Last week we attended New Adventures for the second time in two years, and we loved it. Here are a few of our thoughts following the conference:
- Adam Murray
What’s more warming than listening to thoughts on designing for the digital? Being in conference with hundreds of geeks representing the same fashion taste in numerous variations of colour. Yet, all sharing a love for the same industry and eager to discuss any topic that comes their way. It’s a thing of beauty.
As this was my first New Adventures ‘experience’ I wasn’t quite sure how much I was going to take from this however, the excitement started as soon as I walked through the Albert Hall doors. I was pretty impressed with how much inspiration, thought and enthusiasm (oh, and cupcakes!) I absorbed from just one day.
The speakers all touched on similar issues yet, all added a little more to the pot. I categorised these into three:
Risk Averse
From good experiences, come ideas - W. Hemingway
Waynes’ addition, was probably my favourite of the entire conference mainly because his entire talk was to challenge those whom are risk averse to see the possibilities they’re neglecting. Sticking within our comfort zones, minimising risk and keeping within constraints is something we’ve all been guilty of doing from time to time. We know our boundaries, we’re happy within them and it keeps the ball rolling, right?
Wrong. Being risk averse is limiting your creativity, it’s following the crowd and it’s something as an industry, we should look to steer away from.
Joy
Following from this, Seb and Jessica both touched on topics close to my heart; finding the joy in what you do and encouraging steps into the unknown. We’re consistently learning in this field, although the ‘learning’ process may never be the greatest aspect, when it clicks, something magical happens. We start rebuilding those tired boundaries and moving constraints because we want to learn and more importantly, we want to do more.
We learn, we refine, we experiment and then refine some more.
Refinement
We also had the pleasure of listening to Jason Santa Maria and his stance on ‘process’. Getting from A to B isn’t something we struggle with, it’s how long it takes us to arrive there, and how self-inflicted constraints cause such delays.
Fuck fidelity. Ideas want to be ugly.
Ideas don’t need to be dressed up, they need to communicate a solution. Focusing too much on an ever-changing design is a core cause for time consumption. Use sketchbooks, browsers, walls whatever it takes to get your idea out there in front of you (even if it’s terrible!)
To approach every project like you’re learning from a cooking book is a clever way to get from A to B quickly and it’s something I hope to adapt into my design process. Cheers, Jason!
- Chris Skelton
The highlight for me was listening to Jon Tan speak about typography. I have massive admiration for his work, and considering I missed him at the very first New Adventures conference back in 2011 it was great that Simon and Greg asked him back for a second time.
I learned a couple of new things about current browser support for ligatures which was interesting, and got a bit more of an insight into how much goes into preparing a font for use on the web. I really hope that he releases the slides because there were a lot of books mentioned that need to go on my (constantly growing) reading list.
Other highlights were Seb, simply due to how amazingly entertaining he is, and Wayne Hemingway, the founder of Red or Dead and Hemingway Design - because he has been on such an amazing and inspiring journey. It was just a shame that he only had 30 minutes to try and fit his life into.
Overall I think it was fantastic. There was a perfect range of speakers to keep it interesting, but who all touched on common subjects at some point or other in their talk, which gave the day a wonderful flow. I’m really disappointed that it won’t be coming back next year, but here’s hoping that we find ourselves at other, equally friendly, inspiring and affordable conferences in the not too distant future.
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