The 2009 HOW Design Conference has come and gone (and so quickly, I might add!). Stefan and I had the honor of speaking this year, and I think all in all it went pretty well. I’m not exactly at my most comfortable state when speaking in front of a whole bunch of people, but hey, if Jeff Fisher can do it with a clown nose, anything is possible! Stef and I gave our workshop attendees a couple of exercises to work on, and some of the stuff they came up with was pretty darn cool. Check out my Flickr photo set with pictures from our workshop.
The session I think I got the most from was Von Glitschka’s “Living a Creatively Curious Life” presentation. I could tell he had taken a lot of time in the design and gathering of his resources for his session. It was so much fun and creatively inspiring…I couldn’t wait to get home to start designing stuff. Right after his session I had to zip down to the resource center for our book signing. In case you’ve missed it, Stefan and I have two books out right now: Caffeine for the Creative Mind and Caffeine for the Creative Team. Due to a lovely mention in Von’s session, we had a couple of people come down and buy our books. Then Von came down to sign his books, Crumble, Crackle, Burn and Drip, Drop, Swirl. He couldn’t start, however, until he’d had a makeout session with Stefan.
Later that evening the HOW folks were nice enough to host a dinner for the HOW speakers/authors. We met at a fantastic Mexican place called Chuys. What a great eating place for designers! Full of random curious and wooden fish. The margaritas were flowing, and Andy Epstein ordered a burrito the size of his head! I took the picture specifically to accompany my “holy cow, this cookie is as big as my head” picture. It was great chatting with everyone and discussing the evil that is papyrus.
Other notes worth mentioning:
- I felt like I was fresh out of the stone age. I did not own an iPhone or a Powerbook. While everyone else was bumping and tweeting, I was sitting in the corner with my prehistoric Razor, texting with a non-qwerty keypad.
- Margaritas are awesome.
- Did anyone notice how hard it was to figure out what someone’s name was? Badges always seem to face blank side up when you’re at that awkward introductory time and knowing someone’s name is important.
- Friday morning seemed impossible for me to get water. Hotel room’s water: $4.50. Yeah, right. Java Jive downstairs: line going out the door. Resource center breakfast: none left. Vending machines: none left. Sheesh, I was dying! Finally found a water cooler upstairs. A big thank you to whomever arranged that.
- What’s with the people first to arrive at a session that sit right at the end of the row? Now you have to feel bad by inconveniencing them and asking them to let you through so that you can sit in the other available seats in the middle.
- Margaritas are awesome.
- Austin has some really friggin’ neat grungey textures.
- Jak Prints’ booth wins my vote for best HOW Resource center vendor soley because they were handing out business-size cards with the sentence “Death of Papyrus” on them.
- Margaritas are awesome.
Thank you all for a wonderful conference! Hopefully I’ll see you in Denver next year.
