Come one, come all. This is the post to talk about anything related to preparation for this years HOW Conference. Be it alternate hotel recommendations, extra things to see in Chicago, events not to miss, etc. Discuss away.

I asked Stefan if he would write a preview for his session at this year's HOW Conference. Although he said he wouldn't be writing about his talk before the conference, he did have this short summary. It is more in-depth than what is on the official conference site. I am predicting that this will be one of my favorite sessions. Without further ado, I pass along the words of the master of speciality production, Stefan Sagmeister.

June 12, 2005
The things that keep me up at night.
Stefan Sagmeister, How Conference 2005

ﾔFor lenticular pictures: Fred Schecter, Sommers Plastic Products, 81 Kuller Road, Clifton NJ 07015, phone (973) 777 7888, fax (973) 345 1586, www.sommers.com

by Steven Heller

This panel will explore the viability of blogs as a forum for serious critique and commentary, as well as an online community outlet. We will address the pros and cons regarding journalism (or the appearance of same) as well as blog manners and mores. In addition we will discuss blog design and where the form is going in the future. Of course specific questions will be addressed to the design blogmasters about the effects and affects of their sites on the design fields, and why one or two blogs are central while scores of others are seemingly marginal. What makes a viable blog and What does it take to be a mover in the blog world. Moreover, I want the audience to participate by discussing their own relationship to the blogosphere.

One of the sessions at this year's HOW conference that I am really excited about is Jeff Kleinsmith's "Branding A Band: Art Direction in the Music Industry." I was able to exchange emails with Jeff and he gave the following preview of his presentation:

"My talk is roughly a chronological account of my time (so far) in the music industry and how it relates to art direction and branding. I will show many examples of my early work (like high school, even). I will talk about a few of my favorite album cover designers. There will be a little history of Sub Pop. I'll show a good deal of never-before-seen artwork that wasn't chosen by Sub Pop bands and I'll try to make a case for why 80s hard rock album covers are the best. I will also show early posters as well as Patent Pending posters."

I am looking forward to hearing Jeff talk about his struggles and joys of working with several of my favorite bands. As art director for Sub Pop, Jeff gets to work for bands creating arguably the best music out right now. Sub Pop's roster includes The Shins, Iron and Wine, and Rogue Wave.

Thanks to Jeff for providing the teaser graphics that accompany this post.

by John Foster

First and foremost, only come by if you can not get into see Stefan (although he assured me he would be dry and boring but I think it may have been a little fib.)

The philosophy of Maximum Design can be applied to every project in every situation and workplace, and can quite simply change the way you view design and will certainly enhance your job enjoyment. No touchy feely new age sentiments here ’Äì Fuszion Collaborative's VP of Creative, John Foster, will impart real world experience and sensibilities and show you how the industry's leaders follow this credo.

Often designers bemoan that clients make too many changes, that budgets are too small, that no one seems to "understand" the solutions and no one truly values my design or me as the designer. But by tackling the areas we often complain about in a more positive manner, we will in turn improve our client relationships and their view of our work and us as people.

Petrula forwarded me this article that she wrote about leaving a design office. This directly relates to her session, Paying Your Dues Without Selling Your Soul. There is some sage advice here. Enjoy!

Exit Ethics 101
Eight Strategies for Karmic Relief
Petrula Vrontikis

1. Credit Where Credit is Due

Grey areas concerning whose work is whose exist in tint values from 1% to 99%. Taking credit for your design by including a copy of the project in your actual portfolio is probably OK. (Hopefully the firm is giving you design credit when the work is submitted to contests and publications.) The bigger issue is risky: taking credit for having the client as your own, which may be assumed if their work or name appears on your website or resume.

The latter is not only an ethical issue but a legal one as well. You don't own it just because you designed it. Specific contractual agreements are made stipulating the terms of use for client work. Design firms require permission from the client to use work for their self-promotion. (Copyright usually transfers to the client when the final payment is made to the design firm.) It is a violation of the client's copyright if their work is used outside of the design firm. Scary, huh?

Ask your previous employer what you can and cannot use in your portfolio, even if it was a freelance job. Permission to re-use a client's work must be requested by the design firm. You cannot go directly to the client. It would be inappropriate because the contract wasn't with you in the first place. It is awkward for everyone and will probably make you look bad.

by Brendan Dawes

One of the best books I've read lately is something I picked up while on holiday in Spain. I'm always trying to look for new ideas and learn from people and situations I wouldn't normally run into. So while I was looking for something exciting and fresh to read lazing by the pool, I had a look at what the children's section had to offer. I came across ""The Phantom Toll Booth"" by Norton Juster. It's not new, in fact as I found out later, it's a children's classic, but it was new to me.

