June 11th, 2007
@media 2007: Third time’s a charm
That’s @media done for another year. Patrick put on a great event. Again. Seriously, year on year the bar is raised and he delivers. The speakers were great, the venue, the food, but most of all the location; Islington is such a great place for an event like this.
I feel like I’ve lived with @media 07 for a while. I produced the conference printed matter for San Fransisco and London, so for the best part of a month I’ve felt the looming pressure of speaking. I was very nervous about it, but I think it went ok.
There were so many highlights of the two days. Firstly, it was so great to meet up with friends from home and oversees. This year saw, amongst others, Jason, Dan and Molly take the trip across the pond, along with Joe Clark (whom I finally met for the first time).
Secondly, it was equally great to see friends in the UK who I talk with all the time but very rarely get to share a beer with. Those jet-setting men of mystery from Clearleft were there in force (I have to thank Hannah for that term—personally I think it’s going to stick). Jeremy was, as usual, on fine form. Of course the Britpack were propping up the bar at any given opportunity. It goes without saying it was nice to see Colly out of his cave along with his other Erskine Design cave-dwelling work-o-holic Jamie (those chaps seriously work too hard). Great to see Steve again and to meet the inspirational Hannah Donovan from Last.fm (who gave a stonking half hour talk along with Simon Willison).
The presentations were superb. Typically, I attended most of the design-focused talks and occasionally dipped into the tech-focused. Highlights for me were Simon and Drew, Joe, Hannah and Jason. Andy delivered an entertaining look at internationalisation which was also a cracker.
On Thursday, I presented ‘Five Simple Steps to Better Typography’ in the 3pm slot. The slides are here (along with a few resource links) It was my first solo presentation of that length and to an audience similar in size to the presentation Rich and I gave at SXSW in March. It went without a hitch and, on reflection, really wasn’t worth the nervousness before-hand. For those who didn’t catch it, I’m sure the podcast will be released shortly and I think Joe was live-blogging in the front row.
I talked about, you guessed it, Typography and how by applying some simple guidelines, you can create much better typography for your website. There was a twist though.
When I prepared the presentation a while ago, there was no story. Sure, the facts were there but on presenting them a couple of times, and various run-throughs, I felt there was no cohesive thread to tie it all together. Enter my dirty little secret: martial arts (which I’ll talk about shortly in another post). You see, Typographic design and martial arts have an awful lot in common. The presentation saw me compare Boxing to Vertical Rhythm and Ninjas to Hyphens.
That’s it for a while then. No d.Construct for me again this year as I’m away on holiday. Bit gutted about that as it looks like such a great event. I guess I’ll have to wait until March to get my next web conference fix.
It’s not a dirty little secret. It’s a clean and respectable way to live your life.
Sad to have missed @media this year, had good reports from my teammate, Liz even if she hasn’t shown me any of her notes from it.
Maybe, at some point I’ll actually get to one of these. I’ll have to start convincing my bosses thatt SXSW is key to our company’s development.
Thanks for the slides Mark, definitely a great collection of quick tips to improve typography!
++recommended
Great presentation, Mark. Thanks for posting the slides, too. I was looking for those this morning. :)
The martial arts angle added an interesting thread to what, let’s face it, can be quite a dry subject. Shame you won’t be at d.construct this year, though.
I will definitely be applying my typography with more precision from now on!
Your talk was great Mark, one of the highlights for me. Typography is something i have not really paid enough attention to (probably the same as many other web designers) but your talk has shown me some new avenues for making things easier… if i can get the developers to do the maths bits for me :-)
As I tend to sit more in the web developer camp and also being an @media virgin, I’ve come away with the designer goggles firmly fixed on!!
All the sessions and speakers where inspiring and also eye opening at how much passion people have for the current phase of the web.
Your talk was great Mark, and definitely one of the highlights for me.
ps. Any news on the book..?
Phil: You’re not wrong Phil. I’ve written a post which is going to be published tomorrow about my life with martial arts on and off. I’d like to think I’m a much better person for doing.
Your colleague introduced herself actually and seemed to be enjoying the event.
Chris: You’re not the only one to ask. It’s on the way, abeit a bit slowly.
Before attending @media07, I would have been unable to see any analogy between Typography and Jeet Kune Do ;)
On a 1 to 10 scale, I would rate your presentation a 9.
Kudos!
It was an absolute pleasure, Sir. But, lets not wait a year next time…
Hi Mark,
I didn’t make it to @media but your slides, as always, look great. I was particularly impressed to see you talked about incremental leading. The recent amount of online articles on composing vertical rhythms are great, but I feel this topic is over looked on the web and only covered in texts like Muller-Brockmann’s, so it is great to see someone cover this topic.
I also must echo Chris’s sentiments, really looking forward to the book.
Hi Mark
Thanks for the presentation, I’m just going over my notes now.
Can I just ask a quick question, I missed what you meant by incremental leading? Was it the same thing as vertical rhythm?
Thanks
Daniel
Hi Mark,
A bit late with this comment, but I saw your presentation and thought it was brilliant (you didn’t come across as nervous at all). I’m glad the slides are up because I didn’t manage to get the maths for the vertical alignment written down during the presentation, but I can’t wait to test it out myself.
I too am away on holiday in September but I’m sure the podcasts will be top dog (they were last year).
Looking forward to reading the book! Hope it sells many and inspires many more!
Sam
Your talk was great Mark, one of the highlights for me. Typography is something i have not really paid enough attention to (probably the same as many other web designers) but your talk has shown me some new avenues for making things easier… if i can get the developers to do the maths bits for me :-)
Really interesting. Bring on @media 2008!
Sound like you’ve visited the heaven! I want that toooooo :))