This past Friday, Viget Labs hosted DC Design Talks, the first of a conference series called DC Talks that promote collaboration and creativity in the web community. Jason Garber and M. Jackson Wilkinson did a fabulous job of organizing the event. Ninety plus people showed up all interested in learning about design. I was stoked to be a part of it, and also pretty freaking nervous because I was scheduled to give the first talk of the day at 9:15 am.
I wrote a short recap from my point of view on the Viget Four Labs Blog. So check that out if you want my POV… but rather than having a one sided recap of the event on my blog I wanted to get the perspectives of others attending the event. In a 5 Part series I give you DC Design Talks… from someone else’s perspective (for a change). Enjoy!

Robert Cooper
Interactive Creative Director, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
Robert leads the interactive design portion of Ogilvy’s 360° Digital Influence Group. With clients such as Ford, Snap-On tools, and Select Comfort Beds, Robert has experience in marrying the user experience of social media with well-known brands.

I left the DC Design Talks feeling creatively energized last Friday. It was great to see such an enthusiastic gathering of local, and not so local, design and developer talent in one place, rallying around the cause of creating great interactive, online solutions for their clients and maybe more importantly, each other.

Particularly interesting to me was Thomas Vander Wal’s presentation, “Coming to Terms with Sociality”. He described, with notable efficiency, what is going on out there behaviorally among the connected. Measuring the social engagement level of users for any project is important, and too frequently it is assumed that everyone is ready to dive in head first, sharing, contributing, and collaborating. There are many levels that lead to uber engagement, which Vander Wal classified as the “Heavy Contributing User”. If everyone was one of these, it would be easy to develop interactive initiatives for our clients that spread like a virus all over the planet. But as he outlined in his 45 minute, rapid-fire examination, there are a handful of stages or levels of engagement that should be considered when gauging your target audience for social media aptitude. These stages of engagement build upon each other.

There are those who have been on a social media evolutionary path where they’ve become more engaged as their sense of identity was enriched through sharing, following and connecting with others. On the other end, there are others that have not yet explored the tools, may only be aware of the surface of social media through peripheral exposure via traditional media. To create the most effective social online engagement for our clients we need to recognize the position on social media evolutionary scale of our audience.

All the presenters did a fabulous job. It was a great event, and as a DC native I’m glad to see such a groundswell of activity around our interactive design community.
Above is a detail from an art piece by Robert Cooper inspired by the Design Talks.

Abi Tropea
Designer, Belmont Inc
A designer who works primarily in print, Abi has a fantastic knack for screen printing and has a personal admiration of letterpress design.
“So, okay? Here tonight, we have, ah, apple and orange. We all different, but in the end, we all fruit.” (quoted lovingly from My Big Fat Greek Wedding)

There seems to be a common misconception that print and web design are vastly different disciplines. I plead guilty to pledging my allegiance to CMYK simply because I have more experince with ink on paper than pixels on screen.

Within the first few minutes of DC Design Talks, I was reminded of how much we have in common. Speaking on web typography, Samantha Warren of Viget Labs talked about the “balance of communication & expression under restraints.” That is the eternal challenge whether the concept is conceived in print, web or space design. Her call to “challenge yourself rather than focus on limitations” is necessary for great work regardless of the medium.

Nathan Curtis of Eight Shapes spoke on creating a component library. A topic I assumed would be irrelevant to my everyday work flow ended up being strangely familiar. Nathan’s advice on building a library parallels the way we build brands. It is collaborative, efficient, allows for open communication and effective implementation.

So apparently we are not so different after all, something I knew but needed to be reminded of. The creative process is the same. It still takes knowing when to follow the rules and when to push the limits. And if all else fails we’ll always have our common love of the grid.