digital arts exhibition, 23/6/09 @ The Foundry

Courses participating:

• ‘Design for the Web’ course → webeyedea.info
• ‘Digital Animation’ course → diganimation.info

Everyone is welcome – the more the merrier ;-) hope to see you there :-)
→ download flyer

UPDATE →
It was a great evening – lots of visitors – good atmosphere – and a great end to the year. Thanks to Laura for the photos :-)

→ view photos as slideshow

While there are only the audio files – I would highly recommend listening to the following (the others below do need the full video and slides for full enjoyment):

• Molly Holzschlag

  → The Future of Web Standards: Is There One?
  Molly finished off the day with a bang – loved her dynamic and lively delivery :) and it was the crowning talk of the day for me. Molly discussed several topics I was keen to hear more about. Though the future of web standards does not look great – I left determined to keep pushing forward and looking ahead.

• Jim Coudal

  → Keynote Address
  Jim talks about the creative process and discusses some great techniques ;) With or without the slides – I’d recommend you listen to it, inspirational stuff :)
  And in case you have not seen this site yet – you should have a look a this example of the discussed creative freedom: seedconference

• Mark Boulton

  → Typography’s not on the Web, it IS the Web
  of course, this was a talk not to be missed — Mark discussed the matter of type on the web and went into a rant or two which made it all very entertaining :)

Some of the talk just would not be the same without the visuals though – so I would suggest to check the Carsonified site for updated content from FOWD :) — in my opinion, these are not to be missed:

• Mike Kus

  Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard
  Mike’s slides were one of the highlights of the presentations for me – beautifully designed using type, textures and colours with wonderful composition and layout. While we’re waiting for the videos – Mike’s slides are already online. So have a look at the slideshow below – #24 is my favourite – gorgeous black&white visual :)

• Robin Christopherson

  Designing for All in a Web 2.0 World
  Robin’s talk was very enlightning — and brought home once again why accessibility is such a vital aspect of any site. Robin navigated with the screenreader while giving his talk and just amazed me with his ability to do both at the same time. You should definitely watch his presentation once the video is available – you will learn a lot and find him very inspiring.

• Simon Sankarayya

  13 years and 13 things I have learned about computers
  Simon was like a whirlwind from internets past… Fast-paced and super dynamic – Simon’s talk took us back to the start of multimedia and an evolution of technology entwined with talent. To enjoy his talk – you will definitely need to wait for the video for the full experience.

And I could go on… but you should check the talks out for yourself ;) All I can say that I had a great time at FOWD. A big thank you to the Carsonified team for a great day, the lovely pressies – and for getting the audio files so quickly online :) — and thanks to the speakers for their inspiring talks.

slides : Mike Kus – FOWD 2009

Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard

View more presentations from mikekus.

Laura, Brooke and I attended the London Hub opening of the conference and had the pleasure of hearing a number of inspiring talks from Jeremy Keith, Ann McKeen, Simon Wilison, Christian Heilmann, Simon Wardley and Tim O’Reilly to name but a few. Aral created a very friendly atmosphere and made this a great start to the conference. The technical glitches and hickups made us laugh while the everything went remarkably smooth overall.

Saturday and sunday’s sessions were held online with the speakers showing their slides in the largest section of the screen, their video shown in the top right corner alongside the online chat window. This setup worked really well – and the speakers we saw were brilliant and made this approach work really well. The chance to ask questions and comment on the talk during or afterwards was great – and I really enjoyed sitting comfortably at home with Laura and Brooke while watching the talks.

- – - back to conference for the last talk – - -

Returning from the end of conference now I have to say it was brilliant. I am going on holiday tomorrow so I do not have the time to even try and digest any part of the inspiring talks now. But I’d like to give you the links to the speaker’s profile pages on the <head conference> site.

I’m using the profile photos found on the website – hoping Aral won’t mind ;) (note: I have asked Aral for permission to use these photos (though he will no doubt need a breather after the conference is now over, and deservedly so) and I will of course take the photos down immediately if asked to – update: I’ve since heard from Aral who is happy for me to show the images here).

So here, in no particular order are the speakers who I found most inspiring over the last 3 days :)



all images © <head> conference (Aral Balkan, 2008)

Christian Heilmann has been doing an amazing job on creating an accessible player for YouTube and is now bringing together the right groups of people, developer, accessibility experts and hackers together with the aim of “making the web a more accessible place” (as stated on the site).

To explain this in more detail – here’s Christian being interviewed about the event:

Make sure to check out the site itself : scriptingenabled.org

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty – 15/10/08

to quote the site:

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

For now I just want to support this action and I am planning to write a dedicated post for the day – come on, everyone – let’s show strength in numbers ;)

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

digital arts exhibition, 24/7/08 @ The Foundry

Courses participating:

• ‘Design for the Web’ course → webeyedea.info
• ‘Digital Animation’ course → diganimation.info

Everyone is welcome – the more the merrier ;-) hope to see you there :-)
→ download flyer

UPDATE →
It was a great evening – lots of visitors – good atmosphere – and a great end to the year. Thanks to Laura, Daiva and Zara for the photos :-)

→ view photos as slideshow

If you are curious to find out more about the 2 courses – or simply fancy seeing some great creative work – you are very welcome to come and join us for our end of year celebrations :)

→ download flyer

note: big thank you to Brooke ;) for designing the flyer – if you want to see the lovely madam aubergine in her full glory – please visit: smallestaubergine.com

Hopefully we will all be ready for the show – and be able to present client work as well as portfolio websites from the webdesigners and some outstanding animations from our animators.

For a little preview – have a look at the courses’ websites:

• Design for the Web
  
• Digital Animation

Hope to see you there ;)

note: a huge thank you to Zara :) for the gorgeous artwork used for this poster – have a look at her page on our animation site: Zara Taylor