2011 HOW Design Conference Recap

I had a magnificent adventure last week at the HOW Design Conference in Chicago. I learned a lot, became inspired and I interacted with fellow attendees, which created valuable connections.

The HOW Conference is the most comprehensive educational event within the graphic design industry, covering business, creativity, design disciplines, in-house issues, software and web/interactive design.

I renewed my creativity, grew my skillset, learned about how to improve client relationships, learned how to improve marketing and branding and thought about the future of design.

Renewing My Creativity

Stefan Mumaw and Wendy Oldfield’s session, Caffeine for the Creative Team: Turning Brainstorming Into Brainsqualling, taught me effective principles that show what brainstorming should and shouldn’t be for a project.

A project’s conceptual outcome can become more successful by starting with impossible ideas and then pulling back on them. People tend to think that creativity is spontaneous. The reality is that it takes time and it is a habit that is learned.

Stefan explained that creativity is all about different perspectives. There needs to be the right number of people in the room so that everybody brings a different outlook. Additionally, it is important for a designer to always bring something new and innovative to a brainstorming meeting. This could be as simple as a link or a graphic example to help bring out creative ideas. Everyone who attends needs to state all their ideas and not judge anyone else’s because they could trigger a different idea.

During the session, we had a chance to work on various techniques for brainstorming that were fun and insightful. Having the opportunity to work with other designers for a few hours allowed me to think from a different perspective about design. Stefan and Wendy have more than 250 activities that can innovate and bring about creativity for a team. They are available at creativestretching.com.

Gael Towey, the creative director for Martha Stewart Living, gave a presentation on her work with Martha Stewart and some of her experience when working with digital publications. I believe that digital publishing is a perfect way to help users learn and the possibilities are enormous for companies to consider. I have been very interested and have begun to broaden my skillset in digital publications.

Gael stated that audiences can start to feel emotional connections through storytelling. These connections are formed through research that is conducted about the target audience.

Gael explained that a magazine is a perfect marriage between words and imagery. I would like to think that is the case of every design. For example, color can be used in branding to convey emotions and as a way to visually organize elements.

Designers need to know how to tell stories and think about how the navigation and functionality can be fun for the user. One cannot just be a developer when creating a digital publication. Designers need to tailor the stories to the functionality.

During the brainstorming and sketching of their publication, Martha and Gael began mapping out the flow and the rhythm of the magazine through reading the articles vertically rather than horizontally. Gael explained that she believes that the Martha Stewart’s digital publications have become successful because Martha was very supportive of the project. One has to invest in the future, Martha told Gael, to be in the future. Additionally, if you care about your staff’s success, you will invest in the future. Martha knew that consumer behavior is changing and that she needed to be part of that change in order for her company to succeed.

Growing My Skillsets

I love that there are so many fonts at a designer’s disposal. In The NEW Web Typography: Where The Sexy Is, Jason Cranford Teague explained that there are more than 150,000 fonts. But do you know how many of those fonts are web-safe? 182, but only 66 come installed on Mac and Windows. Many designers only use five of the 10 web fonts.

I decided that I want to stand out and not use just those five. Since 2010, designers have been able to use .ttf and .otf as web fonts. That means more than 40,000 web fonts are available. A web font allows designers to upload a font file to the server and then place markup in the CSS. Basically, your web page downloads the font from your computer. Jason said that mobile platforms support .otf and .ttf web fonts, which is great when looking forward in web design.

As a designer, the legibility and readability of a font is very important during the selection and purchasing of the font. I learned from Jason that if a serif font is used for the web, make sure the serif itself is thick so that the letters are wider and have a tall x-height. This allows for better readability for the user. In order to have a successful web design, the typography needs to have a high or low contrast with the background, and the color or width of the type needs to vary. Consistent type variation needs to be utilized within the design, whether it is through contrast, scale or font style.

Jason explained that a 12-pixel font online is equivalent to 9-pixel font in print design. Unlike print design, however, fonts need to be larger. However, when making fonts larger a designer needs to remember to use more space for the leading as the font becomes larger.

The future of web design tends to be leaning toward animations using CSS3 transitions. However, one needs to consider bandwidth capabilities in order for it to be successful.

The current trend in design style has become more realistic and three-dimensional. I believe that much of this is due to touch-screen interaction and how the public is becoming more accustomed to it. A user finds the interaction more intuitive if the interface design looks realistic and familiar.

I attended a session that I thought would help with a more realistic design style: Nick Campbell’s session CINEMA 4D In Production. Hands-on training inspired me to try new techniques and skills with logo and interactive design. I learned how I could create 3D text in CINEMA 4D and then bring the text into Adobe Photoshop. I also learned how I can import an Adobe Illustrator file into CINEMA 4D and extrude it in order to create a more realistic 3D form. The files can then be brought into Adobe Photoshop to create realistic 3D designs from CINEMA 4D. I am excited to try out these techniques for my next creative endeavor.

