Duncan Stephen

Article — 20 January 2013 — 527 words

Newtyle Railway walk

Walking

Our project to complete 40 walks in Dundee and Angus gave me the perfect excuse to explore the Newtyle Railway.

Article — 8 January 2013 — 355 words

Balmashanner Hill

Walking

My girlfriend and I are attempting to complete 80 walks in our area. Our first walk was at Balmashanner Hill in Forfar.

Article — 1 January 2013 — 1,421 words

Was Joyce Hatto always a con artist?

Media — Music

Joyce Hatto was a revered pianist until her recordings were revealed to be fakes after her death. But was the truth about her recordings staring everyone in the face all along?

Article — 24 December 2012 — 593 words

Colour

Accessibility — Web

Concluding my look at the decisions I made while designing this website, this article looks at the issues surrounding colour.

Article — 23 December 2012 — 601 words

Layout and responsive design

User experience — Web

Continuing my series explaining the decisions I made while designing this website, this article looks at the process of creating the layout and working on a responsive design.

Article — 22 December 2012 — 558 words

HTML5 and web fonts

Accessibility — Web

This series of posts will cover some of the decisions I have made while designing this website. This first article looks at the issues surrounding HTML5 and web fonts.

Article — 20 December 2012 — 497 words

Some notes on my new website

Personal — Web

I have decided to start blogging again — sort of. I explain why I had to stop in the past, and how I plan to carry on in the future.

Article — 23 February 2012 — 388 words

My name is Duncan and I am interested in fonts. Against my better judgement, sometimes I blurt out this fact, and people run a mile. But is it becoming acceptable? Simon Garfield’s book, Just My Type, would make it seem like a perfectly normal interest. Though there is a nod and a wink towards the […]

Article — 30 January 2012 — 674 words

Brutalism: Post-War British Architecture

Architecture

I have found myself developing an interest in brutalism, the style of architecture that was predominant in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I have had a slight interest in modern architecture in the past, but I am finding myself increasingly drawn to brutalist structures and other buildings from this era. It is not just the […]

Article — 11 January 2012 — 325 words

The newfangled apostrophe

Culture — Current affairs

Outrage has broken out among pedants everywhere, as it was revealed that Waterstones has dropped the apostrophe from its name. Waterstones is hardly the first business to make this move. For instance, Woolworths was, up until the 1980s, called Woolworth. But people called it Woolworths, so the company adopted it. Note how many people also […]

Article — 12 December 2011 — 378 words

The importance of design for transport

Human-centred approaches

I was pleased to see an article on the BBC News website about the brilliance of the design of the UK’s road signs. Minimalist and clutter-free, British road signs are a design triumph.

Article — 8 November 2011 — 145 words

An incredibly unusable email

User experience — Web

Today I received an HTML email that is amazingly user-unfriendly. We have all become accustomed to image-laden emails and dodgy table-based layouts in HTML emails (it is, after all, more-or-less the only way to do it). But this takes it to a whole new level. Horizontal scrolling is enough of a no-no as it is. […]