I also realised that I’ve only really read technical books for some time now, and not really been taking in any fiction. I’m back to reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, which is my favourite book. I was chatting to a friend recently who doesn’t quite see the point of reading books that you’ve already read. Personally, I think it’s more like chatting to an old friend.

I think I tend to work mostly from a visual / aesthetic point of view when carrying out design work. Another way to approach it is to decouple laying out content in the most appropriate way, from the visuals layered on top of this. Where I’m interested in grid theory is around this first step – using various grid configurations as faded layers in Photoshop or Illustrator to provide structure around the initial step before visuals are even considered.

I guess I tend to jump directly to the fun, high impact stage, and sometimes this means there is insufficient structure around how the content is presented.

I’m also playing around with ideas about the best way to convey or test pure content layout. This can be done in a flat way with Visio or Illustrator, but I think you can get better feedback using a simple interactive model that allows you to click through a particular scenario. I like the idea of using static html pages with very understated greyscale CSS, and maybe combining this with Wiki style content that can capture notes around the design, or feedback from others.

Then again, maybe I’m just trying to avoid writing spec documents in Word. I was reading an article from Joel about that whole subject, and it made me realise I should make an effort to embrace the word processor a little more than I do.

I’m currently reading the paper version of Joel On Software on recommendation from Martin. It’s quite addictive reading, and generally provides very good coverage of the main reasons why software projects go wrong, and the key things that you should ensure are put in place to avoid this.

I think most people would benefit from putting on their humble shoes and reading this to reflect on their own practices and what can be improved. It’s also extremely enjoyable and easy reading, which is very hard to come by with technical material.

The other is one that I’ve been looking forward to for a little while now, PPK on Javascript. This comes from the guy behind quirksmode.org and should be an interesting read. It’s along a similar direction as DOM Scripting but providing the next level of detail, where DOM Scripting was a great introduction into modern use of javascript and the DOM. My copy should be delivered midweek, so I’ll let you know how I get on with it.

If javascript makes you feel sad or confused and you need a little light relief, you should come along to Stephen K Amos at the Garrick theatre on Thursday (I have no idea about ticket availability – currently assuming we can get some for thurs). I’ve been to a couple of shows in Edinburgh which made my face hurt from laughter. I’m eager for more face-ache, so should be going this week too.

I really had no idea how excitable and violent a little fruit drink could be. I guess I’ll know to be more careful next time… or at least film it.

I’m finding that a downside of living round the corner from Foyles and Borders is a tendency to get excited and buy more books than I have time to read. I’m trying to get through the following over the next week or two:

• The Designer and the Grid
• The Best Software Writing 1 (Joel Spolsky)
• Adobe Illustrator CS2: Classroom in a Book
• Foundations of Atlas: Rapid Ajax Development with ASP.Net 2.0
• The Lady in the Lake (Raymond Chandler)

The Joel Spolsky book is really enjoyable – reading after a recommendation from my brother. Many technically oriented books simply have no style. This is a collection of technical articles that break the trend.

I also realised that I’m much more familiar with Photoshop than Illustrator, so I’m making a concerted effort to work with both products together (hence the official training book). I tend to find that even in familiar areas you can pick up lots of useful information by following the path of someone else.

You frequently hear people talking about how good design is about communication, not decoration, but you only get a strong feel for this when you actually pay attention to your own behaviour on exposure to a new design.

I looked at a number of sites recently and realised that I very rapidly come to trust or reject a company based on how I ‘feel’ about them. This is usually a snap judgement made on a subconscious level within the first couple of seconds of seeing the site.

I can come away with a radically different opinion of a company purely based on the design of their site. I think it’s fascinating how all of the small decisions that you make with a design all convey a message and contribute to the first impression that people form.

I think a lot of the craft involved is not so much coming up with a good design, but one that conveys the right message when people make their snapshot judgement.

Incidentally, there is a very interesting book called Blink all about how we make these kind of rapid assessments when exposed to new information.

It’s not out just yet, but worth keeping an eye out for – I think the UK release is towards the end of August.

I’ve been reading some of the books published by The Pragmatic Programmers and have been happily impressed with how well they convey some of the core ideas about running the most productive development infrastructure.

I’ve just finished reading their book on project automation, and there was a particular quote which appealed to me – the cobblers son is always the last to get a pair of shoes.

We’re often employed to analyse what people do and implement automation to make their jobs more efficient, but often never get around to applying the same process to our own work.

One of the ideas that made me bounce around with excitement, was implementing automation to make project delivery simple and efficient, but hooking up various different feedback mechanisms to provide information on what is happening. The post recently about the wireless rabbit is (to me) completely serious – providing an enjoyable way to actively monitor complex automation is a very important aspect of success.