Nourishing Habits for Nourishing Design

Wonderful talk by Craig Mod on how great design is born from nourishing habits.

The best designer is an aware designer. The best design solutions are found by deconstructing problems as they arise in our own lives. What habits can we as designers form to provide us with a more objective clarity in answering these problems? How can we apply these solutions to existing products? When is it time to build new products? There is an intersection between the cultivation of habit, personal experience and design application – it is nourishing and magic and something we should all strive to evoke.

Organized Wonder

Organized Wonder is a new way to share and discover the best talks, documentaries, interviews, short films and various other videos scattered across the web. Fantastic!

You can follow my collection here.

David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence

Absolutely wonderful TED talk by David Kelley, founder of IDEO, in which he is telling stories from his legendary design career and his own life, offering ways to build the confidence to create.

The Illustrated 99% Conference 2012

The wonderfully talented Wendy MacNaughton was brought in to illustrate the most recent 99% Conference, just a few weeks ago. It was lovely seeing her throughout the conference, with her notepad, sketching and documenting.

For those who don’t know 99% is Behance’s annual conference about “making ideas happen” – its name inspired by the Thomas Edison quotation, “Genius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.”

Below is a selection of Wendy’s visual observations:

See all sketches here.

TYPO SF: The Importance of Side Projects

I had the huge honor to kick off the TYPO conference in San Francisco a few weeks back, and this is my talk. I am speaking on the importance of taking your side projects seriously and share 8 lessons I am going to teach my children.

Other TYPO SF videos currently available are by Mike Monteiro and Joshua Davis.

TYPO conferences take place in Berlin, London and San Francisco. I highly recommend attending one.

Cool Hunting Video: Photobooth

At last Friday’s 99% Conference, I had the pleasure to experience the magic of old Tintype Portrait Photography. Michael Shindler brought his tintype studio set up all the way from SF to the 99% conference and set up shop.

In this Cool Hunting video they talk to Michael, co-founder of Photobooth. If you are in SF, make sure to go by and have one of these Tintype Portraits taken. Nothing really compares.

Also check out the piece about Photobooth at 99% on the conference website.

Make People Click Ads

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads.” – Jeff Hammerbacher, Early Facebook Employee

(via @alexismadrigal‘s #99conf talk)

Jonathan Harris’ PSFK Talk

I had the pleasure to see Jonathan Harris’ PSFK talk a few weeks ago. It is a moving talk and one that will make you think. Jonathan Harris is a new media artist and in this presentation talks to the audience about how he walked away from success and notoriety and was inspired to counter current trends to build Cowbird.com. Watch it!

CreativeMornings Video: Simon Sinek

I am extremely excited to share last week’s CreativeMornings talk by Simon Sinek. His talk was a touching one, definitely getting under my skin. Simon’s message is an important one and I can assure you that watching his talk is 20minutes well spent. Simon believes in a world in which the vast majority of people go home everyday feeling fulfilled by their work. Amen to that.

A big giant thank you to our videographer Ben Hallman.

Visual Notes

Eva-Lotta Lamm just tweeted a link to the visual notes she took during my and Khoi’s TYPOSF talk yesterday. #mademesmile

Collaboration

“Collaboration is a good way to step away from ego.”
- Joshua Davis

(A quote from Joshua Davis‘ lively talk at TYPOSF, which I am currently attending)

TYPOSF Livestream Today

I have the huge, crazy honor to open the TYPOSF conference at 10am, here in San Francisco today. I was told that they are going to livestream some of the talks, and mine is one of them. YAY! Here’s the link where the live stream will be.

You can also watch: Khoi Vinh at 2pm, Joshua Davis at 6pm and Mike Monteiro’s talk tomorrow, friday, at 6pm. Remember, this is all on west coast time! Here’s a timezone converter if you’re not sure what time that will be where you are in the world.

Typotalks livestream

CreativeMornings Video: Aaron James Draplin

Portland/CreativeMornings – Aaron James Draplin from CreativeMornings/Portland on Vimeo.

The speaker at the March 2012 Portland/CreativeMornings was Aaron James Draplin.

Many thanks to Pro Photo Supply for lending the Portland chapter the gear to capture the talk and to Paul Searle for shooting and editing this video.

Brooklyn Beta/Summer Camp

It’s a pretty special day for my studiomates Chris and Cameron, forces behind Brooklyn Beta, the friendliest conference I have every attended. With today’s launch of Summer Camp they are moving beyond just being a conference.

Chris and Cameron were inspired by what Y Combinator has done for developers and hope to show some of the same love for designers. Not at the expense of developers, though. Their ideal team has both a designer and a developer working together.

With Summer Camp they aim to help “designer-developer teams” build the next generation of web products and change the world.

