Notes and ideas
Notes and ideas from a Wellington UX/UI Product Designer with too many interests and not enough hours. Surf sessions, design decisions, coffee rituals, and the occasional deep dive into an album cover, all landing in one place.
How to advance early on in your UX/UI design career
Relax, this isn't a "buy my course" article, I promise you. No funnel, no upsell waiting at the end, just what's genuinely worked for me across almost 20 years of working as a UX/UI designer. Just what I wish someone had told me earlier on.
Wolf of Wellington: Escaping death by a thousand clicks
Impulse purchases, a maxed-out credit card, and a questionable financial decision hanging in the balance. The near miss that taught me to think before I click, so I could step off "Enron's Ride of Broken Dreams" financial rollercoaster.
Fighting the system and breaking my phone addiction
Scrolling Facebook, I noticed something: mostly ads, barely a friend in sight. What followed was months fighting a phone addiction, iPods, dumb phones, screen time settings, before one small NFC device actually broke the habit for good.
From instant coffee to a precision Italian espresso machine
A smart plug wakes my espresso machine at 4am, hours before I do. This is the story of how a jar of instant coffee, a mate in Perth, and one life-changing French press turned into a four-shots-a-day habit I still can't shake.
Surf workout: Strength, endurance & weight training
How I built my own surf strength training routine from scratch after a shoulder injury, the actual workout, the gear that matters, and what changed once I stopped chasing goals and built systems. No shortcuts, just a proper, structured plan.
Surf workout: Flexibility, stretching & mobility training
Improve mobility and recovery with surf-specific stretches, a minimal home gym setup, and small daily habits, like surf skateboarding, that stick once motivation fades. Built around what actually works, not just theory.
Surf workout: Pre-surf stretching & warm-up routine
The system that gets me out the door on cold mornings, wetsuit on before I've even checked the cam, gear packed the night before, no room left to talk myself out of it. Plus the actual warm-up and stretch routine I run through every time.
Surf workout: Post-surf stretching, nutrition & recovery
The stretch routine, hydration timing and nutrition habits that make recovery actually happen, especially in winter when it's the last thing you want to do. Built around the same gluten and dairy-free rules as everything else here.
Surf workout: Pop-up & core strength training
Free 10 minute surf pop-up & core strength training workout, plus a full 32 exercise session, to fix crunching toes, a back foot landing too far back and a pop-up that took me well over a dozen steps. Built around a shoulder and knee injury.
Waffles: gluten-free & dairy-free with only 4 ingredients
Years of finding gluten-free waffles or dairy-free waffles, never both in the same place. This 4-ingredient waffle recipe solves both problems at once, no substitutes, no compromise, just one recipe that actually works.
Banana protein pancakes: gluten-free & dairy-free
After a morning surf I'm starving, and most cafe breakfasts are off the menu thanks to my allergies. This banana protein pancake recipe is gluten-free and dairy-free, solving the issue of what I can and can't eat.
From chaos to calm: infinite flow & feedback loops
How one direct piece of feedback from a content designer turned my tangled, chaotic Figma files into a genuine three-part system, chaos, calm and clarity, one I still rely on for every project. A shift that changed how every project since.
Claude Assist: Flip the narrative with reverse prompting
How reverse prompting, Claude asking the questions instead of me writing the brief, finally got my ideas out of my head and onto the screen without losing my own voice somewhere along the way. A method I'll genuinely keep using going.
Molly’s love of books & her fall from grace
When a library fine landed with my name on it instead of hers, my 15 year old had to find her own way out of an $80 mess, and back into everyone's good books, including her own, without help. No lecture, just what actually happened next.
30+ best stand-up comedy specials for laughter on demand
One person, a microphone and an hour to win over a room full of strangers. These are the best stand-up comedy specials I keep coming back to, 30+ I've watched and reviewed, with the craft and storytelling that make each one land.
One wrong booking ended up with five cards on the table
Everyone has values. Few people can actually name their own core values without stopping to think hard about it. Here's how one wrong online booking led me to finally find mine, and why I wish I'd done it sooner. A five minute exercise that.
Designing a 4m high best album covers art gallery wall
A year and a half in the making: 50 album covers, custom framing, and a four-metre gallery wall built from scratch in my stairwell. Here's how the whole thing actually came together, one frame and one wall bracket at a time.
I know the pieces fit: Designing custom Hi-Fi furniture
How a search for a simple turntable stand turned into a genuine lesson in design thinking, prototyping, and communicating ideas clearly enough for someone else to actually go and build them. A prototype first, the real thing came after.
How I’m wired: ENFJ, CliftonStrengths & pattern recognition
Personality tests are one of those things hiring managers love to ask about. Rather than hunting through old emails every time, here's how my ENFJ result, CliftonStrengths top 10, and neurodivergent thinking all point the same way.
10-step UX/UI design process to deliver products people love
"What's your design process?" I get asked this constantly, and for years I genuinely didn't have a real answer. This is the exact 10-step process I finally wrote down, from initial brief through to final delivery to a client.
50 best album covers & most iconic artwork of all time
The backstory, hidden details and the designers behind 50 of the most interesting and iconic album covers ever made, chosen and ranked one by one, covering decades of music, art direction and graphic design history from record sleeves.
