Future Publishing, the company I work for, has recently undergone a fairly big restructure. Amongst all of the changes I'm now working on a couple of titles, one traditional print mag, Guitar Techniques, and one iPad mag, Guitarist Deluxe. It means that now I'm a digital designer as well as the usual CMYK print version. It's been very interesting getting to grips with the skills required for iPad

This site seriously needs an update, and it will do soon. In other news I'm about to embark on a new phase in my career. I'm going to be working on a new magazine, I'll post which one once it goes to press, so stay tuned!

Apologies, I've rather neglected this blog. I've been busy with lots of different projects at Future, plus I've also been hard at work on my children's site Patterns for Colouring. The pattern site is entering a new phase and I'm currently polishing off the finishing touches on a site redesign. Magazines are still my main focus - I've recently art edited two issues of Procycling. I've also had stints

Time Inc has developed a new way of consuming magazines. You personalise them by giving the customer a choice of what should appear in their unique edition. The publishing company makes available a number of articles from its top brands, and you get to make a choice. Unfortunately you don't get to edit out the ads, targeted advertorials are also included. Despite this sting in the tail it represents

Just spotted this link via TechCrunch's Twitter: Conceptual/Graffiti artist Filippo Minelli has put together a great series of photos where Google has a hand in everything. Google Answers is possibly my favourite. There is also another category where he plasters well known website and business names onto a variety of contradictory scenes, the Facebook one is possibly the most apt.Elsewhere, Edge magazine

Arena closes its doors. A sign of the difficult times that newstand editions face.

Design Week seems to be taking a certain amount of joy in Condé Nast doing a slight repeat of a prior NME cover. Beth Ditto has posed nude for their new launch title 'Love', however the NME first featured her nude in 2007. Though I would hardly call the original a triumph! Personally I don't really see the problem. Here's a star that likes to celebrate her size and femininity, so its not surprising

Two neat little apps if your a typonerd and in possession of an iPhone. WhatTheFont and hugeType are fun little programs that are dedicated to typefaces. WhatTheFont is a great utility that I've used many times on my desktop computer when I'm trying to figure out what font has been used in a inspirational piece of design. Now you can do it on the move. Spot a poster on your travels and can't quite

I don't usually stray too far from print design here, but spotted this video on Drawar and had to share it. Its a short clip of how 3 designers donned WWII gear and recreated the D-Day landings with a lot of running about, plenty of green screen, a dash of mini explosions and a truckload of CGI...

Roland de Wolfe makes another appearance under our masthead. Its the first time we've re-featured a player on the cover. Inside the issue you can get his opinion on the cost of tournaments these days. It was an incredibly busy issue for me, not only did I have to put all of the design together, as usual, but I also had to shuttle to London several times to cover the WSOPE. I got to meet a lot of the

As mentioned below the MPA has anounced its winner. Yawn!

How many architects would site Michael Schumacher as their inspiration. Hands up LAVA. The mind boggles!

The MPA awards for the best cover of the year are being decided as we speak. Here are the contenders. Some nice shots but as mag covers I'm not impressed. I know that the US market operated in a different way to the UK but none of these examples makes me think "Wow". Obviously Jessica here is rather alluring but it not that special a cover, is it? In terms of pure look I'd have to choose the "T" japanese

I think its safe to say that the first issue AFTER a redesign is always difficult, this one was no exception. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into creating this little beauty. Despite the pain it turned out to be a great issue.Joe Beevers of The Hendon Mob is our cover star. He was very obliging considering that the shoot was right after he had just busted out of his Poker Nations heat! Read his

Its been a very busy last few months for me. Firstly I had to do a redesign of my magazine, WPT Poker. My colleagues and I have produced a more focussed product aimed at the established poker playing community. We've added far more input from professional players, giving the reader far more chance to immerse themselves in the practice and atmosphere of cardroom mentality.The look of the magazine is

Colourlovers has put together a list of all of the crayola colours, which brings me right back to childhood when I had a huge box of the things. I remember going through them one by one, trying to use each of them equally, ending up with pages covered in abstract rainbows. The list helpfully gives you some print and screen colour values to recreate each one. Beyond this article, Colourlovers is a great

James Dyson unveils his design school to be based in Bath, just a few minutes walk from where I live. Its an interesting plan. At the moment the whole face of Bath is being redeveloped, some good like this project, others bad like the Riverside development. The design schools aim is to give 14 to 19 year olds a foothold into the product design and engineering industry. It does seem a shame that its

New to my blogroll is Smashing Magazine, a great resource for design inspiration. One of their posts is all about Beautiful Handwriting, Lettering and Calligraphy. Great eyecandy!

I've been so snowed under recently that I've been unable to update you on our latest issues. Well let me fix it by pointing out our latest corker of an issue. Cover star Liv Boeree kindly gave up some of her hectic schedule to do an exclusive photoshoot for us. The results were great as you can see. We recently went to a recording session of a Pokerstars televised event. We had a bundle of these copies

Crikey, I very nearly forgot to bring your attention to the typographic oscars at Typographica. I have to say that a good proportion of them leave me cold. For instance J.N.Scripts? Kinescope? Fab? I guess they can't all be FF Meta Serif in stature.

Should I suddenly find myself to be rather rich I may be tempted to fork out for a Modbook Tablet. It makes any creative drool with the idea of being so in touch with a device. Yes, I know there's plenty of PC tablets out there but none of them have OSX in them! However, if I really was that rich, I'd be more likely to be down the golf course than grappling with a Mac, no matter how creative it would

I just found this article about typefaces by Michael Bierut at Design Observer. A good read about the thought processes behind typeface selection. Its not a step by step - it just underlines how designers can approach a project with their eyes, emotions and knowledge.

