New Adventures… in Nottingham

The New Language of Web Design
Dan Rubin

Dan had probably the hardest task of everyone, he needed to get an entire room of  geeks, who had been out on the razzle the evening before and not had much sleep, to wake up and get excited over words. And he did just that.

Having seen Dan speak at DIBI last year I knew that he would have something very interesting to say and that the title of his talk would be the tip of the iceberg. He talked about the language of web design at the moment, explaining that at present most terminology currently comes from the print industry and even from architecture. He spoke about the effect that “our” language as web designers can confuse clients and people in similar industries and that we should be, as an industry that is gaining its own respect and finding its own feet, creating our own names for processes and practices.

A New Canon
Mark Boulton

Next up was Mark with a very vague and mysterious subject matter indeed. I have to say even after the introduction my sleepy brain was still struggling a little bit. That is not to say I didn’t find it interesting, just a little difficult to take in with my brain only being semi awake. I look forward to the videos being released so that I can watch it again with a fresher pair of eyes. As soon as I do I shall perhaps amend this post.

Crafting User Experiences
Sarah Parmenter

I don’t know where it came from (perhaps from having seen Sarah speak before) but I managed to wake up quite a lot in a short period of time for Sarah’s talk. I am a bit of a UE geek, though I don’t often get free rein to do much of it, so I was quite excited to hear some of Sarah’s experiences.

She started with some facts and figures about the brand wars between Coke and Pepsi and how colours and branding can swing consumer choices. Leading on from this she showed how copywriting can substantially influence users to “follow you on twitter” or click on a call to action button.

She also spoke about the importance of colours within design and how they impact different cultures around the world. Though it is not important for every project it should be considered when creating a site that will very probably be viewed by different cultural sects.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot started his talk by explaining that he usually has a tendency to rant in his talks (specifically quite a bit about the web 2.0 look), and immediately I knew I was going to like him. This was the first time I had seen him speak and aside from having seen his website, bought 8faces and seen some of his illustration, I didn’t know that much about him.

He explained that at the moment he was getting a bit bored of design that mimicked the real world, coffee stains, textures and drop shadows. He also touched on the point of css3 and how it is becoming over used without real reason behind it. The general message overall was that quirky elements and new spangly elements should be used responsibly, and not used just for the hell of it.

Language and the Lizard Brain
Jon Tan

I have to admit, I knew pretty much nothing about Jon Tan, I had heard his name and was following him on Twitter (after seeing some of the things he tweeted about).

Jon’s was another talk that I was completely clueless on, I didn’t have a clue what to expect and I certainly wasn’t ready to be blown away by the content of it, but was very impressed. He spoke about peoples reactions and emotions to design and that seeing sites from a users perspective and understanding the way they feel and how the site relates to that, will make us become better designers.

Designing on Solid Foundations
Tim Van Damme

I loved Tim’s talk at DIBI, and have since loved following his mind blerbs on Twitter. He’s an interesting guy and a flipping good designer.

The subject matter was less of a “how to” be an amazing designer and more of a loose rule book to doing it right. I found that although the content was just common sense, the way it was presented was typical Tim Van Damme, lots of chuckles to be had and some cheeky comments about clients being like screaming children, but that they pay you so you put up with it.

Art Direction & Editorial Design On The Web: Does It work?
Greg Wood

I found the idea of Greg’s talk quite interesting. Lately I have been playing with a lot of typography based sites, leaning away from graphical interfaces and pictorial content so I was interested to learn how that impacted on the viewers.

Greg’s experiment certainly raised some interesting points.Users seemed to learn more and certainly be more interested in information that was illustrated and visually stimulating. The large chunks of information seemed to be better received when coupled with diagrams, graphs and photographs. After all who wants to just read reams of text, you may as well just go buy a book…

Unraveling The Mysteries Of Inspiration
Veerle Pieters

For me Veerle’s talk seemed to just be a showcase of her work and an explanation of which websites she gets her inspiration from. That’s not to say I wasn’t interested, her work was beautiful and she is obviously very proud of it. But for me it wasn’t really anything new. I shall, however, be watching what new work she comes up with, the geometric work she has done is fantastic.

Once Upon A Time On The Web
Andy Clarke

This may be a little controversial but I was a little lost with Andy’s talk. I loved the presentation of it and I love Andy’s style of presenting but I didn’t really grasp how the subject could be utilised within design work. Again, perhaps like Mark’s talk, I may find that watching it back it may sink in better. I loved the comic strips though, I feel like it was more of a how to design a comic book.

Produced For Use
Brendan Dawes

Brendan’s talk was probably one of my favourites of the day. I have followed him on Twitter for quite a while and was looking forward to seeing what he had to talk about. I assumed that he’d be speaking about websites that are created and then never used and why, perhaps also talking about sites that had a specific purpose.

Strangely, Brendan’s talk only briefly touched on web design and was directed more at actual items and services. He spoke of his obsession with pencils and “the best pencil sharpener in the world”.

He also spoke of how the same item can have different forms and yet still perform the same task, displaying his new collection of paperclips of the world and also his ever growing tea strainer collection.

He spoke about his voyage into designing “things”, including his MoviePeg and While I Was Sleeping which was basically a printer hooked up so that it downloaded the last 10 images on his Instagram feed on a Saturday night and prints them ready for him to sit and ponder over on Sunday morning with a coffee.