It is a small, yet top shelf event with leading voices from the industry. The atmosphere that makes it easy to meet other Web professionals.

Each year I leave the conference inspired in my work and with new connections to other designers and developers.

Making a New Friend

The highlight of the weekend was getting to know Jason Weaver. I first met Jason when he commented on one of my blog posts 2 years ago. We follow each other on Twitter and have an occasion conversation.

We split the cost of a hotel room and had a blast hanging out and getting to know each beyond throughout the weekend. We capped it off by visiting the Dali Museum before parting ways on Saturday.

Rooming with Jason made the conference much more enjoyable experience.

The Conference

We were welcomed to The Palladium by a giant banner flying above the steps leading to the auditorium.

It was a great venue with a comfortable auditorium and a coffee house type space where we enjoyed a casual breakfast and hang out during the day. I spent most of the breakfast hour catching up with different people that I have met over the past 2 years.

The Discovery Process

We kicked off the day by getting a look into the business of MindComet. With a lot of energy and enthusiasm, James May and Stephanie Fields shared about the process of discovery. It was a great behind the scenes discussion of the strategic role of discovery.

They shared how MindComet takes the time to get to know their client’s business and users so they can make better informed decisions in the design process. This leads to happier clients and more successful projects.

View their presentation and engage in a conversation

A Mindset for UI

Ryan Singer from 37 Signals challenged us to take a different approach when looking at an interface. Ask, “What’s this screen telling me?”, not “What’s on the screen?”, which is what we normally ask.

Ryan had us look at an interface for a tracking project time, something most of us have encountered in one form or another. He shared different principles on how to make an interface more obvious. As he went along, he mocked up a new interface giving us concrete examples of the principles he was sharing.

@rjs “Make design perform a job, not just make an interface look nice.”#frontendconf

July 22, 2011 9:49 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@webcraftsman

Jeff Bridgforth

Reduce the cognitive load required to get to the point of information using design #frontendconf

July 22, 2011 9:44 am via Twitter for iPadReplyRetweetFavorite

@lorielue

Lauren Martin

The bottom line: eliminate obstacles between the user’s intention and the user accomplishing their goals.

jQuery Bling

Doug Neiner was next up speaking on the topic on jQuery. Doug shared some good tips about working with JavaScript/jQuery. He walked through an example of displaying Dribbble shots using the Dribbble API and jQuery.

“ugly working code always trumps pretty, broken code” — @dougneiner #frontendconf

July 22, 2011 10:54 am via Twitterrific for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

@miklb

Michael Bishop

Responsive Web Design

This is the session I was really excited about and it did not disappoint. Ethan Marcotte, author of Responsive Web Design, shared about the responsive approach to modern Web development.  I believe this approach will form the basis of how we make Websites moving forward.

Rather than just rehashing what is in his book or the article that started it all, Ethan shared about his experience working with the Boston Globe.

Ethan showed how his team has integrated this approach into their process as they reshape the Globe’s online presence using a responsive approach. The talk really fleshed out the ideas from his book and took the conversation further.

I also enjoyed getting to talk with Ethan at the after party. I found him to be a very humble person that listened and took an active interest in me as a person. Part of our conversation centered around my work at a large media company. It was fun to compare it to his experiences with the Globe.

I really appreciated him taking the time to engage me on such a personal level. I think that is one of the best things about this conference–the personal interaction with the speakers.

The Place of Web Templates in the Web Design Business

Brandon Jones challenged us to consider the role that templates or custom themes can play in the Web design practice. He believes it can help us to provide affordable solutions for smaller clients who cannot afford custom design.

The templates can serve as a foundation that we can build upon to provide a custom solution to our client’s problem. I liked this approach in that he encouraged us to not just use the template out of the box, but to build on top of it.

I have considered using a custom WordPress theme for some projects that have a smaller budget. The advantage is that many of these come with functionality built in that is currently beyond my skillset and would take time (money) to build.

I believe there is a place for using templates and custom themes to help smaller businesses create a great online experience to engage their audience.

The Wonderful World of Pseudo Elements

@chriscoyier makes CSS so entertaining. #frontendconf #csspseudoelements

July 22, 2011 2:48 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@webcraftsman

Jeff Bridgforth

I think Chris Coyier is one of the most entertaining speakers that I have seen. I love his excitement and enthusiasm. He shared a lot of great solutions using the :before and :after pseudo elements. He showed us how to generate CSS shapes, create a horizontal parallax without multiple divs, and lots of other cool stuff. Go look at the PDF of his presentation.

View Chris’s presentation

Chris’ article A Whole Bunch of Amazing Stuff Pseudo Elements Can Do

Explore the Possibilities

Allison House was our final speaker for the day. Her talk was less on the practical side and more of a challenge to go out and experiment. This is an exciting time on the Web. We have a lot of great tools. The challenge is to learn how to tell stories (narrative) with these tools. This is largely unexplored place.

I enjoyed her examples. It is one of those talks that helps you to start dreaming. I have been thinking about narrative and have explored a couple of ways to bring narrative into experiences I have designed. I really enjoyed talking with Allison at the after party. We continued the conversation and I enjoyed her insights.

Fun, Fun, and More Fun

I really enjoyed getting to know people at the Beer Meetup on Thursday night and the after party on Friday. I met a lot of new people and had great conversations. I met one guy who owns an ice cream franchise and just got into Web design 2 years ago. It is a lot of fun to hear each other’s journeys.

I also enjoyed getting to catch up with friends and other people that I have met through previous conferences or through different working relationships over the past two years.

