really know the difference between agile and scrum. After hours, they talk about their movie of the week, Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol 2. This episode is sponsored by Typecast; quickly style type in the browser and check for readability, rendering and beauty as you work, and two Five Simple Steps’ business related books: Web App Success and Managing Web Projects.

On Unfinished Business this week there’s no talk about mugs but Rachel Andrew is back. We’re joined by first timer Richard Rutter to discuss his upcoming book on Web Typography, why he chose to self-publish and fund the project on Kickstarter and the role of a publisher in today’s market. Of course Rachel loves to talk about VAT (irony) so we do that and she explains why she doesn’t actually owe a million Euros to Ireland.

• Rachel Andrew on Twitter
• Richard Rutter on Twitter
• Richard’s Web Typography book on Kickstarter
• Mr. Bingo’s book, also on Kickstarter

This week, Andy and Anna discuss their experience of working from home (or living at work), and some of the techniques that help them block out distractions. They also debate the very important issue of how to make the perfect cup of tea. At the end of the show, they talk about Kill Bill Volume 1 in what will be a regular section about Tarantino movies. This episode is sponsored by Typecast; quickly style type in the browser and check for readability, rendering and beauty as you work, and Beyond Tellerrand a conference and workshop event for the web community. Beyond Tellerrand is happening May 27th to the 29th in Düsseldorf in Germany. Use the offer code unfinished1 for 10% off the standard price.

Anna and Andy follow up last week’s episode with listener questions about the professional (and unprofessional) ways to handle business disputes. They also discuss how best to say goodbye to a client and cue up a few movies to watch and talk about ‘after hours’ in the coming weeks.

Anna and Andy talk about how to get work and how they both found their first clients. Anna gets annoyed about revenge sites and Andy tells, for the first time, how he lost everything and restarted Stuff and Nonsense in 2006.

Anna and special guest co-host Rachel Andrew, — web developer and Director of edgeofmyseat.com, the company that makes Perch CMS. They answer listener questions about working with clients, customers, insurance, work/life balance and subcontracting.

Andy and Anna talk about their experiences when they have lost out on business and not got a dream job, doing a bad pitch (Andy has done plenty of those), learning from those mistakes and how not to take it personally when a client moves on.

In this episode, getting paid. Andy and Anna talk about deposits and down-payments, getting paid regularly and what you can do if the unthinkable happens and you have to fight for your money.

In this episode, the often taboo subject of how to decide what to charge for what you do. Getting the balance between too cheap and too pricey can be tricky, so Andy and Anna share their experiences — including Andy’s infamous ‘double your rate Fridays’ — and how to handle uncomfortable conversations about money.

Andy Clarke and Anna Debenham discuss about why a show about business is important and why one needn’t be boring. They talk about this week’s CES and whether designers and developers might need to buy these new devices. And of course, Andy talks about Planet Of The Apes while Anna nods politely.

This week on episode 115 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning guests Brad Frost and Stephen Hay. After talking about the best coffee mug in the world, we get right down it and discuss why it’s dangerous to bring computer science principles and heavy development tools into web design.

• Brad Frost
• Brad on Twitter
• Stephen Hay
• Stephen on Twitter
• design​day conference
• Missing the bloody point
• It’s a mugs game. Bodum vacuum travel mug review
• Bodum travel press set coffee mug on Amazon.co.uk

You might remember that in the last episode I mentioned that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s a Bodum travel press set coffee mug (Amazon UK affiliate link.) You can read my full review of the mug here.

A week later than planned (sorry,) on this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by returning special guest, designer Dan Edwards. And because you wait all day and then two Dans come along at once, joining us is creative director, founder and director of the SuperFriendly agency in Philadelphia, Daniel (the Dan) Mall.

We talk about plans for the next Geek Mental Help week in October first. Then, because I’m currently deep into a redesign of Stuff & Nonsense, why working on your own site always feel harder than working on a client sites. We discuss using our portfolios to attract the ‘right’ type of projects and if case studies are the best way to demonstrate what we do.

Due to technical problems, this episode very nearly didn’t get published, so I want to thank my good friend Ryan Taylor for his help making it happen.)

• Dan Edwards on Twitter
• No Divide
• Let’s Talk Design on YouTube
• Daniel Mall on Twitter
• Daniel Mall
• Superfriendly
• Businessology podcast
• Web In The Woods
• It’s a mugs game. Bodum vacuum travel mug review
• Bodum travel press set coffee maker on Amazon.co.uk

You might remember that in the last episode I mentioned that I’m not taking paid sponsor spots on the show anymore. I’m going to briefly talk about something that I use and really like instead. And this week, it’s Cornerstone, the shaving supplies people.

