What is so great abut <head>? Is it the name? Is it the speakers? Is it the amazing sessions they gave us? No, it’s the place. An online conference is so different from an offline one.
You know, the most ironic part of it is, there was almost no distance between speakers and attendees.
Have you ever been to a conference (small or big, doesn’t even matter) where the speaker is talking and you get all these crazy ideas in your <head>. Well I have. But what can you do? You could raise your hand and speak up in front of everybody; you can tell it to your neighbor or you can talk about it after the session.
At <head> conference, you are able to give your feedback at the moment in the chat. The other attendees respond to that and most of the speakers do to. This leads to funny situations, interesting points of view, and a great feeling of the community spirit. I attended the session “Ooooh, that’s clever! (unnatural experiments in web design)” by Paul Annett and everything started linking to related stuff. At another session someone didn’t understand something and got immediately response from a fellow attendee.
But it’s not all business. Continue reading ‘< head> conference; the power and weakness of an online conference’
Published by Sarah Deforche September 24th, 2008
in software and varia.
I had been looking forward to it for a while, the official presentation of Adobe Creative Suite 4. I saw some previews at Multimania but at the Adobe Usergroup Meeting in Ghent yesterday, Ton Frederiks and Klaasjan Tukker official presented Adobe CS4. I intended to write you about CS4 and the new features, but you should see it, use it and experience it. Make sure to visit adobe.com, they list the new features, have demo-videos and you can download some of the beta versions.
Time for a break. Boulevart provided us with free champagne.
After that short break, Aral Balkan was waiting for us with a brand new presentation; the test-audience was enthusiastic. Aral didn’t talk about CS4; well he did, but only for a moment. His session was called “Aim for the lower fruit”. On twitter, Aral asked people who were at his new talk in Amsterdam (where he performed earlier that day) or Ghent to send a 140 word review on his session, so I did.
Aim for the lower hanging fruit; 5 Rules for success, by Aral Balkan.
A 140 words review by Sarah.
Aral Balkan, picture by Dimitri Vanheucke
Published by Sarah Deforche August 22nd, 2008
in inspiration.
Cameron Moll once said: Good designers are inspired within a genre, Great designers are inspired by their total environment.
A couple of days ago, @rogieking (komodomedia.com) asked me: “What web site have you found that is your most recent design inspiration”. Well, I couldn’t really answer that question. Lately I have trouble finding nice sites. It’s like, before every now and then I stumbled upon a site that made me go: “woaw!” But nowadays it’s getting harder to have that woaw-experience. So, if you don’t find inspiration on the web, or don’t want to find inspiration on the web.. where do you go?
I give you the advice to go shopping.
I’ll give you some quick examples. These are photo’s from 2 shops and some stuff I found around the house here. More to come soon (when I have some time to go shopping).
Continue reading ‘Need inspiration? Go shopping’
Published by Sarah Deforche July 20th, 2008
in design and internet.
We all tend to spend a lot of time behind our computer screen. It’s been known for a long time now that people rather search something on the web then open a book.
What do we want when we visit a website? We want to feel at home, feel comfortable, relax.
A screen is a lifeless thing, so lets bring life to it! Wood is a natural element that gives you a warm, cosy feeling. It’s been around for some time now, but is a still very popular and graceful element in webdesign.
I’ve put together a bunch of great examples of wood-use in web design. Enjoy. (be sure to scroll all the way down, the best category is the last one 
) Continue reading ‘Website-trends part one: Back to the forest’
I’m trying to keep my address book and other stuff up to date, so if everybody could just join Plaxo and connect with me, that would be great; thank you.
sarahdeforche.myplaxo.com
What is it?
Plaxo is a service that automatically syncs and shares your address book, calendar, tasks and notes. By connecting with plaxo users, your address book is never outdated.
Plug-ins allow you to connect and sync with MS Outlook, Apple address book and iCal, Gmail, Live Mail, Yahoo, LinkedIn,.. and even your mobile phone.
Plaxo is also a social networking site. It allows you to find people you might know by searching for old classmates & colleagues, browsing your friends connections and you can join groups where you can meet people with similar interest.
The Plaxo Pulse shares content from websites like Flickr, Twitter, Digg, your blog… so you can track what your contacts are doing.
Continue reading ‘Plaxo, sync your life’
