Last week I decided to take a week off Twitter, Dribbble and Instagram. I’m back on it today, but I really enjoyed the time off. Here’s why.

I’m about to get all philosophical on you here, but I think there’s a natural human desire for affirmation and encouragement. We like people to talk to us (usually), we like encouragement and we like people to tell us we did something well. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, but it can become a bad thing depending on where we get it from. As a christian, the most important voice for me is God’s. I care about what he thinks about me and what he says to me, and his words are more powerful and penetrating than anyone’s. He knows me inside out, better than I know myself and when I hear him say something to me, it’s amazing.

I think Dribbble in particular almost feeds on this. It’s what keeps people coming back to it. You can post something you’re working on and other designers will tell you how great it is, or give you useful feedback. That’s quite enjoyable and makes you feel like you’re doing something really good. It’s almost like having a small team of cheerleaders next to your desk, whooping and high-fiving every time you draw a great bezier curve in Photoshop. But if that becomes your source of affirmation and encouragement, it can become dangerous. What happens when people don’t like your design as much as that other one you did? Do you get discouraged?

I don’t think Dribbble is the devil. I think it’s great and I really enjoy using it, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t depending on feedback from people on Dribbble, Twitter, Instagram or whatever for that kind of encouragement or affirmation, and to learn to just do what I do whether anyone likes it or not. As Bill Johnson says:

“If you never live for the praises of men, you will not die from their criticisms.”

I really enjoyed this week off those sites. The first day was tough, I found myself automatically firing up chrome in the morning and typing in “drib…” and then had to stop myself! I even had a point where I was eating an amazing cookie and thinking “I can’t tweet about it! How are people that I don’t really know going to know how good this cookie is?“. But by the second or third day I wasn’t bothered about it, and I found it really enjoyable. By yesterday I realised that the week was over, and wasn’t particularly excited. It feels good. I did it to spend more time in prayer and reading the Bible, but whether you’re a christian or not, I highly recommend it! Give it a go, even if it’s just for a couple of days.

That thing you thought would be cool. Do it! So many times people have great ideas that they think ‘someone should do’, and do nothing about it. I probably lean too much the other way, in that I have too many ideas and want to do them all, but don’t have the time to do them! So I at least feel it’s something I can talk about.

Many of my best ideas for projects come from a spontaneous ‘wouldn’t this be cool?’ moment. Typographic Verses was started one lunchtime when I wanted something fun to do so I started to make some posters of verses from the Bible. Shortly after that I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I made a website for these? And a few weeks later, wouldn’t it be cool if people could send their own designs in? And then a few months later, wouldn’t it be cool if people could buy prints of these designs? And that’s where I am today! Still, it doesn’t always happen that way. I’ve got folders full of random ideas I had and tried and they didn’t work. But I think it’s worth the wasted ideas for the ones that did work.

That being said, I do think there’s something to be said for being cautious, and thinking through ideas before launching into them, particularly for non design-related things. A ‘do it’ approach can be quite dangerous, and often just a bit stupid! But for things like starting a website, a concept for a certain project, or that idea for a side-project you’ve had brewing for a while. I say, do it! It may end up going nowhere, but it could also be a great learning process, or portfolio piece, or an idea that gets shelved and ends up being useful 6 months later.

Typographic Verses is a website I started to be a place to share designs I make of Bible verses. I opened it up for submissions after a few weeks and I’ve had some great designs sent in. I recently got a few prints done, and put them up for sale on the online store. Some of them sold out very quickly, and I’ll be getting more done soon!

1. Hi Jonathan! To start with, can you introduce yourself and tell us what you do?

Hi! My name is Jonathan Ogden, I’m a christian, web designer, graphic designer and musician from Manchester, UK. I’m currently working as a full time web designer for a christian charity here in Manchester called The Message Trust, and I’m loving it!

2. Briefly, can you tell us when you started becoming passionate about creativity and the life journey you’ve been on since then?

I’ve always enjoyed doing creative things, drawing as a child, doing short films, animations etc. It was during a graphic design course at college that I really got a passion for design, and seeing the kind of work other designers did really inspired me. I had no idea people were creating these kind of great designs, and I wanted to get involved. I got really into it and started doing graphic design and web design, set up my own website and doing designs for friends, family and personal projects. My portfolio ended up getting me the web design job I’m in now!