When you sign up to Cornerstone you’ll receive german-engineered razor blades and British-blended skincare products delivered as often as you want them. Choose how often you shave—I shave two or three times a week—which means I get a box every twelve weeks. That box contains Pre-Shave Face Scrub, Shave Gel, 6 Razor Blades and Post-Shave Balm. You’ll get a free aluminium razor handle engraved with your initials included with your first delivery. With Cornerstone you can change your plan any time you like and there’s no ongoing commitment.

If you sign up with Cornerstone via this website I’ll get £10 credit and you’ll get £10 off your first order. So if you shave, buy your supplies from Cornerstone and you’ll be supporting me for making this show.

I’ve been looking forward to speaking with Cennydd Bowles for months and for Unfinished Business 113, Cennydd joins me and my other special guest, product designer Noah Stokes. We kick off by talking about Richard Rutter’s web typography book, but soon the conversation switches to whether, and why, current web designs are lacking ‘soul.’ This is something Noah and I have been speaking and writing over recent months and something that I partly blame on our fixation with user-experience and product design. Does Cennydd agree? You‘ll have to listen to the show to find out.

From now on, I’m going to mention products or services because I really like them, not because they are paying for sponsorship. These may be from our industry or from outside, for example the people I buy my shaving supplies from. If you have a product or a service or something that you think I might like enough to talk about, let me know. Email me, send me something and if I like it, and I think that listeners would like it too, I’ll talk about on the show.

• Cennydd Bowles and on Twitter
• Noah Stokes and on Twitter
• The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web
• Visual Essentials for Product Design workshop
• A tweet from Mat Hill @matthillco
• Why web design is losing its soul
• Creativity over predictability:’ Video from my talk about why web design has lost its creative soul
• Why have today's designers stopped dreaming?
• Letter To A Junior Designer
• A Different Letter to a Junior Designer

I really like Shopify and they have just released a book about how to grow your design or development business. The book’s called ‘Grow’ and it has eleven chapters by industry experts about how to attract clients, draft contracts, close deals and more. Even my Contract Killer contract gets a mention. Download your free copy of Grow.

Ellie and I talk about her Fringe and what it’s like to get a big break on a show like ‘House Of Fools.’ We discuss improv, stand-up performances and comedy clubs and whether she should watch ‘Carry On’ films. Ellie’s charming and funny and I really enjoyed talking with her. Even if you’ve not seen ‘House Of Fools,’ you’ll really like this episode.

• Ellie White on Twitter
• Ellie on IMDB
• Children of Herne
• House of Fools
• House of Fools on BBC
• Onion Talking: Dan Skinner, Daniel Simonsen and Ellie White on House of Fools
• Ellie White, Fresh From The Fringe
• Carry On Screaming!

I really like Shopify and they have just released a book about how to grow your design or development business. The book’s called ‘Grow’ and it has eleven chapters by industry experts about how to attract clients, draft contracts, close deals and more. Even my Contract Killer contract gets a mention. Download your free copy of Grow.

Apologies in advance if you’re German or a Turk, as this week on episode 111 of Unfinished Business, I’m joined by artist Brendan Dawes and designer Aaron Draplin.

We start by talking about spice jars and car boot (garage) sales, but unsurprisingly our conversation soon veers wildly off topic as we discuss how Aaron’s struggling to keep up with demands on his time, how designers can make money selling merchandise and more, much, much more. If you know either Aaron or Brendan, you’ll also know that you’re in for a fast-paced, fun-filled sixty minutes.

I’d like to say “thank you” to Shopify for supporting Unfinished Business. Shopify have just released a book about how to grow your design or development business. The book’s called ‘Grow’ and it has eleven chapters by industry experts about how to attract clients, draft contracts, close deals and more. Even my Contract Killer contract gets a mention. Download your free copy of Grow.

Last week was Jeffrey Zeldman’s website’s 20th birthday, so this week he joins me and Jeremy Keith on Unfinished Business 110 to talk about the anniversary. We start by discussing Jeremy’s 100 words for 100 days writing project and how it’s inspired me to change the way that I think about writing on our blog and posting to our portfolio. We talk about the importance of writing for yourself as well as for others and why writing on your own website is important. With it being the twentieth anniversary of Jeffrey’s own site, we also talk about whether it’s important to archive older designs for posterity.

Oh, and please don’t skip this week’s after show segment as boy-oh-boy (girl-oh-girl, man-oh-man, woman-oh-woman) do the sparks fly! We discuss Mad Men, Mad Max and whether advertising can ever be considered as important as a book or a film and, let’s just say, things get very heated.

