Alas! Nick's written a book.

This summer saw the release of Alas! Smith & Milton: How not to run a design company - the story of one design company's 25-year struggle to make sense of a notoriously fickle industry. Co-written by Nick Asbury and Howard Milton (one of the company's founders), the story draws on interviews with friends, associates and employees of the company from over the years - including such design luminaries as Michael Johnson, Mary Lewis, Michael Peters and Richard Seymour.

"That almost impossible product, a design book which is a darn good read... expresses what we all enjoy and think about but have never quite managed to articulate." David Stuart, co-founder of The Partners and author of A Smile in the Mind

"A brutally honest tale of success, failure and the huge pressures involved in working in the design industry... There's a happy ending but any aspiring designer will learn some valuable lessons along the way." Creative Review