Future Of Web Design 2008 (Part 2)
Posted May 9th, 2008 | 2 Comments
This is part 2 of a long detailed 3 part summary of my day at the Future Of Web Design 2008 conference in London. Part 1 is here and Part 3 is here coming soon.
We left part 1 after 3 exceptional presentations from Patrick Neil, Andy Clarke and probably the best so far Andy Budd. Could the next 3 possibly be as good as those 3?
Microsoft water
No. In a word. And it’s all Microsofts fault. Well I suppose it is Carsonifieds fault really for allowing sponsored speakers (didn’t we pay enough already?) But that’s no excuse for Microsoft delivering a 100% sales pitch when they could have easily made it interesting. I suppose we should thank them for the MS branded water though!
I admit that I am a Mac fanboy. I hate Windows and Internet Explorer (i’m a web designer!) However, i’m not anti Microsoft, I have always used Office (nothing comes close to Word & Excel). I had an X-Box and would have a 360 if I had time to play (they are awesome) and the Zune is getting better all the time and is a real alternative to iPods.
Silverlight
I’m very interested in what Silverlight can do, I’m not one of the people saying it has no chance of competing with Flash. I think there is plenty of room for both technologies and I for one will be keeping up to date with both. So surely I would enjoy the Silverlight ‘demonstration’?
Corporate Lecture
Maybe if it didn’t feel like a corporate sales pitch! I’ve no idea who the guy was, he was called Benedict Ireland and he either worked for Microsoft or Aston Martin. The lecture was about Aston Martins new car customiser website which is powered by Silverlight. It could have been great but it wasn’t, there was no useful information just typical sales talk. I can’t help thinking that after such a great start the decision to allow sponsors to speak has devalued the event a little for me.
Larissa Meek - Getting your Designs Approved: 12 Simple Rules
It was refreshing to see a woman speak, the audience obviously agreed as there were countless camera flashes throughout the whole of her speech. I wonder why? (see pictures).
As well as looking great Larissa delivered a good presentation. I could go into detail about her 12 points but this post is already long enough so I will summarise.
- Make friends with your client.
- Ask lots of questions. What does the client want out of the site?
- Ask more questions! Who will use the site?
- Use wireframes, but don’t be tied to them
- Take about the design before opening Photoshop
- One design direction will do. Too many options are overwhelming
- Present in the browser. Walk client through the design if possible
- Prototype as needed. Very important for web apps.
- Ask from consolidated feedback and limited revisions
- Be confident in your work. Difficult for new designers but important
- Getting sign off gets easier the more you work with a client.
- Be positive. Take the most even from difficult situations
All good points i’m sure you will agree! I was particularly interested in number 6 about only supplying one design which is something I believe in myself. Many web companies offer 3 or even more designs and allows the client to chose. For me this is never a good idea but I that is a whole other blog post! I’m glad somebody as high profile as Larissa agrees though :)
Larissa finished with something that may turn out to be very interesting. She mentioned that a group called SoDA (Society of Digital Agencies) has been formed by several leading design agencies. They plan to agree best practices, processes and guidelines for the design industry which is something I think we are lacking at the moment.
Live Photoshop Battle: Battle of the Sexes
This session was straight after lunch which is known as ‘the graveyard shift’. I can understand the need for a light hearted bit of fun and I was looking forward to this when I read the lineup for the day.
However it turned out to be a little disappointing. The idea was that the 2 teams (Hannah Donavan & Jina Bolton against Elliot Jay Stocks and Jon Hicks) would take turns and have 5 minutes each with Photoshop to come up with a design with Andy Clarke to commentate. As it turned out, Andy didn’t commentate, instead he interviewed the team not working on the design. I’m thankful of this as the interviews were actually very interesting whereas the Photoshop side of it really wasn’t.
There is no doubt at all that all 4 are extremely talented designers, I follow Jon Hicks and Elliot Jay Stocks personally so know this for a fact. However, due to the time restraints and the nature of the ‘battle’ and the fact that there was a live audience they basically took a picture of Andy Clarke and made it ‘funny’. No advanced techniques were shown and it felt like a bit of a waste of time.
The only thing that saved this session for me was that Andy Clarke and especially Jon Hicks are perfectly capable of entertaining an audience. They didn’t need the gimmick.
Elliot Jay Stocks - Print Is The New Web
Elliot is somebody I have been interested in for a while via his blog and articles he writes for .net magazine so I was looking forward to his talk. It was about websites taking inspiration from print design.
Nothing new..?
This is nothing new at all but Elliot is a good speaker and had good examples. He started with lots of book covers, mainly George Orwell. He then went on to talk about the two types of web design HTML/CSS and Flash and that there should be more cross over between the two.
Your design is your business card..
He also showed us lots of cool business card designs which was very inspiring. He explained that your homepage is not your business card, neither is your contact page. Your design is your business card. This is something I have never though of before but I think I agree with it.
I think the main point I got from this presentation was that we should embrace the freedom of print design and take inspiration from areas outside the web, things that we wouldn’t normally do. You can impress more with brave design than just good design.
Enough!
That’s it for part 2! Part 3 will be along in a few days and will include presentations from Jon Hicks, Paul Farnell and Digg’s Daniel Burka! Oh and another corporate sales pitch, this time from Adobe.
David Pache
02.07.08
I was in London for the even too, it was really a great experience. I did find it was more geared towards students though for some reason.
The Aston Martin website ad wasnt really necessary but it sure was funny when Hicks joked about it for his cheese site.
Shaun
02.07.08
Hi again David,
I agree about being geared towards students actually! Well, maybe not quite students but certainly people new to the industry.
I’m relatively new myself so I still got quite a lot out of it. I imagine if I was as experienced as you clearly are that I wouldn’t have learned anywhere near as much.
Your comment has reminded me that I didn’t get around to posting part 3 of these articles! So thanks for that!
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