This is the 88th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino and her blog, designswarm.com
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Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
My name is Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino and I’m an author and consultant with a background in product and interaction design. I studied at IDII which was one of the pioneering post-graduate courses in interaction design and I’ve lived in London for 18 years. I was the first UK distributor of the Arduino and three of my projects are in the permanent collection of art of design museums around the world but these days I tend to work as a leader in organisations with a climate mission. When I’m not working, I’m trying to get my feet all the way to the ground in downward dog and teaching myself how to knit.
What's the story behind your blog?
When I was studying at IDII in 2005 and I had a class with Yaniv Steiner who forced us to start our own Wordpress.org instance to document our masters project. I hated figuring out PHP but eventually got the hang of it and just kindof kept going with it. My friends started doing weeknotes but I always had a problem with the intimacy of the format. I was never a Livejournal kind of girl and don’t really like writing about my personal life outside of the end of year reviews Molly Steenson started me on. So I keep things pretty professional or abstract. It helps that I live in England where people love cryptic crossword puzzles.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
These days, I have two types of blog posts. A link dump I call ’Sunday Scraps’ which lets me close some tabs on my phone and regular work-related musings. I never have a plan, I just try to blog regularly. I find it a useful way to practice writing in addition to writing books. If I go back to my earlier blog posts, I can see a tangible improvement in my English (my mother tongue is French) so that’s pleasing. I usually write later in the day, probably after I’ve been mulling over a blog post idea for a few days. I write in about an hour or less and I rarely write drafts. If I can’t seem to finish a blog post, I take that as a sign that it’s not going to be very good so I just close my laptop. Sometimes I go back to it, sometimes I don’t and just start a brand new one. I’m very aware people don’t read so I try to make my point inside of 600 words. I also never post my blog post content on other platforms. I know it’s a little bit pointless now with LLMs but my writing is my copyright, not anyone else’s.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?
I have written too many blog posts on my very uncomfortable sofa to think that physical space has anything to do with my blogging. And I’m a big fan of Bukowski’s 1992 poem ‘air and light and time and space’ which puts that idea to bed. If you have something to say, you always find a way.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
I host the subdomain designswarm.com/blog with dreamhost and the blog is a Wordpress.com instance that is linked to it.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
Not really, I mean you’re just adding words to the internet. Unless you need to make a living from it, just write like nobody’s reading. Unless you’re being a wanker, in which case, don’t. Just go to the pub with your mates.
Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?
I don’t take donations, I don’t have a substack, I don’t use Medium anymore (I extracted my posts from there years ago) and I generally don’t trust third party platforms for bloggers. I also don’t think I should be paid for my blog posts because they’re a calling card. The good stuff comes from people who read me and then want to work with me. If I was to charge for it, I’d limit the number of people who might want to work with me which is silly. And I have books people can buy or borrow from their local library instead. So that’s enough monetisation of thoughts for one person I think.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
I’m a big fan of things magazine which has been going for a long time. My friend Russell also blogs about 5 things he finds interesting and there’s always some lovely things in there. You should talk to him and Matt Webb about blogging.
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
If Scottee wrote a blog, I would read it. In the meantime, I really enjoy his annual podcast.
This was the 88th edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Alexandra. Make sure to follow her blog (RSS) and get in touch with her if you have any questions.
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