Over the last few days, I have been thinking up more content for the Premium Partners area, which is now up to eight registered members out of a maximum of fifty. With the price going up on February 2, 2009, I recommend people get in early if they want to be grandfathered at the current pricing structure.

For those that didn’t enjoy the nextMEDIA posts, I will be getting back to regularly scheduled programming over the next few days, but for those that did enjoy nextMEDIA, I hope that you’ll continue to keep watch over this site, as I will be covering other conferences and events in the future.

Other than that, I have been staying off blogs for the last few days, and enjoying myself a little bit. I had my twenty-sixth birthday on November 14, and it wasn’t a great one. In fact, it was down right stressful and frustrating, but that was just one more reason to give myself a little time to play, watch movies, and spend time with my wonderful wife.

I hope you all stuck around, as I have some great thoughts, ideas, and actionable content filled posts lined up for December. I really appreciate everyone’s support and I want to thank you all for your patronage.

Based on the ever popular Tuscan wrap design but with an elegant magnetic closure, the Milano journal offers an artistic yet practical take on the traditional journal. Handmade in England from the finest Italian bridle leather, this journal has a wonderful soft waxy feel and natural leather aroma. Customers can choose between lined paper for writing or unlined pages for free-spirited thinking and sketching.

While my handwriting has evolved into a set of scribbles that only slightly represent the letters that they come from, between the leather journal and my iPod Touch, I can create a conference blogging set up that doesn’t require me to lug around a heavy laptop, or worry too much about battery life.

Quick Video Review

The journal is well put together, and is hand-made. The magnetic clasp holds the book closed firmly, and the pages are of a nice stock of paper. While having a yellowish tinge, and no lines on the one I received, I have no real complaints.

Because of the lack of lines, I have a feeling I will be diagraming and jotting notes rather than writing out lines and lines of text, but that is fine, since I can barely read my own handwriting.

Holding it in my hands, I feel like I am a business man with good tastes, rather than just an Internet savvy geek.

While I couldn’t see myself spending around $80 Canadian on a journal every quarter, I am absolutely thrilled to have one, and would recommend those interested in journal products to check out Kiki James London. If you can afford their products, you’ll enjoy them.

I went out on a hunt to find someone that could do a better job, and took a risk on James McDonald, someone that I didn’t know really well. His portfolio was extensive, but only one of the designs really struck me as amazing and so I was hesitant to let him try his hand at the re-design.

I am very happy that I did though, as I am very happy with the results. I contacted him for a quick interview about what he did and his business, which you can find below.

1.) James, can you tell me a bit about yourself? Where are you in the world, what are your interests, and how did we meet?

Hello David, firstly i’d like to thank you for taking the time out to write up these questions and also, give me a wonderful opportunity to be interviewed on such an amazing blog!

I am an 18 year old student from Glasgow in Scotland. I study at Glasgow’s Caledonian University doing “Multimedia Visualization with Product Design”. As well as being a student, I also have a heart throbbing relationship with the world of design, especially graphic & web design.

2.) You recently re-designed this blog, and that is why I wanted to have you come on here and talk a bit about what you did. Can you explain to my readers the process from start to finish of doing design work for other people?

I’m not the type of guy who spends hours upon hours drawing up concept after concept, I like to throw myself in the deep end and just “go for it”. So to answer your question, at the start you sent me a brief which I had a couple of reads over. I then opened Photoshop up and starting painting my way to the finish line. Obviously there was tweaks and editing which you got me to do during it, but I love to keep everything fast paced.

3.) I had commissioned someone to design my logo, but I wasn’t able to integrate it well into the out of the box theme that I chose. What made you choose the colours that you used, and can you explain a bit about how you came up with the overall typography and positioning design elements?

Before starting I went into Illustrator and messed around with my own version of my perception of your logo, but it wasn’t working out. After you sent me the logo, I threw together some colour schemes that worked well with the rest of the design and thought the orange suited well, due to its impact it has on the darker background.

As for the logo text and font, I thought having a very subtle bold typeface like “rockwell” would suit perfect. The whole domain name “BrandingDavid” seemed pretty big to put on one line, which is why I separated them both and put “David” just below it, left centered to co-operate with the logo.