With the Brooklyn Beta conference, Chris and Cameron try to help spread big ideas and connect designers and developers together. With Summer Camp, they want to take it a step further and remove what is quite possibly the biggest barrier of all, money.

It’s a 12-week program in the summer leading up to the conference. They invest $25,000 in your company for a 6% stake, and give you a lot more help along the way.

Summer Camp is part of the Brooklyn Beta nonprofit, so any gains made in this year’s investments will go right back into the community and hopefully fund the next round of Summer Campers.

And lucky me, I have the honor to be one of the Summer Camp advisors. At the ready to offer advice and experience. Check out the impressive advisor list:

Here’s what Chris and Cameron are hoping Summer Camp will fund:

“We are hoping to back big ideas looking to make a real impact. Don’t just make something for your peers. Build something that fixes the insanity of modern education. Or helps people weather the upcoming financial crises and rise in unemployment. Or improves the health of people around the world. Or brings neighbors closer together. Or helps people run small businesses. Or strengthens the bonds of families. Or puts existing abusive, mammoth institutions out of business (pretty please).”

Chris and Cameron deserve an internet hug for pulling this off.

More: Brooklyn Beta / Summer Camp

CreativeMornings video: Jessi Arrington

Co-founder of WORKSHOP and all-around Rainbow Queen, Jessi Arrington spoke at a recent CreativeMornings/NewYork about creativity and turning the dial up to 11. (This memorable talk even ended in a Rainbow Birthday Parade which my daughter and I got to lead!)

A big thank you to Sy J. Abudu for filming and editing the talk.

(via CreativeMornings.Tumblr.com)

SVA/BBC Design Film Festival

The upcoming SVA/BBC Design Film Festival will give you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to view groundbreaking BBC films that have never previously been screened in the United States. It takes place at the SVA theatre on 23rd street, here in NYC on March 24th.

The program includes design, advertising, and book-related films on topics such as the future of the book, the history of Levi’s 501 Jeans and the Barcelona chair, and real-life stories of the ad men – and women – behind the fictional tv series Mad Men.

The festival is curated by the wonderful Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Design Department at SVA, and Adam Harrison Levy, faculty member in the MFA Design Criticism Department at SVA.

More info.

When We Build

This fantastic talk by Wilson Miner was given at the 2011 Buildconf.

In his talk, Wilson asks: What happens when we stop thinking of ourselves not just as developers or experience designers, and take up the mantle as a new generation of product designers for a digital world?

Watch more Buildconf talks.

OFFSET 2012

Offset 2012 looks like it’s going to be a fantastic conference. The speaker list is impressive: Michael and Paula from Pentagram, Shepard Fairey (OBEY), Conor Harrington, Johnny Kelly, Seymour Chwast, Droga5, Kesselskramer, Jessica Hische, Evan Hecox and many more. And the event takes place in beautiful Dublin, what’s not to love?

OFFSET2012, March 9-11 in Dublin, Ireland

Special-Effects Machine

“Aside from keeping the rain out and producing some usable space, architecture is nothing but a special-effects machine that delights and disturbs the senses.”
— Liz Diller

A quote taken from Liz Diller’s TED Talk.

Disruptive Wonder

The wonderful and incredibly talented Kelli Anderson recently gave a talk at TEDxPhoenix. This morning, her talk went live for the world to see. Kelli is one of the most passionate, hardworking and thoughtful designers I know. Watch it!

Yes to the Idea of an Indoor Park

Today’s CreativeMornings/NewYork with Charles Renfro was generously hosted by Park Here, a gallery turned indoor park. It was packed and seriously fantastic. What a fun venue! A big giant thank you to the team at Open House Gallery for hosting us. Here’s a short video about the space and the idea behind it all:

Parke Here is only open for a few more days. They are starting to break it all down on the 15th, next week. If you’re in NYC, make sure to stop by asap.

ParkHere.info

Brooklyn Beta

This Brooklyn Beta video made my day. Thank you @boltron!

Brooklyn Beta is a fantastic conference organized by my studiomates Cameron and Chris. Brooklyn Beta is my twitter stream come to live. A small group of incredibly talented, smart and *friendly* folks.

Good Work

This quote by Michael Bierut is from his January 2010 CreativeMornings Talk. Seriously worth watching.

CreativeMornings Video: Jamer Hunt

2011/09 Jamer Hunt from CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

Our September CreativeMornings/NewYork speaker was Jamer Hunt. He has dedicated his career to pursuing design as a means for reinvigorating the public realm. Currently the Director of Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons the New School for Design, he focuses this CreativeMornings talk on the subject of scale. From insects to typography and even bicycle transport, Jamer explores how changes in scale influence the way we approach problems.

A big thank you to Sy J Abudu for producing the video!