Claude Assist: Product design UX/UI portfolio rebuild
Six weeks of nights and weekends, hundreds of AI prompts, and one very old, PHP-patched website. Here's everything I learned rebuilding my UX/UI portfolio from the ground up, low-code, on WordPress. Every mistake included, nothing glossed.
9 inspiring design documentaries & movies for designers
Nine documentaries about design, creativity and craft that are genuinely worth your time, covering graphic design, typography, urban planning, advertising and indie game development from people who obsess over the details.
Designers “should”… choose their own adventure
A pushback on the "designers should" genre of advice, this one included. Whether it's coding, degrees or portfolios, here are some honest alternatives to help you make up your own mind instead of following someone else's rulebook.
Best things to see & do in Wellington, New Zealand
When friends and family fly in from overseas, this is the list I actually send them, the best places to eat, where to find good craft beer and a decent coffee, and what genuinely fills a few days in Wellington, New Zealand.
How to brew the perfect cup of tea
Boil water, add tea, wait, done. It should be simple, but watch how differently people actually make a pot of tea and you'll quickly see it isn't. Here's the step-by-step French press method a good friend taught me years ago.
32 UX certifications: Interaction Design Foundation courses
After almost 20 years in UX/UI, I wanted some formal qualifications behind me. 32 courses in with the Interaction Design Foundation, covering everything from design thinking and research through to AI, accessibility and mobile UX.
Where to buy vinyl records online & in-store in New Zealand
Twelve places I actually buy from, big Auckland institutions, one-person operations run off a Facebook page, and a few worth knowing about for the rare stuff. What each is good for, and the shipping deals worth waiting for.
How to use Discogs to build your vinyl record collection
I just finished adding my entire record collection to Discogs, the largest online music database where collectors buy and sell with each other. A look at the collection itself, my home listening setup, and how it all came together.
How to make the perfect Espresso Martini
I met Angus while we were both working at HazardCo back in 2020. Little did I know he'd end up giving me his go-to Espresso Martini recipe, equal parts vodka, espresso and Kahlúa, shaken hard for the best result every time.
Best fonts for mobile apps, websites & dashboards design
These are the fonts professional designers keep coming back to, again and again, to convey style, tone, emotion and readability. The serif and sans-serif typefaces that actually earn a place in real projects, with the history behind each.
Baked chicken recipe based on the KFC 11 herbs & spices
Four cheeseburgers and a Coke for five bucks fed a whole afternoon of bodyboarding as a teenager. This baked version of the KFC 11 herbs and spices recipe scratches the exact same itch, minus the deep fryer this time around.
Books that reshaped how I think, design & view the world
These books aren't really about the industries they're set in, they're about the people behind them: founders who bootstrapped from nothing, a cartoonist who turned failure into a career. A reading list that genuinely reshaped how I think.
Essentials for home to enhance your work-life balance
Work-life balance sounds like something you fix with one big decision. Mine came together from a stack of much smaller ones, starting with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones I bought almost by accident a few years back.
Questions I ask when interviewing & applying for UX roles
The questions I actually ask when interviewing for a UX/UI design role, plus the frameworks, from the three lenses of innovation through to the double diamond, that shape how I work once hired. Questions that reveal more than a resume ever.
Surfing, friends & travel: What I’m thankful for in 2019
It's only when you pause and properly look back that you realise how many memories got packed into a single year. Reflecting on the moments that made 2019 unforgettable, surfing in Wales, six countries, a new album, and turning 40.
Two months off work over the NZ summer school holidays
Every school holidays, I take at least a week off instead of putting the kids into holiday programs or after-school care. Here's how Molly, Charlie and I sit down together and plan what we get up to. No holiday programs, just time actually.
Muesli recipe with superfoods for surfing trips
Most breakfasts don't fail because they're complicated, they fail because they require thinking when you're not ready to think yet. This baked muesli recipe with superfoods solves that, made once, ready for a week of early surf mornings.
Victoria University: Designing a police dispatch dashboard
Whenever I meet people about new roles, they ask me to explain my process. This university paper is where I first properly wrote it down, a week-by-week UX breakdown designing a police dispatch dashboard from brief to prototype.
Design websites & apps with a 4px/8px baseline grid
How I use a 4px/8px baseline grid alongside a traditional typographic scale to create consistent, well-structured layouts across both web and mobile design, without second-guessing spacing decisions on every single screen.
Looking for the ideal Wellington UX/UI Product Design role
"What's the problem you're trying to solve?" That's usually my first question when exploring a new opportunity, and honestly, the answer carries a lot of weight. Here's what my ideal Product Design UX/UI role would actually look like.
UX/UI Basics for designing apps & websites people love
"Where am I?" Always indicate active navigation states. A quick, practical reference covering the core principles of UX and UI design, from information architecture and affordances through to signifiers and genuinely useful testing.
Design process behind creating two geometric typefaces
Two free geometric fonts built 30 minutes at a time. One inspired by modular Lego-like shapes, the other by Herbert Bayer's 1925 universal typeface, both released free to download, use, and adapt for personal or commercial work.
Small collection of logo design & brand identity projects
Logo design isn't my primary service, but it's something I genuinely enjoy doing. Over the years I've taken on the occasional branding project alongside my core UX/UI work, plus a few personal ones just for the fun of it.