This week is a special Mad Men episode of Unfinished Business and I’m joined live from New York by Jen Simmons–the incredible host of The Web Ahead podcast–and our very special guest, the actor and comedian who plays Lou Avery on TV’s Mad Men, Allan Havey.

We talk, of course, about Mad Men, its final season and the recent show finale. So if you haven’t seen Don Draper fall out of a McCann Erickson window yet, there are spoilers galore.

We discuss Lou, his character and how the show’s audience reacted to him. Of course no conversation about Lou should leave out Scout’s Honor. We run through the final season and where it left the show’s characters, including Lou. Then we move onto the finale itself, Dick/Don and oh, ‘that’ commercial.

I’ve always wanted Unfinished Business to be about more than the business of web design and I’ve often talked with guests about film and television, but always from the outside. I loved researching and recording this episode and especially speaking with Allan. I hope that you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed making it.

• Tatsunoko Productions in 1970s
• Dancer Fitzgerald Sample
• The Runaways (Mad Men wiki)
• Why We Should Have Seen Betty Draper’s Mad Men Fate From a Mile Away
• ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke’ commercial from 1971
• The one tweet that may hold the meaning to “Mad Men’s” final scene
• The Making of ‘I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke’
• An interview with Hilltop co-creator Bill Backer
• Mad Men: what does the final scene mean?

I’m your host, Andy Clarke, and I’m writing a Hardboiled Web Design book about Art Directing for the Web. You can find out more about that at stuffandnonsense.co.uk/books. Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be discussing art directing for web with my guests, some of the most experienced art directors and designers working on the web today.

In this episode, David Sleight and I discuss Art Directing the Web.

Sponsor: This season of Unfinished Business is proudly sponsored by CoffeeCup Software, and in particular their new CSS Grid Builder. CSS Grid Builder is currently free while CoffeeCup develops it and if you like what they’re doing, you can throw a few dollars their way to help fund its development. Find out more and download CSS Grid Builder at https://cssgrid.cc

I imagine if I told people in advance that I was talking to director of UX at MailChimp Aarron Walter and Founder of User Interface Engineering Jared Spool on Unfinished Business this week, they’d imagine we’d talk about user experience design and possibly education. Instead, they and I talk about action figures and Action Man and whether fighting Nazis is cooler than fighting aliens.

It’s not all Smurfs and Stretch Armstrong though, because we also discuss the art of public speaking, how to prepare for a talk and tips for a successful presentation, whether you’re speaking at a conference or pitching an idea to a manager or a concept to a client.

Here are some URLs from this episode

• Wilson Miner “When we build”
• Owen Gregory, editor
• Mandy Brown “Hypertext as an Agent of Change”
• Cennydd Bowles “Tips for speakers”
• Centre Centre, user experience design school

Fresh from our adventures at Smashing Conference in Santa Monica, on this week’s Unfinished Business I’m joined by user-experience professional, author (of some CSS book or another) and director at ClearLeft, Andy Budd. Joining us was one of my favourite people; designer, author and founder of Authentic Jobs, Cameron Moll.

On this week’s Unfinished Business, I’m joined by designers’ designer Dan Edwards and, one of my favourite people, designer Veerle Pieters. We start by talking about magazines, including 8faces and the new edition of Lagom.

Then we discuss how the perceptions that people can have about us, our companies or even how busy we are can be really different from the reality, plus an event that we’re planning for designers and developers to get together to share business experiences. Finally we talk about whether our contracts should prevent clients from making changes to our work after we’ve delivered it to them.

(I’m sorry for the drop in audio quality (on my channel) this week. Annoyingly, my recording stopped unexpectedly and I had to rely on the Skype back-up. Thanks GarageBand. Thanks for nothing.)

• Lagom magazine
• 8Faces magazine
• Frankie magazine
• Dan’s “Treading Through Treacle”
• Contract Killer

Cornerstone razor blades and men’s shaving supplies. Use the code CS5 at checkout.

I‘ve been looking forward to publishing this episode of Unfinished Business for over a month and I looked forward to recording it for even longer, because I got to talk about art direction and creativity on the web with two of the creative people that I respect most, Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman.

• Video of my ‘Counting stars: Creativity over predictability’ talk from Beyond Tellerrand in Berlin
• Your CSS bores me
• Cinderella Past Midnight
• Stephen Hay’s Art Direction and the Web
• Dan Mall’s Art Direction and Design
• Dan Mall On Creative Direction
• Jeffrey Zeldman’s Art direction vs. design

The best podcasts listen to interesting people having interesting conversations about work, and life and for episode 104 of Unfinished Business I’m joined by two fascinating folk. Trent Walton and Stephen Hay.

