Sitting watching The Spy Who Loved Me on a lazy Saturday afternoon gives me time for quiet reflection of my previous week. Why don’t all cars come with submarine mode capabilities? It would make for much more interesting trips to Blackpool. Putting aside my desire for a sub-aquatic Lotus Esprit I though I would share with you the best thing that has happened this week…
BigRedCircle went to the Future of Web Design 08 conference in London!
With all the excitement of visiting an underwater base we stepped into Kensington town hall.
This was, personally my second visit to the hall of web wonderment. So, how did it match up to last year?
FOWD07 – I left feeling inspired and hungry for my next web project. Millions of ideas and possibilities were circling around my head. Some of which made it to the web, others are still waiting to be great. Although I think I missed a trick with my amazing idea of selling fresh bread online. I think 2010 will be the year of bread online. Just you wait!
FOWD08 – To compare the two is a difficult thing to do. Its like comparing jasmine green tea with pineapple and grapefruit green tea. They are very similar in many ways but inherently different.
This year I actually learned a lot. The conference seemed slightly more technical, aimed a little more towards developers as oppose to straight up designers.
This was like cat nip to me.
Hicksdesign gave an innovative talk on his development process from start to finish on a website that I can safely say is best cheese website in the world ever. cheesophile.com
The highlight for me was Andy Clarke and Steve Pearce’s tag team, duel blow, double dragon attack on the “User Experience vs Brand Experience” subject. Simply inspiring and really made me think in new ways when I approach such a subject. Inevitably, the outcome was: The two should not be at opposite sides of the ring in a death match style but more naturally be married together in a harmonious way. Expertly depicted and voiced by these two web guys on top form.
Top of the bill, king of the castle, the headlining act… Daniel Burka gave a good insight into the trials and tribulations of developing a webapp from an in-house capacity. Its one thing to create websites in a creative design agency. Always jumping from site to site, but to keep your focus and reiterate and reiterate over and over, always trying to improve a single webapp that is used my millions. A daunting task. The talk was very impressive, I almost felt like whooping. Being an american I think he would have appreciated a significant whoop during his talk but I resisted and bowed to my better judgement and simply clapped a little harder at the end.
All in all I can’t fault the Carsonified guys for putting on such a top notch, blog worthy event. Thanks, from all at BigRedCircle. The fire in our bellies has been truly stocked, the magic wand of inspiration has been waved over our heads.
To the information super highway!