3. Can you tell us more about the typographic verses project website? What is the vision behind it, how did it start and what are you hoping from it ?

Typographic Verses was started really quickly. One lunch break I decided I wanted to do something different from my web designs so I started making some typography posters for some of my favourite verses. Often just verses I had read and thought “they would make great posters!”. I looked around for some websites that had some nice posters of bible verses, but couldn’t find any, so I set up a quick Tumblr site, picked a name for the site and uploaded a couple of designs. It got quite a bit of attention and lots of people liking the designs and following the blog and since then I’ve opened it up to allow other designers to submit designs. It’s been great to see some really high quality designs sent in.

My aim is to have prints for sale soon, and I just put up the first print in the online store. People buy typographic posters of phrases that don’t mean anything or of the alphabet, so I thought it would be great to combine typographic designs with words that are “living and powerful” (Hebrews 4:12).

4. You wrote on your website «I see a lot of the creative stuff I do as a form of worship and it’s the best motivation ever ». Can you expand on that ?

I believe God created us in His image, and created us with the ability to create things. I find it really motivating that when we design things, we’re doing a small version of what God was doing when He made everything, when he sat back and said “it is good”. God is the best designer and can provide the best inspiration. I like to see design as a way of honouring God and the creativity that he gave us.

5. Can you tell us a bit about The Message Trust you work for ? What is it, what do they stand for and what do they do ? How is it working for them ?

The Message Trust is a great christian organisation, which aims to spread the gospel to young people in the UK. They do that through bands that go into schools, courses in prisons, drama groups, a youth training scheme and something called ‘Eden’ which sends people into some of the poorest / toughest areas in the UK to go and live out the gospel in the community. I love working for them, it’s a great place to work in and we actually have prayer and worship every morning as part of the work day! There’s not many places you get to do that! I work for the creative team which acts like a mini design studio. 75% of the work we do is for The Message, doing websites, videos, and print materials for the bands and all the other areas, the other 25% of what we do is external work with clients. We have two graphic designers, a video guy and I do web design, working alongside a web developer who handles most of the technical stuff.

6. Could you tell us about a few of your influences as an artist/designer ? Who are some of your heroes ?

Some of my favourite designers are Jez Burrows, Mikey Burton and Ed Nacional. It might be a bit weird that they’re all illustrators, and I don’t really do illustration, but I’m a huge fan of minimal designs with simple shapes and great colours and their stuff really inspires me. As for web designers, I love the work of Orman Clark, Regina Casaleggio and Dave Ruiz.

7. What is your long-term vision ? Some of your dreams ? What are some of your life-goals ?

I don’t really have big ambitions. I’d like to keep doing design, and keep loving what I do. I’d love to get into designing more music-related things like tour posters and album art. One day I’d maybe like to go freelance, but that’s a long long way off. I’m loving working at The Message and I can see myself being there for a long time, if I can! But really, all my design stuff is secondary to my life as a christian which is far more important to me. I’d rather be known as a great man of God or a great worshipper than as a great designer.

8. In french-speaking countries, Christians engaging properly with the importance of graphic design and the arts in general is something relatively new. How is it in the UK ? Is there a better understanding of the importance of the arts in church and christianity ?

It’s improving, I think. There’s a lot of great christian organisations that really understand design and are putting out loads of great things. I think there’s a lot of people that want their design to just be relevant, rather than cutting edge. I’d like to see more organisations taking risks and be willing to do some crazy things with design, rather than just trying to make things look cool by making it look like what everyone else is doing!

9. Do you see a big difference between your christian and secular work or do you see it all as a whole?

I see it as a whole really. Design is design, whatever the client. I do the same process for whatever I’m doing.

10. What is the vision behind your work and artwork ? What do you get out of it on a personal level ? What do you enjoy most in your job?

I think design is a way of communicating something. Clients want to communicate a message or promote a product in the best and most effective way possible and it’s our job to be a problem solver and come up with a great solution. I think if you believe in what the client is trying to communicate, it helps you to want to do the best design you can. If you’re behind what they’re trying to do and if you’re excited by the idea I think you get a lot more out of it, and so does the client! It’s also a lot of fun to design something that you know looks great. I guess it relates back again to God in Genesis when he looked at the Earth and said ‘it was good’, it’s a nice feeling to look back at your finished design and know you did a good job.