So anyway, while the whole book is just a fantastic read, full of imagination, one passage really stuck with me. The lead character comes across a town that has completely disappeared. The buildings are still there, it's just that they're invisible to everyone who lives in the town. Why? Because they are so engrossed in getting as quickly as possible from A to B, everything else in between simply disappeared. Because they don't bother to look up anymore the world around them fades away, unneeded by the people.

by Peleg Top

Designers who Care ’Äì Sunday at 10:45

Wouldn't it be nice to know that your design work is REALLY making a difference in the world? Or that you can get serious support and advice from other designers who are struggling with the same issues we all do (like how much to charge for your work, you know, those things that no one ever wants to talk about!)... Well, I am here to share with you how I am doing just that. No, this is not a self promotion session (it's really not about me...) but a session about the business of caring (working with non profits and cause related organizations ’Äì and actually making a profit! - yes, it IS possible...) and caring for business (helping each other in our design community and creating a support system we can turn to). So come by and learn how to earn some good karma points and feel really good about what we are doing on this planet. I will be talking about the work I do with non profits (OK, I'll show some of it too...) why my studio specializes in working in this industry and why I decided to dedicate my work to philanthropy after a decade of music industry work (believe me, it's not that sexy...). I will teach you the true meaning of PRO BONO work and how to get the most out of it and tell you about the great benefits of giving back to our own community by creating your own tribe of designers to tap into (true stories here people!...). Come on by, get inspired and go out there to make a difference!...

I contacted Marshall Arisman about doing a preview of his "Maters Series" session. He was kind enough to forward on his own personal notes for his session. These were written in shorthand and meant just for him. It is fascinating to see a stage of the process that we rarely see. It isn't polished, but it's not supposed to be. I look forward to seeing how this translates in the session itself. Thank you Marshall.

Notes on Fusion: Words and Images
Marshall Arisman

The title of this seminar is Fusion: Words and Imagesl. Before we get started I would like to know how many people here are primarily visual artists interest in writing words? Show of hands. And how many people are word people interested in creating images? Show of hands.

As visual people whether you are a graphic designer, art director or illustrator the words we work with on a daily basis are other people's words. No one has ever given me an illustration assignment without giving me words. Headlines, articles, short stories or words of a song.

It is my job, your job, to create a visual based on those words. We can choose a narrative approach and visualize those words or we can create a visual that attempts to expand on those words, i.e. illustration between or below the lines. An example would be the sentence ’Äúthe boy has a cat.’Äù We can show a boy with a cat tee shirt on or show a boy writing the word CAT on a blackboard. Words can stand in for images in a picture. That is one of Rene Magritte's, The Belgian Surrealists, principles. It is true that when we read a word we visualize it in our head. The opposite is also true. An image can replace a word in a sentence. We all remember those sentences that combined words and images. The boy has a is spelled out in words and in place of the word CAT is a drawing of a CAT.

The focus of today's talk is how, as visual artist do we create our own words and images? It can be a children's book, a graphic novel or your own newspaper.

Jakob Trollb逢ck was gracious enough to send me these graphics and his full (unedited) proposal to HOW for his session, But What's the Point?. Like Marshall's shorthand notes, this is a unique look behind the scenes. A big thank you to Jakob.

How Design Conference
proposal

Thank you very much for your query. I'd be pleased to speak at your 2005 conference. Here's a brief sketch of some of the main threads I'd like to incorporate:

Design aesthetics and styles are naturally in a constant state of evolution and change. New concepts in the visual-design landscape mirror overall cultural changes, but design is also, in itself, a tool for change. In the past, new views on society often began with deliberate design statements. Futurism, Surrealism and Modernism all used design as rallying cries: they served as visual manifestations of philosophical manifestos. Design was seen as a means to change society, with inextricably linked visual style and message.

Design today has, to a large degree, been appropriated for commercial purposes. Designers need to make money, too, after all. As a consequence, visual design, although it keeps changing and it's main purpose still is to get attention, doesn't necessarily suggest cultural change. You can see design trends come and go, but new looks emerge mainly to keep advertising and entertainment from becoming too familiar or stale.

This lack of direction, and emphasis on the surface of things, is pulling design towards social irrelevance. It's easy to understand how this could happen when design's purpose is relegated to attempt to differentiate between otherwise virtually identical products.

So how can we make design more relevant and socially significant?

David C. Baker forwarded this excerpt from an article that he wrote that relates to his session, Managing Creatives. There are some great tips in the excerpt below. Enjoy.

An Environment Where Employees Want to Be
by David C. Baker
THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE TYPE OF ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH EMPLOYEES THRIVE. WE BEGIN BY NOTING WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT, AND THEN EXPLAINING HOW YOUR ROLE AS A ’ÄúDIRECTOR’Äù FITS INTO MANAGEMENT AT THE FIRM OVERALL. AGAINST THE GRAYNESS OF MANAGEMENT, BLACK AND WHITE DECISIONS MUST BE MADE, AND THAT'S YOUR ROLE. IF YOU AREN'T MANAGING, OR IF YOU JUST AREN'T SUITED FOR IT, THE EVIDENCE WILL BE ALL OVER YOUR FIRM. BASED ON MORE THAN 3,000 SURVEYS AND FOLLOW-UP INTERVIEWS, THIS ARTICLE PROVIDES MORE THAN 75 SUGGESTIONS ABOUT WHAT EMPLOYEES APPRECIATE IN THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT, ORGANIZED INTO CATEGORIES: HIRING, INTEGRATION, STRUCTURE, PERFORMANCE, WORKLOAD, ENVIRONMENT, PERSONAL, SUPPORT, COMMUNICATIONS, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, EXTERNAL RESPECT, AND EXITING.

