This year – and I suppose this is my 2011 retrospective – I’ve visited five continents, and spent around a quarter of the year overseas.

It’s time to move on, and a permanent record of our dispute isn’t useful to either party. Therefore I have removed this post.

It’s a mistake to let content drive design, just as it was to let design drive content. We mustn’t let the pendulum swing too far. If we are to go beyond mere information and style to create meaning, the two must be partners, feeding from and influencing each other.

The last few months have been far-fetched and fascinating, and there’s plenty more lined up.

Today I changed my signatures, my profiles, and my label to “digital product designer”.

A friend has been steadily redesigning his e-commerce site with the help of an external design team. But he hadn’t yet seen the bottom-line rewards he’d hoped for, so he asked for my thoughts.

Of course good writing conveys more information – both logical and emotional – but the reader isn’t the only beneficiary. Writing also makes us better thinkers.

How to irritate users, courtesy of the Daily Mail.

Is a book a relic, or a canvas? Is this defacement or annotation?

A short interlude to share some new speaking gigs I have lined up. Please spread the word, and do join me if you’re able.

The word “fanboy” snaps at the world’s greatest values – loyalty, enthusiasm, passion, and love – and spits them out as sneering, spiteful dismissal. A word for the intellectually impotent.

Knowledge work is a pendulum. Think. Do. Think. Do. You can use other labels – act/reflect, execute/measure – but gravity is the same everywhere.

A cartoon doesn’t add life to a persona; it drains life from it.

Last year I strongly considered studying for an MBA. It turns out that self-employment is also pretty handy for plugging gaps in business knowledge.

More travel lined up this summer.

After three terrific years, I’m leaving Clearleft next month.

At last, a moment to consider my time in the States.

The closing plenary speaker has a rare mandate: to pause, take stock, and think deeply about the future of our industry.

A transcript of my closing plenary at the IA Summit 2011 in Denver, Colorado.

I’ve been thinking about how reading apps could take a different tack. How they could be calmer. How they could leave the to-read pressure behind and restore some enjoyment into reading.

It’s been a successful weekend. A clearing of the cobwebs, and a chance to slow down and create without distraction.

I speak with Eleanor Seelig, designer of the Nottingham tram information graphics, about the recent updates.

I’ll be speaking at the fifth IA Konferenz in Munich this May; my first, long overdue, trip to Germany.

My theory is that “taste” is simply the ability to draw on patterns and experience to help us choose better candidates for analysis.

While I do believe it’s important to let a speaker talk with her audience, there has to be a better way.

The hands-on direction of Content Strategy Applied, the UK’s first CS conference, was a smart move. At last, we had a chance to see the nuts and bolts.

The use of “brand” and “company” as interchangeable words—“Food brand Kraft hires new Creative Director“—bugs me.