Carson Workshops - CSS for Designers

Here I am, sat on a train, stuffed full of Sushi awaiting the train to finally pull away so I can start my long trip home (about four hours depending on which signal's decide to fail). After buying my 12inch iBook in July, this is the first time I've used it in a truly mobile capacity and so far it's going well. Anyway, I'm not going to go about sushi, trains or laptops in this post. Today, I had the great pleasure of attending the 'CSS for Designers' workshop hosted by Carson Workshops in London. What a day it was.

I've sat here for a good ten minutes now thinking where to start on describing today, so I'll just start at the beginning.

Carson workshops

Carson Workshops is a UK based company doing really great things. Ryan and Gillian's combined talents are managing to get the most talented and inspirational speakers from around the world over to the UK, as well as events in the States, to give day long workshops to the industry.

Like a lot of web professionals (do I fall within the bracket Andy? Molly? I'd like to think so :)), I try to attend as many conferences as I can in the web industry, such as @media, SXSW, unfortunately I couldn't make it to dConstruct, but I was there in spirit. These conferences are generally very good. The wide variety of speakers give informed presentations on a plethora of material. However, these panels and presentations rarely last more than an hour, and from my experience, there's only so much you can gain from them. Workshops, such as the one attended today, are a very different beast all together.

The Workshop

Today's workshop - CSS for Designers - had Molly Holzschlag and and our very own Andy Clarke at the helm.

I've met Andy before in person, very briefly, at @media in London in June and found his presentation very inspirational from a designer's perspective. Andy talks the same language as me. Japanese. No, seriously, Andy's design talents are but the tip of a Web Standards trifle. I mean, Iceburg. The guy just really, really knows his stuff. Not only all the creative design stuff, but also how to implement it using web standards. The most important thing, however, is Andy can explain this stuff in a language designers can understand. No mean feat. The same can be said about his co-presenter, Molly.

It was great to finally meet Molly. If there's one person in the web industry who embodies the passion that first got me interested in this medium, then that's Molly. The thing that got me about Molly, as she was presenting throughout the day, was the incredible depth of her knowledge. Like Andy, she really, really knows her stuff but in a slightly different way, from a different background. The two of them working together throughout a whole day worked very well indeed. A great double act. Not quite Morecombe and Wise though, more like Cannon and Ball :)

Ok, that's enough back-slapping (the troll's will be queueing up otherwise). What I'm getting at is, if you get the change to go to a workshop like this or listen to either of these guys speak, then do it.

As I was saying earlier, a workshop format is very different from a conference. In a conference format you only get a snapshot of the presenter's work, on a subject they choose, in a format and structure which may not be totally up to them. How much can you really gain from this format in practical terms? Yes, they're great for inspiration, for steering you in the right direction, but generally they lack specific detail and the opportunity to ask very specific questions in the context of a project you may be working on. The workshop format changes all of this.

This was a full day workshop, from 9am until 6pm with reasonable breaks for lunch and coffee. So, it was a long day to sit in front of a projector and listen to two people talk about the same subject. Or so you may think. In reality, it wasn't like this at all. With some nicely designed slides, a user-friendly agenda (meaning it wasn't all design in the morning and theory in the afternoon) and regular swapping over by Molly and Andy it made the day go really quickly.

When I first arrived, Molly and Andy both expressed a concern to me that I'd know a lot of stuff that they'd go through throughout the day. This was not the case at all. Regardless of your experience level, you should consider attending one of this workshops. I learnt tons of stuff that I'd either skimmed over, couldn't be bothered learning fully, or got by by other means. One of these examples was Molly's examples of Relative and Absolute positioning. I'd sort of understood them for a while, but never used them because I'd always used floats. During the presentation a little light bulb went on in my head. 'Hello there', I said, 'Now I get it. This looks really cool!'. In fact, that happened quite a few times throughout the day.

The personal highlight for me was when Andy was presenting a section and grid design and a slide of my site appeared. Well, if he hadn't of forwarned me, you could've knocked me down with a feather. He even made me stand up, which was nice. I like to think I took this five minutes of fame in my stride to a rather bemused audience who, not surprisingly, had never heard of me.