There are three things you can never delegate at your firm, no matter how large it grows. The first is Mapping the firm's direction from a positioning standpoint (see the January and February 2000 issues). The second is high level Convincing in a sales context. The third is Directing internal business decisions so that the environment complements what you believe about people, things, money, etc. This issue of Persuading deals with the third element: creating an appropriate management environment. This should happen just because it's the right thing to do, though there are also benefits to go along with it.

by Juliet D'Ambrosio

Verbal Brainstorming: Combining Writing and Design ’Äì Monday at 10:45

It's strange: So many designers whose work speaks so fluently in images flee in terror when called upon to communicate with the written word. After all, designers are nothing if not storytellers, and stories are most fully realized when image and word unite.

It's time to conquer the fear of writing. One look through any recent
annual's credits will confirm that, in this era of super-scrutinized
budgets, designers are more frequently called upon to serve double duty--writing everything from taglines to full-blown annual reports. For those who tackle the challenge, it can be highly rewarding, enriching the creative experience and extending the boundaries of expression.

And all it takes is practice. Here's how.

by Debbie Millman

Redesigning a magazine is a daunting enough task, but redesigning a DESIGN magazine could be described as nothing short of formidable. How do you redesign a magazine that will be evaluated, assessed, analyzed and investigated by a readership that could very well do the job?

The redesign of How and Print Magazine seminar will pull the curtain away from this intimidating and thrilling undertaking, and will show you the soft and luscious underbelly of the entire process. I will be moderating a session with all the key players of the redesign of both magazines: the two superstar designers: DJ Stout and Abbott Miller from Pentagram, the award-winning editors of both publications: Joyce Kaye and Bryn Mooth, and the art directors: Trisha Bateman and Stephanie Skirvin. You will get a firsthand, never seen before overview of the following:

--a historical review of the design of both publications, from their original launch through the final issues before the redesign
--a peek inside the motivation for the reasons for redesigning each publication
--how each editor chose the design firm and the individual designers to do the reinvigoration
--prototype covers and original sketches
--an inside scoop on the market research that was conducted
--final design templates
--before and after comparisons of every major section of both magazines
--point-of-views and feedback from the staff publication designers that are taking over the reigns internally
--reader feedback
--and then, when you couldn't imagine there could be anymore, we will be eliciting audience feedback!

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe first hand how a major magazine redefines its visual image, the strategy behind the decisions that were made and the subsequent results.

by William Travis
Reboot Refresh Reframe: Branding for a Young Audience

3 years ago Attik won one of the most prestigious "design agency of record’Äù accounts - to launch a design centric youth brand across the USA utilizing every design skill set, from flash to animation, manga to graffiti art, typography to photo-manipulation.

The result - the most successful car launch in the last 30 years - SCION.

Like the car, hate the car - your choice - but love how design has moved across all boundaries and risen respect and highlighted the strong business foundation graphic design offers. That - and learn some tricks how Attik has used its skills to challenge and transform marketers mindsets to a new level ’Äì i.e. the hand that feeds us all.

For a quick taste - here's one extreme with 2 new Scion commercials:

Tracey and The Creative Group gave me these excerpts from two different articles that relate to her sessions (Portfolio Perfection: A Never-Ending Quest & Dollar Dialogues: Successfully Negotiating Rates and Salaries). These articles originally appeared in Tracy's column that she writes for Graphic Design USA.

Do You Have a Fabulous Book?
by Tracey Fuller

Does your portfolio make even the most aloof creative director sit up and take notice? Do those who view it immediately recognize your creative genius?

Consider the following questions:
Is your book well organized (or are your logo designs affixed to the actual t-shirts packed into your portfolio)?

Do the first few pages make an employer want to see more (or are they flipping pages faster than they are speaking)?

Are your samples conversation-starters (or do you keep hearing, ’ÄúAnd this is ’Ķ ’Äù)?

by Dave Fletcher

Camera, Jersey Devil, visual, inside, outside, sketchbook, pencil, css, xml, internet, outernet, inspiration, web standards, horror, pleasure, pop-culture, mistakes, triumphs, outtakes, process, idea, iDNA, your DNA, 8-10, entertainment, Playground, Dante, Felissa, Satan, Kasim, themechanism, branding, expanding, Muse releases rock and roll, last chance, inspiration, desperation, revelation.

Mind Candy becomes Eye Candy...

Even though Tiffany Shlain was running the Webby Awards (which were this week) and preparing for her session (The Next Wave: The Future of the Web), she still made time to respond to my email. She sent me these two links that talk about the Webby Awards. Thank you Tiffany.