Takeaways

Here is what I took away from the conference:

• I want to do a responsive Web design. I have read about it, discussed it and thought about it some more. But I just need to get my hands dirty and try it. It is the only way to learn it. I believe this site will be that project.
• Consider using templates or custom themes as a foundation for freelance projects with small budgets. I think it makes good business sense and could allow me to take on some projects with those who could not afford a custom solution.
• Experiment with pseudo selectors. I had already implemented a solution last week for styling ordered lists.
• Write a blog post about using CSS selectors. I shared with Chris Coyier an idea to write about my experiences using CSS selectors like adjacent and child combinator. He thought using real world examples make a great read.
• Experiment. Look for ways to experiment. Don’t be afraid to redesign this site. This site is a platform for me to have fun and try new things.

My post about 2010 Front-End Conference

Dan Denney’s Flickr Set (Dan is conference organizer)

Sketch Notes

Once again, I decided to try sketch note taking. It is a great exercise to push myself. I think I did a great job capturing the content in a form that helped me (as I used it to help me write this post). Click on the thumbnails below to see a larger image.

First and foremost, a Web designer is a problem solver. A client comes with a message they want to communicate, information that they want to share, or a product or products that they want to sell. My job is to find an appropriate visual solution that will tell their story and connect people with the service they are offering or selling.

I craft a solution by visually organizing the text, images and video on the page to communicate my client’s message. I also craft a visual personality that helps supports the communication of that message.

A Hybrid ???

I have always assumed that a Web designer was one who not only came up with a visual design but also had the skills to build that design. My thinking is shaped by the fact that I first got into Web design by learning HTML so that I could create a Web page. This was back in the late 1990’s and visual design on the Web was in its infancy. Slow connections meant that you had to be creative to add graphics to a page and make it efficient to download. So I learned to code in HTML and later in CSS so that I could bring my creations to life.

Hence, I have always thought that it served a Web designer well to know how to build his or her creation (read a recent post on the subject.) There are many times when I will not even do a design comp but jump right into writing HTML and CSS and create as I build. I know what graphics I want to create and I prefer doing that in Fireworks. As I code, I begin to craft the design and start adding in details that make the design really come to life.

It is only recently that I have come to realize that many consider me unique. Hybrid is one of the words that someone used to describe my skills. I never thought of myself that way because most of the designers that I follow code their designs.

What are your thoughts? What word or words do you use to describe the work you do?

“Influence is immediate and free for the taking. Because of this, its utility is often short-lived. At times it may even serve as little more than a platform for duplication.

“Inspiration, on the other hand, is an on-going journey in which one continually seeks to heighten his or her awareness of design in its many shapes and forms. It is an understanding of the interplay between design and the cultural, social, and economic facets of society.

“Inspiration is not always immediate, and it has to be earned. Its utility is nurtured and harvested over time—months, even years—through personal experiences. Often it is the catalyst of true creativity.”

I think Cameron has nailed it. Much of what people call inspiration is really influence. I think there are different levels of influence and how we take that and use it to solve our design problems. Andy develops a similar idea in his article.

I think Andy is also on to something. I think he is trying to debunk some false ideas about what inspiration is. He wrote a similar article about creativity.

I agree with many of Andy’s assertions. I think that a lot of people throw around the term “inspiration” and it is creating a wrong idea of how a design professional works. It is almost the idea of having a “muse.” And what most people call inspiration is really influence–looking at design galleries. I never find “inspiration” or influence when I am looking for it.

I think what happens is that we regularly expose ourselves to different ideas and works and that becomes part of a reservoir that we can draw on.

Like other designers, I have an itch to jump right into Photoshop or Fireworks and start designing. But we really need to take the time to research so that we have solid foundation to come up with a design solution. As I think about the strategic planning process, one of the first steps is doing a situational analysis. That is really research or the result of research. You have to know the background and factors that shape the problem and also look at how others are solving similar problems. This leads to better defining the problem and the constraints for coming up with an appropriate solution. Then we can draw upon appropriate material from our design reservoir.

Now I can think of at least one time that I saw something in a design gallery that helped me right away. But I was already working on the problem and moving in a similar direction with my solution. Seeing the other solution gave me some more ideas that helped me shape my final solution.

Andy has an interesting take on what inspiration really is and I need to chew on that a bit more before I know where I agree and where I don’t.

So what is inspiration and where does it come from? Well, the antonym of inspiration is of course expiration. To expire is to end. It is the end of term or end of life. This alone makes it clear that to be inspired is to receive new life; life beyond what we already possess. This new life brings extraordinary ability, allowing us to do things we otherwise simply cannot do. So there is nothing mundane or worldly about inspiration. By definition, it is not something we already possess and might willfully tap into in our moment of need. It is something that comes most often unbidden and fills us with something beyond “us.” And what is beyond us?

It is not my main purpose here to challenge your philosophy, but there is an elephant in the middle of the room of this examination: divinity. If past response is any indication (and much to my great sadness), many of you will surely gnash your teeth and spit in derision of this fact, but the term “divine inspiration” is entirely redundant. There is no inspiration short of the divine. When you consider the fact that inspiration is something beyond ourselves breathed into us, or that we breathe in (inspire) or otherwise become filled with, and so find the ability to do what we otherwise cannot do, certain realities stare us full in the face. Unblinking. This would seem to make clear how shallow are our most common references to inspiration.

After reading this article, I am trying to decide if I feel comfortable using the word inspiration at all. Again, I want to chew on this some more. I think I like the words inform or influence better because I think they do a better job describing what is really happening in the design process. As I read in Beyond Trend, it is important as a design professional to be conscious of what sources are informing our design solutions.

Whether you call it inspiration or not, I like Cameron’s idea in that true inspiration is a collective knowledge that we accumulate over time and apply appropriately to solve our design problems. Then that collection informs or influences our design decisions.