Valhalla Island

There’s so many web and design conferences on over the year. SxSW, Web Directions, Rails Conf., An Event Apart, etc but none are ever geographically close to me. So I basically go into a state of denial, telling myself that they’re rubbish, overpriced, time wasters that I’ll never learn anything from.

Then Dan Cederholm’s Interface Design Juggling slides from An Event Apart in Boston crossed my path. Even without narration the information in these slides is wonderfully useful, interesting and entertaining. The slide design is also beautiful.

Advice reaches from colour to typography, consistency and even favicons. One of my favourite tips was to use the best ampersand possible in titles. This is the kind of thing people love to complain about, “oh my god, an extra <span> just for THAT?!” But it’s beautiful details like great ampersands that set good web design and great web design apart.

After just reading through the slides I feel inspired. I can’t imagine how great it would have been like to see the presentation actually presented with narration. And to see presentations like that over an entire day or week would be amazing. I don’t think I can continue to trick myself into thinking I’m not missing out on anything by not being able to attend these conferences.