Article in The Chicago Tribune

Article in The New York Times

Welcome to our HOW Conference Blog. If you want to discuss general things about the conference, do it here. The conference is off to a great start. This is the biggest HOW Conference ever. With around 3,400 full conference attendess and 3,800 all together, there are a lot of designers in Chicago. This also happens to be the 15th HOW Conference. I've heard the studio tours went great and I enjoyed Ken Barber's pre-conference workshop.

A couple of other quick notes.
I came in Friday night and there is a club in the lobby. It was very annoying. Bad design. I could hardly hear the lady checking me in. I would assume they made it a club after the architects designed the building.

The main stage setup for the keynote address was very cool.

The walk back from the Navy Peer was longer than I thought and slightly more dangerous. I guess I should have taken the bus.

The Resource Center was crazy. It was like a Spanish Soccer crowd in front of the French booth. I came away with some very cool posters, a deck of cards and my life. I feel lucky. I hear it calms down later on. The Eames stuff at the Neenah booth is very cool. There was also a lot of excitement around the Veer booth (free t-shirts).

When I walked into a giant room for this “workshop”, I was a little disappointed. How would I be able to interact with Ken Barber if there were over 300 people (a guess) there? It didn’t turn out to be that kind of session, but I still really enjoyed it. This session was full of inside information about how House Industries, well at least Ken, does hand lettering. There wasn’t any fluff in this session. It was packed full of information. If you were just there with no intent to really do hand lettering then you were in the wrong place. He got down to the nitty-gritty of lettering.

Ken did show some House examples, but they were used to make a point. This was not a dog and pony show. I found the most interesting part was when Ken started hand lettering for us on stage. Maybe someone can clue me in on what the machine was called that he used, but it was some kind of projector that showed what he was doing. You could really see the natural talent and years of experience come through when he started lettering his word, “HOW”.

Where do new ideas come from? Tom Monohan tackled that interesting question tonight when he gave HOW's Keynote called "The Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy: Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking." I have to admit I wasn't really excited about this one. There is just something wrong with watching a Powerpoint (or in Tom Monahan's case, Keynote) about how to be more creative. With that said, it was a pretty interesting talk. Some of the gems I walked away with were:

1. Creativity = Problem Solving.
2. Force yourself to ask questions you don't know the answer to. That will allow you to find new solutions.
3. Ask questions early. Your mind likes to play with questions it doesn't know the answer to.
4. Don't be afraid of bad ideas. Think of them as fertilizer for the really good idea.
5. Fail boldly. Successful people fail more than regular people.

Tom's had a few fun exercises like brainstorming ways to improve luggage. The exercise was called "100 MPH Thinking" and with 3000 designers cranking out as many ideas as they could, there was undoubtedly some great ideas. Wouldn't Samsonite have loved to get there hands on the notes from 3000 designer's ideas for improving luggage.

Another exercise was called "180 Degree Thinkng." Tom's point was that intentionally thinking of bad ideas for a project forces you out of your traditional thinking. It allows you to find truly creative ways to approach the project.

It wasn't revolutionary stuff, just solid advice, and practical activities. Tom got the conference off to a good start, and prepped the crowd for a couple of great days at the 2005 HOW Conference.

Tom ended by giving the following links to follow up on his Keynote:
www.before-after.com/HOW
www.doityourselflobotomy.com/HOW

(Tom said those links should be working by Monday)

Since we can't go to everything we are opening this post so you can share you reviews of the following sessions. Creative Zing, Designers Who Care, Maximum Design, But What's the Point?, Apple: What's Next.

I think it is obvious why we attended "Daily Candy: Is Blogging Good for you . . ." Please let us know what we missed in the following sessions. Escape Velocity, The Case for Craft, Tooting Your Own Horn, The Business Side of the Web, Creative Sweets, Creating a Learning Culture.

Here are some more sessions that we couldn't attend but would love to hear about. Comments away. How to Know if . . . , AdamsMorioka, Portfolio Perfection, Reboot Refresh Reframe, FileMaker Pro

This started out with a slide show of inspiring photos and what is turning out to be a theme song for the conferece. Black Eyed Pees, Let's Get it Started. There must have been over 100 very cool or should I say INSPIRING images in this presentation. These images were very moving and thought out. They were also perfectly synced with the slide show. You can tell that Pash is a designer. His presentation was very well put together. No offense to last night's speaker, but Mr. Monahan's keynote session was low-res and kind of chunky. Pash had obviously spent a great deal of time putting this presentation together.

This presentation was more of a multi-media presentation than the Pash show. I hear that he usually speaks more at his sessions than he did today. After he spoke and explained the basis of his book, he turned it over to the people he interviewed in the book via video and recoreded conversations. I just wrote a review of this book on our main blog. It was great to see some of the interviews that I read in the book. Although inspiration is hard to quantify and track down it is nice to see where some of the greats get there inpsiration.

