the newest of thoughts

What would be the point in having a home office, if it didn't feel like a home? If the first part of this two-part article was about the office in home office, or perhaps a simple introduction to the needs of a freelancer, then this second one is about the home. A home should feel comfortable and inviting. A place of refuge, inspiration and relaxation, a place worth spending your time and a place that should be yours—a true reflection of who you are. It goes without saying that this is especially true of the home office. It should be a space that you can be in for long hours and never feel uncomfortable or out of place. A space that lets your creative juices flow, without stifling or restricting your imagination. I was lucky enough to speak to the editor of Design*Sponge, Grace Bonney, as well as Amsterdam based creative, talented and all round good guy, Martin Pyper about these types of places.

Ahhh, working from home. When it comes to being a freelancer, there is a myriad of reasons why it's a good idea. The strongest one of which, for most of us anyway, is that you can work from home. But there is no point working from home, if you haven't got a home office worth working out of. You might be free to roam, but you need a good base, a home office that functions just like an office should, but is as comfortable as a home should be at the same time. So let's have a look at what makes working from home possible and how it can be done. In this article, the first of two, I speak to Skellie, a writer from a plethora of well known freelance blogs, as well as a creative designer with an incredibly beautiful home, Traci Yau. So go grab a coffee and a biscuit and get ready for some great advice!

There is something special about the printing method that is letterpress. Brief affairs between the very real metal type and beautiful uncoated stock produce children of tangibility, each slightly different, but always of the same family. A thinly veiled process that gives any piece of design extra warmth and comfort, metal type was the norm from Gutenberg through to only a few decades past. Through a stroke of good luck I’ve managed to get a 1930s designed Heidelberg into my garage.

In part one we looked at how intuition isn't something that we are born with, but it is something that we develop. We plant the seeds to our creativity almost constantly—tending to the shoots that grow if we are drawn to what is planted and defining what it is that makes up the weeds of our garden. It is how we determine what is good and what is bad, sometimes without being able to verbally express it, just feeling it. However, a problem may arise in that we sometimes have trouble finding our ways back to the right plants when we need to. We need a map of our gardens. Let's call it inspiration.

In the garden of the mind, creativity is something that needs to be tended to with constant love and care. The ability to come up with an idea out of thin air is a myth – it just never happens. The ideas come from somewhere in our minds as a mix of past experiences, opinions and all that which is creative that has been planted in the soil of our memories, dance and play and mix together. In the first part of this two part piece, we'll explore intuition and where it stems from.

The finished product is the manifestation of all the thought, development and care you put into a project. It is not, however, what you should jump to instantly. It shouldn't be your immediate goal. It is the process you go through – the thought, development and care – that you should concern yourself with the most.

Most poorly designed pieces have something in common; they're too complicated and too busy. Too many fonts, too many photos, too many logos, too many colours. Just too much. Have a look at the majority of the award winning work that's floating around—there are few fonts, few photos, few logo, few colours. Even the busy looking designs can be broken down into simple elements.

Retinart has existed in one form or another for a few years now. Most of the changes made, existing solely in my own mind, didn't actually turn into much. It is now that I feel that I have taken the right first step.

Why is one movie better than another? Why do we prefer the writings of this author over that one? Why do some pieces of art make our hearts sing while others make us flatline? Quality is personal taste not owned by anyone else, not always describable but, without a doubt, felt. So why don't we put more thought into how we define quality?

When you know the correct way to structure a sentence, the world becomes a scary place – you start to notice how many people get it painfully wrong. The ease of content creation that the web now affords us is making the problem worse, so why not get a basic understanding to help make your text a little more professional?