In a lively and wide-ranging conversation, we talk about ‘designing in a browser’ and whether or not today it’s a given (to some degree or another.) We discuss not showing clients static design visuals and why ‘comps’ in a browser and prototypes should be the first thing that we show our clients. We talk about where graphic design tools now fit into our respective workflows and why static visuals can still be an important part of the design process. Finally we discuss tools for designing (in a browser) and whether the technical barrier to entry is sometimes too high.

• Responsive Design Workflow (book)
• Walls Come Tumbling Down
• Time to stop showing clients static design visuals
• Ignorance Is Bliss
• Make Your Mockup in Markup
• Harry Roberts’ conference email gist
• Make Your Mockup in Markup
• Lets Get Social (YouTube)

Back for episode 103 of Unfinished Business is my favourite comedy duo, ‘Pipe and Pyjamas,’ Paul Boag and Jon Hicks.

We had a list of things that we weren’t allowed to talk about, a list that was surprisingly topped by Dr. Who, food and bicycles. Instead we discuss about Paul’s green screen, his motorhome and why he left Headscape, the company he founded thirteen years ago. We end up talking about how we’re redefining our places in the web industry as the three of us get older.

In the after-show segment (for non-boring people,) we talk about Vic and Bob’s ‘House of Fools’ and as we weren’t allowed to talk about Dr. Who, we discuss Dr. Who Lego instead. No one should complain about that.

• Jon pops for a wee
• House of Fools
• House of Fools (episode 1) on YouTube
• Shooting Stars
• Vic and Bob Masterchef sketch
• Doctor Who Locations Guide
• LEGO Doctor Who

A little later than advertised (and by “a little” I actually mean a week) I’m joined on Unfinished Business. Episode 102 by Rachel Andrew and Zoe Mickley Gillenwater.

Despite being two experts on bleeding edge CSS layout modules, they don’t talk about CSS (much.) Instead we talk about how to keep doing when keeping going is hard and what gives us that motivation. We also discuss making big decisions including when we might want to take, or leave, a job.

We’re back. Back in business. Unfinished Business. Episode 101. For this, the first episode of 2015, I’m joined by two of the best well-known writers about how to implement CSS on a large scale Harry Roberts and Jonathan Snook.

We talk about if the ways we talk about CSS today have made learning it less accessible for beginners. I worry that people are being encouraged to jump straight into Sass without learning the basics of CSS first and ask why people don’t write long books about it anymore?

This year, Unfinished Business will be on a bi-weekly schedule, every two weeks, to give me more time prepare better content for each episode. Most episodes will also have two guests. I’ve lined up some fabulous pairings including Dan Mall and Jeffrey Zeldman, Stephen Hay and Trent Walton, Rachel Andrew and Zoe Gillenwater, Andy Budd and Cameron Moll, Brad Frost and Tim Kadlec and Paul Boag and Jon Hicks. These should all be lively discussions and I really hope that listeners will enjoy the new format.

On the show I mention my up-coming ‘CSS For Responsive Web Design’ workshops in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in March. Listeners to Unfinished Business can get $50AUS off the ticket price with the offer code unfinishedbusiness.

Find out more about the workshop.

Get yourself a ticket.

This week is the one-hundredth episode of Unfinished Business and who better to join me than the person who helped me start it all, almost two years ago, Anna Debenham. We celebrate by talking about what went right and wrong in 2014 and our resolutions for 2015. Then we talk about meetings and how we can improve them.

This being the final episode of the year, I’d like to say an enormous thank-you to everyone I’ve spoken to on Unfinished Business, this year: Ashley Baxter, Benjamin Hollway, Brendan Dawes, Christopher Murphy, Cole Henley, Clare Symons, Harry Roberts, Jeremy Keith, John Davey, Jon Hicks, Jory Raphael, Laura Kalbag, Liz Elcoate, Paul Boag, Rachel Andrew, Relly Annett-Baker, Sara Souidan, Sean Johnson and Trent Walton.

I’d also like to say thank-you to all the companies who’ve helped make Unfinished Business possible through their sponsorship. Antetype, BigBoard, dConstruct, DeviceLab, DotYork, Espresso, GatherContent, Ghostlab, Forge, Hover, Logical Elements, Native Summit, ShropGeek, Simply FixIt and Shopify. I want to say a special thanks to Perch and Perch Runway for supporting the show from our very first episode. Please continue to support Unfinished Business by supporting them.

Unfinished Business will be back in February 2015 and I hope you’ll all join me then. Until then, thanks for listening and I’d like to wish everyone a happy Christmas holiday and a prosperous new year.

• Anna Debenham
• Anna on Twitter
• Invitation to a Blame Party