One more thing. ’ÄúOh yeah! Yeah!’Äù

If you really want to know what is happening online there is only one place to go: the web. Duh. If you don’t have an internet connection, then go to a conference and listen to someone talk about the web. If you listen to one person talk about the web, listen to Tiffany Shlain. It’s worth it. Tiffany Shlain, founder of the Webby Awards, is more than qualified to predict the future of the web. Following up on the 9th annual Webby Awards which were June 6. Tiffany was ready to share the hottest trends happening online.

Things happen so fast on the internet that it is really hard to predict the future. Most of this session was just reporting what is hot right now. Most of you are aware of these trends already: blogs, photo blogs, moblogs, wikepedia, corporate blogging, iTunes, and Google among trends having the biggest impact online right now. That is a ton of realy exciting stuff, even if most of us already know about it.

So what’s the future? Tiffany talked about the networking of barcodes. I also learned that the biggest growing population right now is senior citizens. Tiffany also had some good insight into the future of design. To paraphrase, she says “You don’t want sticky websites. The web is naturally slippery. Links add value to your site. If you provide good links, people will come back, and that is where true value comes from.” The other interesting thing she mentioned was about cell phones. As the cell phone increasingly takes a more important role on the web, designers need to take that into consideration. We need to understand all the ways the audience interacts with a site.

Overall, it was a good session that I could have listened to for much longer. As she rushed through the last sets of slides, it was obvious that she could have talked much longer, too.

There was no inspiration in this session (at least this is what Stefan said at the beginning of this session). It is about production. Print asked him to do this, so he did. Stefan says the always does what he is asked. It was fascinating to see what the inside stories of what he has gone through as far as production techniques. What he has gained in fame he seems to have paid for over and over again with blood and sweet to get things done correctly.

He makes the point that paying bills, selling things to clients and print production are more important than many other things we focus on in design. He related how he was amazed when he started working at M & Co. He wasn't amazed as much by the work, but how Tibor could sell things that others could not. You cannot get great design done unless you can get it approved. Tibor was the master of this and from the looks of things, Stefan is doing pretty well himself.

Many of the things he showed in his session were projects that were covered in Made You Look. I'm glad that I read the book, so I could gain as much from this session as possible. It was also interesting to wait for the reaction from some of the attendees who have never read the book. When a fascinating production was shown on screen it was fun to see and hear the crowd's reaction. It was like knowing the punch line to a joke. Of course there were countless things that weren't covered in his book. Problems he had with printers, unique techniques and some newer projects.

Having just finished reading Logo Design Workbook by AdamsMorioka, I was really looking forward to this session. The session was about how creative teams can communicate with mostly corporate/business people. It was fascinating to hear AdamsMorioka successes and struggles with clients.

Sometimes it’s hard for us creatives to understand the corporate world. A business looks at creative as an investment. Like all investments, businesses want to receive a return on their investment. In the business world they call it ROI. ROI = Income/Inestment. To most of us, that is a completely foreign (and boring) language that we just don’t want to touch. But for us to be successful, we need to have those lines of communication with the client. How do we do that? The answer is a member of our team that can speak the language of the creatives and can communicate with the business people. That person is called the “design advocate.”

The job description of a design advocate reads like this: They protect the team. They help teach their design team. You like them and can have dinner with them. They clarify the process and objectives for the corporate world. They figure out the problems that the client has, not just pass along the clients solution. They give the creative team bullet-proof vests. Hopefully you have a design advocate on your team already. If you don’t, there is still hope. You can learn how to be a design advocate, or train someone.

Some other good advice was to make sure you understand who you are partnering with. Know who makes the decision. If you can’t figure it out, try to clarify who it is that really makes the decision, and focus on selling to that person.

My favorite part of the session was when they showed samples of proposed ideas that were rejected by Adobe. It is encouraging to see that even great companies like AdamsMorioka get their ideas shot down.

Patric King, Armin Vit, Steven Heller, William Drenttel, and Steve Rhodes were all “blogsperts” (Steven Heller’s new term) in “Daily Candy: Is Blogging Good For You, Or is it Just Giving You Cavities?” If you follow this blog, these people probably don’t need too much of an introduction. This is the session that both Bennett and I had to attend for obvious reasons. I will try to give you a brief glimpse into what was discussed in this session, but I think there was so much covered that I hope to revisit this post later in more depth.

Below you will see some of the questions that were tossed around in this session. I am hoping that we will be able to provide the audio for this session in the future, but for now you can read my paraphrased notes from quotes that stood out. These aren’t quotes by any means:

SH: What is a blog?

WD: the software. The ability to comment is also a key ingredient to a blog.

PK: Reverse chronology

SR: It isn’t about technology, it is about content.

AV: I have trouble calling SpeakUp a blog because of the way I see other blogs being used.

SH: Why was Design Observer started?

WD: The original idea was not to be a community but more an opportunity to easily publish our writing.

SH: Since there aren’t limitations how do blogs moderate themselves. Do you want more “cred” from people who comment on your site?

WD: It is hard to talk to someone who is annonymous that you don’t know anything about.

SR: I disagree. It isn’t about your credentials, it is about the validity of your argument.

SH: What’s the business plan? Is there a business future for your blog?