11. Can you tell us 5 artists/books/movies/bands that have inspired you and that you’d recommend?

I’ve been reading the first issue of ‘The Manual’ which I recommend for any web designer, it’s really inspiring and challenging. It makes you think more about what the web is and the bigger picture of what the web could be. It’s nice to come away from your screen and read a book about what the web could be, it feels like you’re removing yourself from the web for a while and thinking ‘are we doing it right?’. Musically, I’ve been loving Bon Iver, Local Natives, Fleet Foxes and Sufjan Stevens. Check them out.

12. Tell us about your other passion : music. What are your current projects and can you tell us more about them? Which bands would you say have influenced you?

As well as designing things, I write songs! I felt really strongly that God was calling me to write worship songs with a new sound that doesn’t sound like most worship songs at the moment. I love listening to new music and music that’s really creative and different, and it’s my goal to try and write songs that are worship songs while being really different and creative musically. In August I released an album under the name ‘Rivers & Robots’ which is my attempt to try and do this. I had good fun writing and recording it, and designing the website and album art. Musically, I want it to be a mix of folk and electronic music, which don’t generally go together, but it makes an interesting combination! I listen to loads of different styles and bands that probably influence me, specifically those mentioned above, plus Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, Jónsi and others.

13. What’s this other obsession of yours : tea ?

Haha! I’m definitely a big fan of tea, nothing fancy, just plain old tea. If I’ve made it to mid-day without at least 2 cups of tea, something is wrong. I think I drive my co-workers a little bit crazy with the amount of tea I drink.

14. What are your current projects that get you excited?

I’m really excited about the future of Typographic Verses as I start to get some prints done. I’d also like to take my music project further and start doing some live shows and really promoting the album. I’m already itching to do another album but it’s too soon I think. I’m also working on a new web project at work that I’m super happy with how it’s looking, and there’s a website we’re going to do for the youth work training scheme called Genetik which we want to do some crazy things with! We should be working on that later this year.

15. Have you ever been to France, Belgium or Switzerland?

I’ve been to france a few times for holidays. I spent two weeks there this year around the Carcassonne area. It was a beautiful area. I also did a small tour around Europe with my family a few years ago, we did a short stop in Geneva then and loved it! I’m a big fan of travelling and always like seeing different cultures.

16. Anything else to end up the interview with?

Thanks for having me on here! Hopefully these answers are helpful!

Thanks to Jeremie Claeys for doing the interview!

Take the Twitter app on the iPhone for example. I can pop that open and it swishes up in my face. I can swipe around, things animate nicely, they make cool clicky sounds and I generally feel a sense of contentment and well being in the depths of my soul as I read about things that people I don’t know are doing. Alternatively, I can open up safari on the iPhone and head to twitter.com. Twitter have put some decent work into making the web experience of Twitter very similar to using the app, in appearance. It’s just a whole lot more rubbish. It’s clunky, it refreshes all the time, you try and pull the feed down to refresh and the screen flicks around and freezes and swiping a tweet reveals these nasty looking blurry icons that appear on a background (which, in turn, appears a few seconds later once it’s loaded). The experience is nowhere near the experience of using the app.

I don’t mean to point the finger at Twitter. I appreciate them putting the effort in for the phones that don’t have the native Twitter app, but if web apps are going to be the future, shouldn’t they actually be as good as, if not better than native apps? I mean this for desktop web browsing too. I’m not currently seeing any web apps that match the experience of desktop apps.

What’s the problem?

Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places, and if you have seen any really special web apps, feel free to link to them in the comments section.

One of the main issues I see with web apps is that websites tend to refresh when we load different pages, and that is frankly quite ugly. If I open up Spotify and click on album I want to listen to, I don’t expect the whole window to go blank white and then see things gradually reappear again. I’ve seen people using AJAX loading to great effect, but if web apps are going to be the future (which Google seems to think they are, with their web OS) then perhaps will see the end of ugly refreshing in the future too? Maybe it’s something we’re stuck with, but I’d love to see it go one day.

The other thing is animations. We’ve got CSS3 animations, jQuery animations and a whole load of other stuff, but they’ve still got a long way to go, I think. Even on a fast computer, clicking on a link that scrolls the page down with jQuery is quite a jarring experience. Overall web apps just don’t feel as slick. I’d love to see some apps that are built in the web, but using them feels like you’re not even browsing a web site. I want to be able to write a blog post like this one and hit Cmd+S to save a draft.