A fun day had by all

If there's one thing to be said about today's workshop is that it was enlightening, both in terms of day's presentations, but also in the pub afterwards (which is where most of the really useful stuff is normall discussed). Thank you to Ryan and Gillian for hosting a fantastic day. It was great to meet some new people, finally meet Molly and have more than five minutes to talk with Andy. Interesting to note how many people from the BBC were there also. Are we to expect big CSS things from the BBC designers in the future? Well, just maybe.

Well, that's killed an hour. Right I'm off to the buffet car. Stella anyone?

Comments

Ah, there’s nothing like drinking a British Rail Stella at ?4 a can is there?!

Rob Lewis
Sat 19th Nov 2005
at 10:42 am

Good review Mark, I agree the workshop was excellent. Made such a difference to have stuff explained in such an engaging way. I didn’t get a chance to say hi, I was sat down drinking too much beer I fear.

simon jones
Mon 21st Nov 2005
at 5:46 pm

Glad to hear you enjoyed your time at the workshop in London.  I was fortunate to attend the Carson workshop in Chicago, with Eric Meyer, and had a great time there (and talk with Eric at lunch).
One of the great items we covered, during the last third of the workshop, was Alex Robinson’s In Search of the One True Layout. It was great to follow along as Eric worked through the solution ... No matter the skill level, everyone was glued to what was going on.
Looking forward the Carson’s return trip to Chicago.

Thomas
Mon 21st Nov 2005
at 8:27 pm

I attended the Thursday and had to swerve the soiree afterwards. Ah. Thursday/Friday. I see what happened ;-)

I’d like to endorse the “lightbulb” moments although for me it was for more than one element. Despite devouring many books I was still dreaming in tables.

Not any more. Suddenly the books make sense, I “get it”.

I have seen the light.

My only bleat is that the Thursday course ran out of time leaving me feeling a little short-changed - although I need to finish by saying that what was covered was truly illuminating and most worthy.

Marc Jones
Tue 22nd Nov 2005
at 11:09 am

I too was at the Thursday workshop and like Marc, my only criticism was the ‘running out of time’ factor. But maybe that was only because eveything else about the day was so great?!

So, I emailed Gillian earlier this week, expressing my desire to aquire a copy of the slides to see if there was any other great stuff I could glean from them.

Gillians response was that she would speak to Andy and Molly to find out which info she could release and would then get back to me.

I’m guessing, once she has everything agreed, she will email us all copies or post them somewhere for us to download.

Anthony Wilson
Wed 23rd Nov 2005
at 10:21 am

Hopefully the slides will make sense on their own! Appreciate the offer but can’t help thinking a small discount for a future course wouldn’t be slightly more appropriate.

I’m hating sounding like a bread-head complainant here as what we did get was superb.

Possibly a case of being a beta tester on the Rev A day I guess ;-)

I sincerely hope something similar is set up sometime, I’m amazed how much I learnt - it was perfectly pitched and a treat to know the speakers were at the top of their game.

Next time I’ll be less British and stuffy and make sure I trip along to the boozer.

Marc Jones
Wed 23rd Nov 2005
at 10:41 am

In Andy and Molly’s defence, it was the first time they’d presented those slides I think on the the Thursday. I guess I was lucky attending on the Friday when they’d had an opportunity to give them a run through.

Mark Boulton
Wed 23rd Nov 2005
at 10:57 am

Sure, completely understood and hope I don’t sound like I am here on a mission.

I guess self-employment and paying myself made me a bit more jumpy than some who’d been handed a day out the office and been paid to go ;-)

I’ve no doubt I enjoyed awesome value by the way, I’d prefer my stance to be seen as “what I got was so helpful I’m gutted I might have enjoyed being handed further knowledge”.

Marc Jones
Wed 23rd Nov 2005
at 11:16 am

Anyone else here attending http://www.carsonworkshops.com/design-dev/shea/19JAN2006.html ? Looks spot on content-wise. My only problem is finding the De Niros in time :-/

Marc Jones
Wed 23rd Nov 2005
at 12:08 pm

?what I got was so helpful I?m gutted I might have enjoyed being handed further knowledge? - I think this sums it up perfectly.