David Friedman has coined this new word to describe a common typographical mistake. Setting characters too tightly to one another can now be described as "keming". The idea seems to have caught on, even Boing Boing is running it! Kem is what you see when the r and n in kern are too close to each other.

Bittbox posts: 16 Incredibly Detailed, Useful (and free) Dingbat Fonts. The splatter and texture fonts are probably the most usable ones here.

These cards are a great way to liven up your poker game if you're of a creative leaning. Going all-in with a full house of Gehry, Corbusier, Wright, Foster and Rogers is definitely going to raise your game.And whilst I'm at the Design Museum shop best to pick up some cool nerdy post-it notes!

Whilst riding around blogcatalog I came across a blog that I didn't understand but really liked the look of. It was dezacrobat. And whilst rooting around there I thought it only fitting that I should lift a link from it. I'm loving the cubic creations on Readymech - very inspiring! The image on this post is of one of the many paper models you can print out, cut up, fold and stick together. Smashing.

Here's a neat little portal all about the wonders of Typography. TypeNeu™ is chocfull of lovely ligature rumination.

Bringing bad design to justice. Arf! All good designers should carry these stickers around with them - especially when travelling on the tube.

Happy New Year to all you Poker and Design fans. Here's the latest issue that you can pick up from WHSmiths or from the Future Mag store. This issue has Roland De Wolfe brooding moodily on the cover - the shot was taken during last years WSOPE in London. He gets good coverage in the mag as well with mentions in a number of features, the best of which is the Pro on Pro interview he takes part in with

Belated plug of the latest issue - I've been mad busy recently on about seven different tangents, so keeping everything up to date has been difficult. Never mind you've still got chance to get hold of a copy and read about the following...Big Time: Start playing in the worlds biggest poker games. We show you how to prepare.Keep your own fishfinder database so that you can keep the 'roll afloatCoverage

Here are two US lists of "the best of" 2007 for magazines and books. Granted, Mr. Magazines list is solely of new launches but its good to see collections like these just to keep in touch with what is out there. I've done a few nano seconds of googling for UK examples but to no avail. If you find any, let me know in the comments.Mr. Magazines' site also has an interesting article for those that want

Before the advent of the computer and digital retouching, photographs were manipulated by hand. Here's a great round-up of some of the most infamous manipulations old and new. There are a fair few magazine examples in there too.

US mag Print magazine has an interesting article about the use of online video by publishing houses in its latest issue. Many print media houses are producing online clips to capture the "Youtube" audience. Great news for readers, especially if the media company actually puts some effort into it. Roll on the shaky handheld footage of mag staff giggling nervously in a broom cupboard that you could only

I love these old information films. The car itself is fairly mediocre but I love the set up shots of the designers at work on sci-fi style concept cars of the future. The over-inflated voiceover is a joy too!

As featured in my Christmas list, magCulture is a book all mag art bods should have in their library. The author Jeremy Leslie also runs a magazine design blog also called magCulture (funnily enough). Its a regular destination for this blog.Jeremy's knowledge of the industry is vast and its always worth catching his articles in publications like Creative Review. I once worked for Jeremy at John Brown

The Unofficial Apple Weblog asks the crucial question... Leopard: Should you upgrade?I would love nothing better than to get a new mac with leopard firing on all cylinders but I know its not really a practical choice at the moment. I'll wait for stability and Adobe to catch up with the cat.

Vegas came to London recently for the WSOPE and we took the opportunity to bag an interview with Phil Hellmuth (whilst hobnobbing at the Savoy). We asked him about how he felt winning his eleventh bracelet. Also in town was Annette15, demon online player - she went on to win the London event right after we set our photographer loose on her! Apart from all of this we have the following in the latest

Keep those guides locked

So you're looking for something special for the creative genius in your life. You want to get the best Christmas present that really says “I've really thought about what interests you”. Well here's a list (in no particular order) of presents that should do the trick... Anyone with an interest in fashion/celebrity/lifestyle magazines should check out magCulture by Jeremy Leslie. Its slightly

I was just taking a look at another blog about mags and found an interesting link. Its a list of the 15 best US mag covers EVER! Its more of a "check this out if you're curious" kind of link. There are some interesting entries (like the comped together Brangelina cover of the "Star").However, what really caught my eye was the purpose of the site. Called Yourcover, its intended to be a Lulu-esque service

David Williams takes a bow on our latest cover. We managed to track him down in Vegas for a photoshoot. He came well prepared - he had visited his jeweller beforehand and appeared with boxes containing $500,000 worth of bling. After turning the lights down a notch we bagged this great cover image. He'll be pleased to hear that we also feature his mum - she beat him in the WSOP!Get the mag to hear how

hovering in front of the wall,without the use of glass,how do you recall?

It looks like magazine design is about to get dragged through the wringer again. Anti design tends to rear its head every decade and now Creative Review is picking up on the latest bunch of 'Ugly' designers.There's nothing wrong with re-appraisal, design can't exist without innovation. The whole point of design is to engage tired audiences with new ways to express an idea. It's a needed process - it's

If you've had chance to have a nose around the rest of this site then you'll have noticed that I work on a publication called WPT Poker: The official World Poker Tour magazine. So here's the first plug of this blog...Go head to head with Katya Thater (our coverstar) as we cover the Heads-up Championship at the World Series 2007. Katya features as our main profile after winning a bracelet in the $1,500

Hi there, just creating the first post of this blog to welcome you all to my new home. This is the soft launch of my design portfolio and eventually I'll have a comprehensive collection of my designs catalogued in my galleries. If you notice something that doesn't quite work drop me a line and let me know. This blog will be where I post all my thoughts on design and will feature links to lots of design