I am a great believer in letting as much of my brain noise escape into the real world. I’m talking about those random thoughts you have just before you close your eyes for sleep, or those thoughts that pop up and we all have a habit of dismissing and not investigating. I use many methods to trap these thoughts and one of those is to use moleskins. I love my moleskins and ‘brain dump’ at least once a day into mine. Many designers sing the praises of moleskins, they really are a good option as come in a range of sizes.

I’m not the first person in the queue when it comes to new products, I’m usually the person stood away from the queue watching from a safe vantage point. When apple announced their new keyboards though I couldn’t resist. I’ve written before about my old apple keyboard’s nifty additional feature as a snowdome. Of course, I doubt that top of Mr Job’s list of testing was rolling tobacco smoking designers with a habit for eating at their desk. Upon seeing the new ones though I felt a little leap of joy as the snowdome could be removed.

Today I turn 32 and another year seems to have whizzed past. I always got told the older you got the quicker the years seem to pass and this year has really flown by. I’ve done so much business wise and been through a fair chunk personal wise. I really feel I’ve turned a corner a bit in many areas of my life.

The longer I work in design, the more I become aware of the importance of silent design. I am talking about those things I refer to as ‘just working’. You don’t acknowledge a chair’s good design each time you use it - you just don’t get back ache and are able to do your job. I’ve talked before about the times when design doesn’t work well is when you notice it. As an example is the times when your computer breaks or your sink leaks - when it’s working we just ignore it and use it. Silent design is the thing you don’t notice as it’s working well. Yet, it’s also not so ugly or so minimal that you don’t notice it. To be a true silent design it has to look good and work well. All parts from visual to function have to sit right to create a silent design. It’s also in part about creating a united design.