48 Hours in Nottingham
Last week I headed up to Nottingham with Kieran for the second New Adventures in Web Design hosted by Messrs Collison and Wood. I really enjoyed the inaugural event and year two was no exception. It was a great kick off to the year and a fantastic opportunity to catch up with old friends (Graham’s beard, peppermint brownies and the customary catch up in Starbucks of course being a highlight), meet new people and of course hear from some of the web’s finest practitioners.
Highlights
Whilst all eight talks were off a high standard three really stood out for me and for quite different reasons. In no particular order:
- Dan Mall – Dan works at Big Spaceship who boast clients as diverse as Crayola and Star Wars. He gave us a fascinating insight into his design process and discussed how he and his colleagues push the boundaries, sometimes with great outcomes, occasionally less successfully. I also loved the way Dan presents his iPhone designs to clients (see slide 47 for a visual explanation). Above all it was great to see that big agencies experience similar problems to the rest of us on client projects.
- Trent Walton – Trent and his colleagues at Paravel are consistently turning out inspiring work as well as creating a number of great open-source jQuery plugins. I really enjoyed listening to Trent discuss his motivation for pushing the boundaries in CSS and “web type”. I was also privileged to chat with Trent the day after the conference as he kindly agreed to be part of our upcoming Insites book.
- Cameron Koczon – I was lucky enough to attend Brooklyn Beta last year. As well as working on a range of great products Cameron is one of the organisers of BB and his passion is infectious, not just for bringing interesting people together but also for encouraging them to get out there and make something great. His quick fire delivery and message was certainly inspiring and reinforced the route that Elliot and I are taking with Viewport Industries.
Belong
It was also great to see the Decode crew launch their new hand crafted t-shirt brand Belong. It’s a fantastic idea and I wish Dan, Rob and Tom all the best with it.
Video Highlights
I believe “official” videos of the sessions will be made available in due course. In the meantime you can capture a sense of the day with this video courtesy of Paul and Relly. Somehow they secretly managed to film this with their iPhones.
And Finally
If you couldn’t make it along you can still buy the NA newspaper, at only £1 it’s a bargain and a great read. You also get last years copy too!
Colly promises that New Adventures will return in 2013, I for one hope so. My only ask would be slightly longer breaks as there were far too many interesting people to talk to.
Useful Links
- New Adventures 2012 - Official web site
- New Adventures on Lanyrd – Links, reviews and much more
- The Mother of All Funk Chords – Referenced by Dan Mall, simply stunning!
2 Comments
Hey Keir,
Thanks for the great post and links – many saved to read and watch later!
Speak soon,
Jon
Good bloggin’ – brought back some good memories about a superb event. I also loved the massive iMockup.