Or perhaps web apps are trying too hard to replicate desktop / native apps, when actually they should be designed in a completely different way, maximising the capabilities of the web and creating apps that, through the power of the web, do things that desktop apps can’t do, rather than just making a glitchy, buggy version of a desktop app.

Wutcha gunna do ’bout it?

I’m thinking of setting up a labs section on my site to have a bash at some little bits of navigation design or interfaces, trying to make an experience in the web that is smooth and sleek. And I encourage other web people to think about this when designing your websites. If you ever find yourself making a web app, try and push the boat out a bit. Try not to kid yourself and make excuses because ‘it’s only a web app’. Let’s try and create a web that’s a sleek, fun, seamless and immersive. For the sake of the universe. The whole of humanity is depending on you. Maybe.

I just posted a tweet saying:

“As much as I think spec work is bad, the AntiSpec campaign feels like the wrong way to go about it to me.”

And got a few questions, so I am hitherto expanding upon said tweet. First things first: I don’t like spec work. Spec work (or crowd-sourcing) is essentially like a competition for design work. It means companies / brands / people can get loads of designs from different people, and only one designer gets the prize. Big win for the person running the competition, big loss for 99% of the designers.

I really like the fact that people are starting to speak out against it now and that sites like AntiSpec do exist. However, targeting specific crowd-sourcing campaigns to shout at feels wrong to me. Some spec work is run by big companies or people who could quite easily pay for a great designer, and that’s a bit rubbish. But sometimes they aren’t looking for professional designers, and professional designers hopefully won’t be taking part anyway. They may be looking for a very under-produced look, like a fan-made video. Also some spec-work campaigns are from startups, people with not much money and people who don’t understand or realise what designers do, and how their industry works, or bands running a campaign for their fans to submit something. This is just something for fun. The people running the competition aren’t expecting amazing designs / videos / whatever, and the people joining in are likely not professionals. In these cases, the best way to combat AntiSpec work is simply not to join in.

In the ever-challenging words of Jesus:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

and also

“love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”

Now, people running spec work may not be our mortal enemies who are threatening to kill us, but you get the point. Let’s show a bit of love and humility, stop telling people how important we are, and how much we’re worth. If you don’t like spec work, don’t take part!

If we need to do anything to combat spec work, it should simply be educating fellow designers about it and encouraging them not to get involved. I’ve tried it before when I first started design. It was rubbish. Don’t do it.

“Hi there! My name is blah blah and I create beautiful clean minimal interfaces with awesome simple user-experience-enhancing gloss and shine that makes your face melt and rainbows come out of your ears.” I’m sure many of us have seen this somewhere, and are perhaps guilty of doing it ourselves. Let’s try and get in the habit of showing people what we do, rather than telling people about it.

By all means say what you do, if it’s not clear, and explain the projects in your portfolio if necessary. But you only need to give information, not a description. Don’t tell them what it’s like, just tell them what it is. If people are looking at your work, they can see that it’s minimal, or clean, but they might not know who the client was, or why you decided to go for a particular style, or how you came up with the idea. More ‘show’, less ‘tell’.

We talk too much. And I talk too much in my blog posts too. So I’ll leave it there!

The End.

DesignersMX is a great website that invites designers to share a 10-track mix of the music they enjoy, and the songs that inspire their creativity. I had the opportunity to do a mix and submitted this one called ‘Mountains’ with some nice melodic indie-folk stuff. It’s the kind of music I’m loving at the moment and I often play this kind of stuff while I’m working. You can hear my mix and loads of other great mixes on Designers.MX.

The first mix I designed was really well received and I had a few requests asking for another! So I whipped up some new artwork and pulled together 10 songs that had been inspiring me and created the second mix: “Sailing To The Sun”.

Official music video for ‘Come Back / You See The Son’ from Rivers & Robots. Taken from the debut album ‘The Great Light’. Available on BandCamp, iTunes, Amazon MP3 and more. To buy, or for more info, see – riversandrobots.com

This video was to announce the original name change from ‘Maffiss’ to ‘Rivers & Robots’ and introduce the project. Filmed with a Canon EOS 550D.

This video was created to announce the release date for the debut album, “The Great Light”.