Wi-Fi? I use a Dell Latitude laptop with a Sierra wireless modem, which isn't really Wi-Fi as I'm not reliant on finding a hotspot. You just put a Sim card into the PCI slot on your computer and you're wireless. I get driven from work in London to our house and I can do all my email before I get home.
Broadband? We have BT Openworld in the office, as there isn't a digital exchange near our house. It's fantastic and fast - the only slight problem is that we can receive big files quickly but have to send them out on another line because we couldn't keep our "@hemingway design" email address, as it has to include some mention of BT.
How do you get around that? We have to send things via our Tesco.net connection, which is across a BT Business Highway line so it's still reasonably quick. They say they won't let us relay because it stops spam but it's a bit annoying just because I don't want BT as part of my email address.
Were you involved with building HemingwayDesign.com? My 16-year-old son Jack did the site. There's no Flash on it, as we wanted to keep it as simple as possible and not try to be clever. The thing I like most is that we regularly get emails from web design ers saying "when you want to do a proper website come to us". I send them back an email saying thanks but ours is much better and a 16-year-old lad designed it!
Do some sites overdo the gimmicks? The majority are over-designed. Maybe if you're looking at a band's site then Shockwave and Flash can be exciting. If you're just wanting information, then surely the cleverest thing would not be to have an intro for people to skip but to anticipate why people are using your site and get them straight to what they want. When it comes to design, less is always more.
Is the paperless office a reality for you? Very much so - it's more a case now of working out where to store all the disks! That's one of the next jobs for our son, working out a disk-archiving system. Every week I copy tonnes of work and photography on to disks, so we need a way of accessing those quickly.
Digital camera? I always carry one of the really thin Logitech digital cameras and also an Olympus in my bag. I don't think a day goes past where I don't take pictures. Digital cameras and computer technology have transformed our working life as designers. I use things like Photoshop or Pro-Engineer or various other systems, depending on what company's design teams we're working with.
Internet radio? No need really. I have a couple of DAB radios and DAB has more than enough new channels.
Visit: www.hemingwaydesign.com