Improving Client Relationships

Designers sell trust with clients, not design. It is important to realize that you are a partner with a client, not a vendor. Designers realize that knowing how to collaborate with clients is important to the success of any project. I wanted to bring back information to Iona that could only help my co-workers succeed alongside me.

David Sherwin’s sessions Making Clients Part of the Design Process and Effective Brainstorming for Designers helped me think about creating outstanding work and bringing back information to help Iona.

Sherwin explained that when clients and designers work together as equals toward a shared goal, a project succeeds. Before implementing brainstorming activities with clients, they need to be tested internally. There needs to be no more than 12 people to a meeting, with the ratio being three clients to one designer. Everyone in the meeting needs to know the goal and the criteria of the project before any design has started. It was refreshing to hear from David that collaboration needs to happen very early on in the project. This crucial endeavor is the reason why Iona has a Define phase to every project. Iona’s Define phase allows for projects to succeed through the creating trust between designer and client and in being able to relate to clients as people first.

Current Branding Practices

Glenn John Arnowitz’s session Marketing Your In-House Department reaffirmed my belief that Iona is at the top of our game in marketing and branding our services and personality. Glenn explains that you need to know who you are as a company and know your capabilities, competencies, strengths and limitations. I believe Iona has done this and that we communicate with each other and with our clients who we are through various methods. For example, we have a mission statement and vision, make our website personal, have a social media presence and create open communication with our client. Life and business are all about relationships. Glenn suggested lunch-n-learns and having clients evaluate projects and services as needed, which we have been implementing over the past few years at Iona.

Looking Forward

The sessions on app design and technologies for the web utilized real-world case studies from a broad spectrum of world-class companies. These sessions assisted me, and thus Iona, to stay current within the industry in design styles that can be applied to all the various businesses that Iona touches. I was able to learn new innovations and how I can build designs around mobile devices, interactivity, animation and typography.

The most beneficial session was David Link’s presentation on Developing Addictive Experiences for the iPad and Other Interactive Tablets. David, from The Wonder Factory, explained that the majority of consumers use apps at home and in bed. They want apps to be simple, fast-focused, fun and relevant.

However, David says that clients want apps to be inexpensive and seen as a way to save their business from print to digital for magazines. His clients are using apps to test out new products and create brand experiences for niche content. It was refreshing to hear that typography is unlimited in app design. It is evident that gestures are now so important and users are closer to a brand than ever before. David provided considerations during the presentation that a designer needs to think about when designing for an app:

• What is the accelerometer and orientation of the app?
• Will the app be free or have a cost?
• Will the app be a curated or aggregated experience?
• Does the app have downloadable or streaming content?
• Do you want your app to integrate with Apple’s core applications? e.g. calendar or maps
• What type of app will you be producing? e.g. game, entertainment, news, productivity, social networking

To create a successful app, designers need to do the following:

Make the app simple, addictive, curated, focused, technologically advanced, socially integrated and personal.

In order to get clients over their fear of new technology, designers need to think about the psychology of the product and convey to the client their findings.

David shared with the audience his strategies when creating application experiences with clients. His company's multiple platform strategy entails the following: requirements, wireframes, brand-specific UI, visual-specific design, functionality and modules.

Overall, when designing for tablets, one needs to design for the finger not the cursor. It takes approximately two pages from the printed magazine for every page design in a tablet. David’s company researches the current magazine similarities to figure out the content of the project. They create infographics and moodboards before the UI design is created. During the UI design, taxonomy navigation models and wireframes are created to show what the page interactions are for the horizontal and vertical layout. They then design what animations and interactivity there will be on each page.

After the design is completed, prototyping is implemented through various means: paper, keynote, motion graphics or on the device itself. David’s company also does a storyboard with the visual design through the creation of a motion graphics piece. They use keynote for a concept demo and prototype to show the design and interaction together. Lastly, they create any changes necessary before moving to the development of the application.

David shared that the skills needed for digital publication generally lie in a print designer with an interactive background, which might be why I am so gravitated toward this medium since I began as a print designer. The skillsets are divided up into designers doing the design work and the developers doing the developing. He believes that the project becomes more successful when the experts do what they do best.

In closing, I think it is important to think about the future of design and interactive media. I was able to renew my creativity, grow my skillset and learn about how to improve client relationships, marketing and branding efforts, as well as the future of graphic design. During David’s presentation, I realized that tablet design is going to greatly influence web design and vice-versa. I believe that the simultaneous combination of TV, web, social media, tablets and smartphones will be the future.

I plan on continuing to grow my skills in all design media, methods and skills, while at the same time remembering that no matter what process, a core designer realizes that they ultimately solve problems for clients through their creativity, skills and passion.