4.) You didn’t slice or code this for me, but you found someone that could. Is it normal for you to manage projects beyond just the design aspects for people that have become frustrated with getting their designs from the idea stage to being implemented?

Yeah, totally. I manage every bit of the project although love to keep my clients happy by keeping them involved. Like you noticed, I didn’t ask for any of the coding works retainer, I like the client to be somewhat part of the process as well.

5.) Can you talk a bit about what your most interesting design project has been thus far, and why it is the most interesting? And is your most interesting design also your favourite from your portfolio?

Wow this is a hard question! The most interesting project… there has been so many. One of the interesting projects I’ve ever worked on was for a car shop just about 20 minutes away from me. Unfortunately the website isn’t online any more, but it was my first taste of “meeting the client” and getting out there spreading the word.

This project isn’t on my portfolio unfortunately, due to me doing it around 3-4 years ago. However the most interesting project that i’ve done up to date is probably your design. I loved working on another dimension with yours and expressed myself so much while designing it.

6.) If people are interested in finding out more information about you, and your work, how can they contact you or where can they find you?

You can contact me via email – hello@flockey.com and you can view my portfolio at http://www.flockey.com. I do have an extensive portfolio for people to view, were a lot of my work isn’t on Flockey. It can be seen on request.

I currently bill myself out at around $120 per hour, depending on the needs of the client, and so I have priced the members area aggressively at only $10 per month, or $120 per year. Those purchasing a full year in advance will also get an hour of consulting. That means, if you buy a minimum of one hour of consulting time, you also gain entry into the member area.

What do members get that normal readers of this blog do not?

• Premium content similar to other things I’ve written here
• Actionable information that can’t be found elsewhere
• Tips, tricks and advice from me and other members
• Information on tools that I use
• Guides and techniques I won’t post anywhere else
• Members only podcasts, videocasts, live Ustream video sessions and screencasts

I will be doing everything in my power to make membership worthwhile, and I will be limiting the membership to only 50 members. This limit might sound like a marketing gimmick, but instead is a number I chose based on a few different factors.

I wanted to make sure the community was small and tight knit. There aren’t going to be hundreds of people all competing in the same niches, allowing us to help each other, and to make each tip I give out more useful for each member as there might only be a small handful of people in the same niche for you to compete against.

Also, there is advice that I’ve long wanted to give out, but I didn’t want to do like Darren Rowse did a long time ago by giving out tips publicly that could ruin my business growth and opportunities. He told the world about how high the advertising rates were in blogging about digital cameras, and in doing so, created his own competition, effectively diminishing what anyone could get in that space through advertising revenue.

I gave out the information regarding this new offering in my e-mail newsletter last week and already have five members on the forums, so you will want to get in quickly before I close the doors. I will never raise the member limit beyond fifty active partners.

Lastly, the current rate isn’t set in stone. You need to join before February 1st, 2009 to be grandfathered at the $10 per month rate. As of February 2nd, 2009, the rate will go to $15 per month, or $175 per year.

How can you sign up for the Branding David Premium Partners section? Head on over to the sign-up page and enter your details now.

I have long held a personal blog, but updating it has become more of a chore than anything, and has never strongly reflected my abilities nor the work I have done, and as such, it has made a horrible portfolio for someone who generates all of his income online.

It reminds me of the various web designers that have a horrible design on their own site as they are too busy with client work. It is great that they are too busy, thanks to paying clients, to work on their own site, but it doesn’t help earn the confidence of potential new clients to fill the void once that busy time dies down.

Recently, I was able to sit on two panels at Blog World Expo, and in doing so, I realized, once again, how much I enjoy teaching others. I have always though of myself as a teacher, and continue to try to find new ways to explore that interest, but like my personal blog, I haven’t been able to devote much time to it.

With this site, I hope to expand on what I have done on other blogs, in teaching others everything I can, while working towards finding new opportunities for myself to consult, teach, and speak as my career continues forward.

This blog will cover all of my interests rather than any single niche, and will be my place to connect with other like-minded individuals. This blog is not going to try to generate tens of thousands of readers, but is instead, hopefully, going to be useful for a small cross section of geeks, bloggers, educators and thought leaders that think and feel as I do.

I will be writing about blogging, business, events, technology and trends, while also covering some of my random interests and personal life. I will delve deep into what I, and those around me are doing, and what it means to brand yourself as a web worker today.