AV: No. Other than ads, there isn’t any money other than ads. We have other things that we do to make a living. Then again, maybe in the future…

WD. The money for us is more complicated. Any financial thing we do would have to get divided up. Second of all, if no one makes money we all get treated equally.

Steven Heller did a good job of moderating than I expected. He is on record as saying “I hate design blogs,” so I was somewhat surprised that he was chosen to moderate the session. My personal opinion is that he is so tied to the traditional publishing world that he can’t help but feel threatened by blogs.

It was great to finally meet Armin and interesting to hear his explanation of how SpeakUp grew into what it is today. I was pleased that he seemed receptive to the possibility of future collaborations between BADG and SpeakUp. Stay tuned!

William Drenttel gives a good presentation, and has himself “together” for lack of a better word. Even so, I was really surprised to hear him say that he doesn’t want Design Observer to be a community. He sees it more as an outlet to easily publish his writing. I can’t help but wonder if it is really a blog if there isn’t a community interacting around the posts. By my definition, no.

Patric King, who blogs full time, had probably the most global understanding of blogging, and was able to see the similarities and differences between SpeakUp, DesignObserver, and blogging in general. It was nice to talk to him a little bit after the session, but it would have been nice to pick his brain a little longer.

Although somewhat overpowered by Drentell and Heller, Steve Rhodes’ comments were good. What impressed me was he seemed to have an optimistic view of blogging. He really seemed to understand the opportunity that blogging offers. Steve Rhodes, like any of the participants could probably have filled a session all by himself.

Hopefully I can provide you with a more accurate transcript of this session in the future. I think the session was recorded, so I will share any information as I find out.

Of all the sessions at this year’s HOW conference that you have to attend to appreciate, Ironic Chef is it. The panel of 4 celebrity designers (DJ Stout, Brian Collins, Cheryl Towler Weese, and Armin Vit) are all on stage dressed in chef costumes. They are given a design challenge that they must complete in 20 minutes.

The First Challenge: The United Nations is facing a PR challenge. They need an image makeover. Create a logo, moving announcement, brand identity, and ad campaign.

The Second Challenge: Create a logo, ad campaign, and slogan for Chicago’s bid for the Olympics.

With Steven Heller and Noreen Morioka as commentators, it was an entertaining session. It was also fun to see how the different designers work under pressure. Brian Collins and DJ Stout worked with paint, markers, tape, and scissors while Armin and Cheryl were working on Apple laptops. Technically, it was cool how they switched back and forth from the designers computer screens or light tables. Near the beginning there were slight technical difficulties that caused Steven Heller to proclaim “PowerPoint should be banned” to thunderous applause. Amen.

Congratulations to Armin for winning both challenges to claim the title of Ironic Chef.

Please share your thoughts and reviews about the sessions that we couldn’t cover. These sessions include Packaging Design, Managing Creatives, Mind Candy, Using Type to Your Best Creative Advantage, and Verbal Brainstorming.

Please share your thoughts and reviews about the sessions that we couldn’t cover. These sessions include Dollar Dialogues, Learning to Look Up, Managing Color from Input to Output, and Marketing Your In-House Design Team.

Please share your thoughts and reviews about the sessions that we couldn’t cover. These sessions include Wilde Thinking, Paying Your Dues Without Selling Your Soul, Secrets of Perfect Printing Revealed, and Designing Your Reality.

This session started with Matt shooting Nerf balls into the audience. The balls represent things you read, wear, listen to and watch. Each ball had something different written on it. Certain balls represented creatives and the others represented the marketing people. The creative ones had phrases like raise canaries, iPod, Toy Robot, PMS 187 and collect Peeps. The marketing people had phrases on their balls like reads best sellers, Disney World, Sports Illustrated, Banana Republic, Coach Potato, People Magazine etc. His point is that we as designers have a capacity to edit. We have a need to take in so much more visually. He also stated that today anyone can be a designer. All that you need is a Mac and some software. What makes us different is what happens in between the eye and the brain. In essence, we are a ’Äúlibrary’Äù.

Matt works for Hasbro and works in the division that markets to teen and preteen girls. A lot of what Matt does is trend hunting. He travels the globe in search of the next big thing. Write now we are seeing many influences from Japan. They are always ahead of us. I thought it was interesting how he described some of the reasons that the Japanese are such trendsetters. First of all they come from a very creative and cultural history. In the past each community had it's own cultural identity. It had it's own symbols and visual uniqueness.

I found it interesting how the Japanese culture really encourages their youth to work at being original from the ages of 17-20. Whether it is pink hair or clothes made out of plastic, the Japanese really embrace this experimentation in their youth. When they reach twenty then they are supposed to enter into the work force. Their girls also feel less pressure to grow up so fast. It is very common for a twenty-year-old Japanese girl to carry around a stuffed animal. I think this explains why everything is so over the top cute in their culture. He then proceeded to show some of the biggest Japanese influences on our culture right now.

