First London Blog Club Meetup #LondonBlogClub
The London Bloggers Meetup Group first came to my attention. It is a rather big meetup group. I continued my search though, to find a brand new meetup group for bloggers in London: London Blog Club. Murray Newlands and Marko Saric (running successful blogs of their own) go to the London Bloggers Meetup Group. After the last event they decided to start their own meetup group.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010 was their new group’s first meetup at The Pitcher & Piano in Holborn. The Central Line train transported me from west to east quicker than I anticipated. I was officially the first attendee at the very first meetup of London Blog Club. Not long after me, more bloggers started to arrive and I enjoyed finding out what part of the bloggersphere they reside.
Where do I find myself in the bloggersphere?
Chatting to other bloggers about their blogs and blog goals (achieved and to achieve) opened up a discussion to myself about my own blog. My website originally was (as mentioned before) to showcase my work. The time then arrived to do a bit of the other. At school, writing and grammar was not one of my strong points. I looked for a bit of help from the book: On Writing Well by William Zinsser. It is (hopefully) helping me to not miss the message and waffle to many long sentences. And if I do, to revert to my core objective and what I am trying to say.
After the meetup when I went through my RSS feed I came across this article: You Got Design Right – Now ‘Write’ Design! – a blog post, from a writer to a designer (how great is that…). In the blog post Dave Thackeray explains his view point of the similarities between the design and writing processes. It made me feel more at ease with the future of my blog (and adamant now not to fail at Project 52).
The joy and reason for me for blogging is sharing my design experiences, other designs I like, event and travel experiences. I also have a few topics up for discussion. As time go by I am sure a few more will come to mind.
Back to London Blog Club Meetup
The first meetup already got my mind to start working. I would not be surprised to see a rapid growth of the London Blog Club. RSVP ‘Yes‘ for the next meetup Tuesday, 2 March 2010 and I will see you there!
URL ABC
After reading David Airey’s blog post about his URL ABC, I decided to make a list of my own. I typed a letter in my browser’s address bar and made a list of the first URL of the typed letter that appears.
A: allrecipes.co.uk At this website, just list the ingredients that you have in your kitchen and you get a few recipes!
B: bronzeage.co.uk This is the static version of the website – I am still working on the final version to go live soon!
C: culturepicture.com My colleague’s MA final project at St Martins in London.
D: downloadfestival.co.uk I am a big fan of this annual festival in the UK – I try to stay on top of the news and line up…
E: ebay.co.uk One of those things…
F: facebook.com Also one of those things…
G: gumtree.co.uk Received a message from @cyberdees to have a look at the new design – very nice indeed!
H: hsbc.co.uk Need to keep an eye on things.
I: istockphoto.com To buy reasonable priced royalty-free stock photography, vector illustrations, stock video footage, audio tracks and Flash files.
J: justincline.com Graphic and web designer from Denver, Colorado. I really like his website and his work.
K: kreestal.fr I have always wanted to speak French, but for now I just look at the illustrations.
L: linkedin.com My Linkedin profile.
M: michaelkelleyphotos.com A photographer from Los Angeles with a great website and photograpy with a twist.
N: national.co.uk I had to get a tyre sorted out. A website with a lot of useful information.
O: o2.co.uk My mobile service provider. Up till recently they were the only company in the UK where you can get an iPhone.
P: paypal.com Things are so much easier with PayPal.
Q: qualityxhtml.com I do have a Q.
R: raileasy.co.uk Booked a train ticket to go visit my brother in Basingstoke, UK.
S: semblance.co.za That would be me.
T: twitter.com Before I follow someone I like to have a look at their Twitter page first.
U: usabilitypost.com Interesting articles about good design practices.
V: very.co.uk An online department store – I now and again find a gem here.
W: wordpress.org Probably the most popular blogging and CMS platform.
X: xe.com My favourite universal currency converter (they have a nifty iPhone application too!).
Y: youthedesigner.com I was reading the blog post: 30 Clever Coaster Designs.
Z: zeldman.com Jeffrey Zeldman’s blog, focusing on web design news.
This was a nice recap of the pages I have been browsing lately.
Perhaps I should start a round of graphic design tennis…
Hello world!
When it comes to socialising, all my friends and sometimes other random people say I talk a lot. On the other hand, I have never seen myself as a writer. I suppose it has to do with my school days. I was not big on spelling. Maths and Accounting was more my thing (and then I have always liked to make nice pictures). So that probably steered me away from the thought of ever writing things for other people to read (the talking just comes naturally…). But then suddenly the internet boomed and after that the new thing is to say: I am a blogger.
I enjoy reading a good book, especially one with a bit of wit that can make me laugh (for example Tom Robins). Then I also start reading people’s blogs on the internet. A lot of them I enjoy sincerely. I am not particularly big on following trends, but seeing that it is rather popular to share thoughts with the world I have decided to give it shot.
It would be nice to hear people’s thoughts on things I wonder about. For example why have no one thought of making cat food in mouse flavour? Or why don’t sheep shrink when it rains? Or if a fly looses its wings do you call it a walk? To get to the point, I have decided to have my own blog. A bit will be about design and the rest about all kinds of bits and bobs.
At least now I can take a bit of pressure off my friends and you have a choice to read or not.
But first I need to finish building my blog! Working on it to have my first post soon!