It’s only because the stuff we did get was so perfect in pitch and quality that it makes you feel like you’ve really missed out on something.

Had the workshop not been as good as it was, we’d probably have just been happy to get out of there after seven hours staring at a projection screen.

Hope I’m explaining myself properly here.

This is by no means a dig at Andy or Molly as I fully appreciate that presenting these slides to a live audience for the first time would be completely different to running through them in preperation. You can never fully anticipate which parts of the presentation will provoke a response, or how time consuming that response may be.

Anthony Wilson
Wed 23rd Nov 2005
at 12:38 pm

It was about 1/5th of the total content that was missed. Rather than being desperate to get out - had it been not-great (as it was) I’d have been looking for some financial recompense!

I’m repeating myself and almost certainly overdoing the posts percentage so I’ll sign off by endorsing acceptance of the clock beating the presenters on purely honourable grounds!

Marc Jones
Wed 23rd Nov 2005
at 12:57 pm

The simple truth is we could never get through everything in one day. Don’t you agree?

There is so much to talk about! And yes, there’s no question that the first day did not have the timing the second day did. We definitely paced the Friday better, based on audience response.  However, the Thursday people got details that Friday’s children didn’t get.

I think a one day workshop is a harsh task. I think two days is better for a workshop model. It’s not as exhausting as a conference but allows room for discussion and detail as well as the networking benefits.

The feedback is essential. I always appreciate constructive criticism and I’m always glad to learn something new.  So thanks.

M

Molly E. Holzschlag
Sun 4th Dec 2005
at 11:06 am

I absolutely agree Molly. The amount you and Andy got through on the day was pretty astounding. To cover that much material in an even-paced workshop environment is a credit to you both.

True, I was on the second day when you had gone through the material the day before. I guess the more you go through it, the better it will get.

Mark Boulton
Sun 4th Dec 2005
at 11:15 am

Molly,

Yes, it was a hard task to squeeze in the advertised content into one day.

Not criticising what was discussed, more over I was commenting that the advertised scheduled seminar that paying attendees have come along to take part in covered 4/5ths of what was advertised as the content.

I suggest “topics from” next time out if there is too much to cover.

Again, no complaints at all about what was covered - but if you ordered a book from amazon that was a great read but had 20 out of 100 pages… ;-)

Two days would have been perfect for so much content and the massively helpful interaction.

Again, really not after seeming it was a major complaint - more a case of wanting more of the good stuff that was actually advertised (and that’s certainly not Molly and Andy’s fault!).

Marc Jones
Mon 5th Dec 2005
at 10:01 am

Marc,

Actually I think it was in part our fault. Setting expectations is important, as is meeting them. So, if that’s the outline we provided, that’s what we really were striving to deliver.

It takes finesse, it’s not easy, and yeah, I ultimately agree: Shorten the list of topics, and try for two days in the future ;-)

Molly E. Holzschlag
Mon 5th Dec 2005
at 10:24 am

Photos of the event - here

Ben Armstrong
Thu 5th Jan 2006
at 9:51 am

Indeed. There’s me beneath Molly (insert your own punchline here).

Marc Jones
Thu 5th Jan 2006
at 2:41 pm

Marc! I wish I had a punchline.  You did make me laugh though ;-)

Everyone here read about @media2006? Start saving those pretty pounds my lovelies, it’s going to be a great time. The list of speakers is wonderful, http://www.vivabit.com/atmedia2006/

Molly E. Holzschlag
Thu 5th Jan 2006
at 3:07 pm

I'm a graphic designer from near Cardiff in the UK. I've been a designer for over ten years now and primarily work on the web. I'm still partial to a bit of print every now and then though. I used to work for Agency.com in London as an Art Director before working as a Senior Designer for the BBC in sunny Cardiff. This was all before I took leave of my senses and formed my own design consultancy, Mark Boulton Design Ltd.

I've got a thing about grids and typography and occasionally ramble on about them to anyone who will listen.

Mark Boulton Design

If you're after simple, clean and effective web design; let me know.