I would like to preface this review with a couple of environmental issues that could have tainted my opinion. I skipped lunch to not win a G5, so I was extremely hungry, and the sleep depravation had already started to set in. Did anyone else think the room was very cold? Maybe this was the reason that Mr. Wilde’s presentation wasn’t my favorite. It was also not the worst. I have a huge amount of respect for Richard and I guess I was expecting it to be my favorite session.

Richard didn’t disappoint me, I just didn’t feel like there wasn’t enough of him in the session. There was so much of this student’s work shown that I felt there could have been some more content. The student work was amazing, that is for sure. I hope my lack of enthusiasm for the student work is not because I am jealous of the quality and shear genius of some of the work. It is very obvious that he gets a lot out of his students.

Richard made the point, which I have heard many times before, that society and life in general takes the creativity out of us. We were born with observation and learning skills, but we tend to lose them as we get older. He gave some examples of ways to look at things from new perspectives. He also gave us a couple of quizzes, which I didn’t do so well on. He suggests doing concentrated doodles to try to find your way of working and your visual voice. He also encourages people to move from the known to the unknown. I have found this to be true throughout college and beyond. I seem to create some of my best work when I am experimenting with something new and unknown. This is one of the reasons that he suggested working with digital video.

I am not a writer. Why is it that I can write page after page for my blog, but when I get to work, I aggressively avoid writing copy? Lately my lie that “I am not a writer” has bothered me more and more. That is probably the main reason I chose to attend Juliet D’Ambrosio’s “Verbal Brainstorming” session. Here is what I learned from her presentation.

A brand is really just a company’s story. How do you tell that story? Most designers, me included, don’t consider ourselves to be writers. It is easy to make excuses to get out of writing. “I don’t need to. I don’t care what it says as long as it looks great. I’m bad at grammar and spelling. I hate writing. I don’t know where to start.”

Designers outnumber writers 5 to 1 in ad agencies. If that is true, then who is doing the writing? The answer is designers. When faced with the challenge to write, designers can tell powerful stories. We are all excellent communicators graphically, it just takes a little more work for us to write words. The first step is to stop making excuses and take the initiative to want to write. Once you have taken that huge step, here is some advice from Julet:

Start with the real world. Do research. Start by asking questions about things that interest you. Start with a purpose, and reframe the question. Start with your subconscious. Once you get started, you get past the intimidation of the blank page. Start with a typeface. Start with a single word. Instead of an outline, create a storyboard. Tell your own story. Redefine the structure of your story. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes. Avoid saying what the images say. The beauty is in the details. Push your descriptions and dig beyond the expected. Don’t tell boring stories just because your clients are boring. Tell the story through other people’s words. Use facts. Cross-pollinate with other formats. Don’t work too hard. Know when to stop and don’t overwrite. Be mercilessly simple. Share your work with someone you trust and admire. Read out loud. Always present in person. Listen to your clients because they are smart.

Her most important advice was to believe in yourself. You can do it.

With so many sessions to attend at the conference I had very briefly considered not going to this one. I had read the book and I was wondering if Jim���s session would cover a lot of the same ground. I was wrong. I really gained a great deal from Jim���’s session.

I could really tell that Mr. Sherraden spent a great deal of time preparing for this presentation. This session was chock full of examples of Hatch work, past and present. There two screens were constantly showing two different slides that related to each other. It was an excellent way to see two different blocks for one poster or to see the block and also see the final poster. Jim had put some of the recent work in the presentation, which was great to see. He even had work that was done within the last two weeks.

I was also greatly encouraged to see some of the great and more experimental design that is coming out of the shop lately. Jim has delegated much of printing and design of the new posters over to the interns and staff. While still using the original Hatch fonts these designers are achieving a new and innovative look. I appreciate the vintage justified Hatch poster, but it is great to see some different looks come from the historic type and blocks. He also has a great policy to encourage the staff to move on to other jobs, so more people can come in and learn this unique craft.

Stained glass and organ music welcomed us to the sold-out “Designing the Brand Experience” this morning. I almost forgot that it wasn’t Sunday, and I half expected Brian Collins to be wearing a clerical collar or a robe. I have to admit the church theme had me thinking “man, this guy really takes this brand stuff seriously!” Brian Collins’ first experience with a brand was with the Catholic Church. The church had graphic costumes, extrordinary artwork, and an incredible story. It communicated a message. To illustrate this point, Brian invited a local Chicago gospel choir on stage. After a moving (not Catholic) performance, Brian returned to the stage and defined designers as “Possibility Creators.” “This is the perfect moment for design,” he said and added that he thinks today a MFA is as valuable as the MBA degree used to be. Design is hot right now and has leaped into the mainstream press. Business Week, Fast Company, and Wal-mart have all put design in the headlines recently.

Brian’s sermon notes were five key attributes of creativity and inspiration: Collaborate, Clarify, Challenge, Commit, and Delight.

1. Collaborate

The ability to collaborate will be the most important skill of the next ten years. When Brian was starting at Ogilvy, he was in charge of starting a creative department. The Ogilvy office was ugly, and not conducive to creativity. He painted the walls black and turned the walls into giant chalk boards. Within a few days, the team was interacting and collaborating.

