1. My focus is Design, HTML, and CSS.

2. Sometimes I write JavaScript, but my skills are more suited to Design, HTML, and CSS.

3. I like core technologies. Being close to the metal suits me (HTML, CSS, JS). I don’t particularly enjoy working with frameworks, especially in recent years, where core technology has matured. If someone asks me to take on a Vue project or use Tailwind, it's not for me.

4. Focus on the basics. What makes a site look great? Brilliant typography, sublime photography, and art direction.

5. Focus on one CMS. As I write this, I've journeyed through three content management systems: WordPress to Perch to Statamic.
   I haven't touched Perch for a couple of years now. Consequently, I can't even remember how to install it. Content management systems are deep and complex, and riding more than one horse is a path to mediocracy.

6. Stay away from gimmicks. Related to (4), in my experience, clients tend to focus on things that either ruin the basic experience of the web or add very little value to their site other than annoying users. Let's take scrolling, as an example. Clients and agencies fixate on this. Maybe because they think they need to stand out in some way? Parallax scrolling, full-page scrolling, scroll-snapping, infinite scrolling, crazy animation, etc. All of this is complex, terrible, and simply breaks too many things—hashtag anchors, page positions, or being able to flick through a page quickly to find something. Take cars—no one's ever thought, “wheels are boring, let's make them square”—because wheels fundamentally provide the best experience. Similarly, on the web, native and basic is the best fundamental experience.

7. I should try and control my part of the project. Before taking on a job, I should ask myself, “how much control will I get over the look and feel of the website?” I'm much happier—and it's a better website—when the client trusts me.

8. Always think about my focus. How much does the project stray out of my core area of focus? If it does stray, can I stick to my focus? For example, I don’t want to get involved in any e-commerce projects myself, but if I do, I only want to take on a design and CSS role for those projects. Don't blur the lines.

9. Stay away from “unbillable bollocks”. Related to the previous point, sometimes I lose half a day to figuring something out—typically outside my core focus area. This stuff is so obscure that it's almost impossible to bill it to clients. Ergo: code is complicated, and the only way to make a fruitful and stress-free living is to focus on things I can solve with high confidence.

Articles that align with my Principles

• No, Absolutely Not

• Great Designers Realign

• A Dao Of Web Design

• The Art of Not Thinking

• It's Easier to Revise than Create

• Declarative Design

• More Transparent UI Code

• Can CSS be too modular?

• Are You Single?

• HTML Semantics

• CSS Guidelines

• Introversion

• Creativity Petting

Quotes that align with my Principles

The Real Shortcut is to do it right the first time. Anything else is a welcome invitation to start again or clean up some cut corner. – Geoff Graham

In the video I cover some big platforms like WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace. This was a lunchtime guest talk session recorded by the Crystal Palace Library Lunch.

Although they didn't come out and say it, I couldn't help but feel like they were disappointed and they felt that their website was broken.

In contrast to their mood, I'm often delighted—and not because it's an opportunity to charge them, but because this is what I expect to happen with every web project—through adding more content and using the website, the client has come to realise more explicit requirements and higher ambitions.

The fallacy of v1

To be totally honest—as inspired as I am—I never really enjoy building 'version 1.0' websites.

The unfortunate truth is that 'version 1.0' of a website never quite knocks it out the park because there's so much groundwork to cover and so many unknowns. Clients rarely have all the content they need; they'll change course mid-way through the project; the design takes a while to come together because we have different ideas; often the budget runs out, and so I don't have the polish time I'd like. Instead, I look forward to version 2; or heck even version 1.1.

Once we've built your initial site we can start laying on some polish; things are much clearer, we can make up for the course correction that came out version 1, and I can fix all the little niggles.

I feel the same about my website, honestly. Even now as I write this post, I am reluctant to publish it before I improve my site. But I know this post will look better soon when I get the chance to improve things.

In contrast, in my experience clients tend to think of their website as a 'one-off' that they rip apart every three years or so, only to get re-built. I'm writing this blog post to try and convince them otherwise (if they're reading!).

Take the iPhone as a good example—let's compare the original 2007 iPhone to the 2017 iPhone 'X'. The product is still fundamentally the same—rounded icons on the screen, fits in your pocket, makes phone calls, etc. —but they've slowly polished it over the years to great effect.

Apple doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater; they refine. Updating your website is like upgrading your iPhone—do it regularly and make incremental improvements.

Don't abandon your investment

And so the most disappointing thing is when I build a website for a client, and I revisit it a couple of years down the line, only to see it replaced by something completely different. What a waste! And this isn't a personal/emotional thing—I just think it's a total waste of money.

I tend to write down a ton of ideas for improvements and new features towards the end of the project. If only they'd commissioned a v2 of their current website. Maybe the client didn't think long-term, or perhaps they kept quiet about what they didn't like, or they mistakenly thought 'version 1' was my complete and total vision for the website.

What really baffles me is when a client replaces my custom designed-and-developed website with some awful standard WordPress template, which has all sorts of performance problems, and a totally generic design, making their brand seem like a fly-by-night.

If you've done this before, or are teetering on the edge of doing it, instead of taking the 'rip-it-down' approach, I urge you to have an honest conversation with your web designer. If you come to them with a budget, they'll be more than happy to improve things, and won't get defensive about what's already there. As a web designer, I expect your website will be an ongoing conversation, to be critiqued and re-imagined, and so should you.

My dream is for a client to come to me out of the blue and say 'you built this website for me a year or two ago. It's working ok but I've had a good year and want to re-invest. I'm not sure how to improve it, but here's my budget—do you have some ideas?'

I try to reflect this when providing services myself—not that I don’t have skill.

Things I try to stick to:

• Always try to reply within 24 hours, even if it's just to say 'I'll get back to you later in the week.'

• Sometimes you need to juggle multiple projects, and that's fine, but always try to let clients know when you'll be working on their project, even if it's in a couple of weeks—so they don't think you've abandoned them.

Running with the jacket analogy a bit more—let's say you want to be able to go outside in the Winter. Well—just get a decent jacket, right? So you can get yourself out there. Fast forward a year, and you decide to start dating, or maybe you're going to business meetings. You want to attract a certain class of person—after all, “clothes maketh the man”/woman, as Shakespeare once said. At this point, you want a jacket that makes you look good. You want it to fit snug around your body; you want people to realise you care. You also want to spend a bit more, but if it lasts you a few years, you don't mind…

I'd say the jacket metaphor works pretty well for websites.