2. Clarify

What is the first chocolate company you think of? Hersheys? What is the first chocolate factory you think of? Wonka? Hershey’s owned the idea of chocolate, but they didn’t own the idea of where chocolate was made. Ogilvy’s team proposed that Hershey should buy a building on Times Square and create a Hersheys store. By story telliing, Hershey was able to start a new business. About this time, the audience starts to smell chocolate. Brian Collins explains that they created a chocolate fragrance that was used to fill the Hershey’s store. The same sweet fragrance was being pumped into our room. It was great.

3. Challenge

Leigh Okies worked for Dove which was considering a Carl’s Jr/Paris Hilton style of campaign as they tackled the question, “what is beauty?” Instead of focus on celebrities, Ogilvy convinced Dove to use female photographers to tell a more responsible, realistic, and optimistic story of what beauty is. The photos went on an international tour. The catalog was a photo book. It was set up calendar style as a reference to the pinup calandars of the past.

4. Commit

Jen Panepinto shared the story of her senior project as a student of Brian Collins. She developed a set of nesting bowls that allowed you to know the measurements of the bowl you are eating out of. With nearly 2/3 of Americans classified as overweight, her simple design solution gave hope and beauty to dieters everywhere.

5. Delight

Deborah Adler was also a student of Brian Collins. She shared the story of her grandma who became sick after taking her husband’s medicine. This is a common occurrance that kills many people each year. She says that 60% of people who take medication have taken it incorrectly at some time last year. The error occurrs because medicine bottles lack design. Aside from the child-proof lids, the pill bottle has never seen innovation. Small type, dark type on dark backgrounds, coded “medical speak,” are just the start of a long list of design mistakes. Deborah’s solutions are beatiful, simple and intelligent. Most importantly, her design is saving people’s lives. Target adopted her ideas and has released one of the best products on the market today: ClearRX.

This was probably the best session of the HOW conference. I wasn’t sure what to expect being that Brian Collins works for Ogilvy. When I hear the name Ogilvy, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and not in a good way. As an ad man, Ogilvy didn’t seem to have much respect for designers. Ogilvy is a much different company now than it was during the rule of Mr. Ogilvy. It is innovative and is truely using design to change our world for the better. That is an uplifting message of hope. Amen? Amen.

Marshall shared his shorthand notes with us in a preview for this blog. It is interesting to compare his finished session with his notes. As a designer that is slowly becoming more of a writer, this session is very pertinent to what I do here on the blog. Of course we as designers work with images and words on a daily basis.

Here is some of his advice about writing. Write about what you know about. Anything else is plagiarism. If you don’t like dogs don’t write a children’s story about a dog. He also talked about how he recommends that a writer should write by hand first because it looks too finished when you write on the computer. It was interesting to hear that perspective about writing since we hear it very often in reference to design. After you write it by hand, Marshall recommends that you read it into a tape recorder. If you can’t read it through then there are problems in your writing.

I have to admit that I was not very familiar with Marshall’s persona. He is definitely and individual. He is obviously a very visual and spiritual person. He has psychics in his family and he says that he sees auras. That is a hard one to digest for a person that doesn’t see them.

Most of us have an album from our childhood that evokes powerfully nostalgic feelings. We remember the place in our rooms where we would listen to the music. We remember our friends at the time, the clothes we wore, and the first time we heard the music. Our memories aren’t limited to music, and we get the same wonderful feelings from seeing the album art. Is that feeling lost in the explosion of MP3’s? Jeff Kleinsmith, founder of Patent Pending Industries, and art director for Sub Pop Records, honestly admits that he was worried for a while that he might lose his job because of the digital boom. Sub Pop actually uses the phrase “Sub Pop - Going out of business for the past ten years,” in some of their promotions. The truth is that although the methods that we get our music are changing, we still have a need for the visuals that accompany the songs. That more than anything is why Jeff Kleinsmith’s art stands out. He is able to fill the visual hole that is left by music downloads. Posters are not only popular for collecting, but Jeff makes an interesting observation: Without the branding that comes with CD packaging, posters are contributing to the “brand” of the band. This is really unique. Since posters are usually commissioned by the people promoting concerts (not the record labels or the band), the brand of the band is partly out of their control. Poster design’s like Jeff’s can be much more powerful because a poster doesn’t have to survive the political minefields that often sink great album art. There isn’t a committee, a target market, research, or even long term goals for the design.

The other major impact of digital music is that it is forcing CD packaging to be more than just a jewel case and a cd. Design can add value to the cd. This plays right into the hands of Jeff’s design which has a tradition of forcing interaction between the person and the artwork. Once he got over the fear of the digital revolution, he was able to recognize that his work was actually more relevant as a result. He is able to do more innovative cd packaging as well as satisfy an audience with an increasing appetite for music posters. That’s not to say he has embraced MP3’s himself. He still hasn’t opened the iPod he got for Christmas.