This year, the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, an organization in which several Viget folks are actively involved, expanded the interactive side of their Annual Show. We're not really into the award scene here at Viget, but we're big supporters of ADCMW's recent emphasis on the DC web community, and were excited to be involved.
Four pieces of our work were selected for inclusion in the show, the most of any interactive agency:
Saturday night, three of us went down to the National Press Club to view the show, which included some really great work from a lot of area agencies, and a great dinner with other designers who had work in the show. We also took home a Silver Lightbulb award for SpeakerRate, the only such award to go to an interactive work, which was a welcome surprise.
Also, separate congratulations to Viget designer Samantha Warren and friend-of-the-family Ali Felski for having their wonderful personal sites win a spot in the exhibit as well.
Thanks to the Art Directors Club for hosting the event and to the panel of great judges on the interactive side (Dan Mall, Leslie Jensen-Inman, and Ian Coyle) for participating. We're looking forward to watching and helping ADCMW grow to become an integral part of DC's web community.
Ben is avoiding the slot machines (we think) and instead is cashing in on all the great RailsConf sessions he's moderating, attending, or participating in this week.
Last night, he moderated a talk called "Teaching Rails," which grew out of a discussion he had with Brian Hogan on IRC. On Wednesday afternoon, he's participating in a panel discussion called "Starting Up Fast: Lessons from the Rails Rumble" before giving his own session, "And the Greatest of These Is … Rack Support," on Thursday morning.
Just as Ben was packing his bags for his Ruby talk this weekend in Buenos Aires and polishing his slides before presenting "Rails Page Caching" at the Central Virginia Ruby Enthusiasts' Group on April 14, he learned that another of his proposals, "'Comics' is Hard: Domain Modeling Challenges," was accepted to RubyNation.
In a very cool development (pun intended), we learned that three other Viget staffers will be presenting there, as well.
- Mark will present "Code Stinkers Anonymous: Learning to Write Better Code and Love Refactoring"
- David will present "Optimizing Perceived Performance"
- Tony will present "'Handling' Legacy Databases with DataMapper and Rails"
But, before those guys can head to the Reston in June, they'll be setting up shop for the first Developer Day DC conference on May 30, which we'll be hosting here at headquarters. Although planning continues on the effort, we know that Pat and Justin will be presenting during that day-long conference.
Jack's back after presenting How MacGyver Would Do Design Research on April Fool's Day (ask him about his joke that day) at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. A core element of his talk, which was attended by about 400 people, was:
Even if you have a week and a very limited budget, you can still do worthwhile design research. This talk can help show you how.
Jack said the conference, which was themed "The Power of Less," was incredibly relevent to everyone in the web space given the economic effects industry folks are experiencing to varying degrees right now.
It was good to see a side of the web industry you don't see often – a bit of conservatism with respect to budgets and timelines and scope, but still trying to drive creativity as much as ever.
Keith has been invited back to speak at James Madison University's School of Media Arts and Design (SMAD) during his alma mater's annual SMAD Day & Awards Ceremony on Friday, April 10.
Students receive help with their online portfolios and have the opportunity to hear from various JMU alum regarding the world post-academia. Keith will talk about the current state of the web industry.
This last Saturday, March 21st, we co-sponsored Developer Day, a one day local conference, with our friends at Relevance. This first Developer Day was a great success and we're looking forward to hosting another one in DC near the end of May. The 53 attendees heard a range of talks on forward-thinking technologies, and from what we've seen, were inspired not only by the talks but also the delightful food from Rue Cler, a neighborhood French restaurant.
To find out more about our future plans for Developer Day, follow us on the conference site and Twitter.
It's become a pilgrimage several of us have taken these last few years, and there's always something worthwhile out of it. South By Southwest Interactive, no longer just a music and film festival, has become the epicenter of the web design world each March, and myself, Samantha, and Keith made the trip to Austin for it this year.
Continue reading "Great Talks and Great Folks at SXSW, No SouthByScurvy this Year."
We're excited to collaborate with Relevance to co-host Developer Day, a one-day technical conference in Durham on March 21 that will bring together programmers from every specialty.
Hear eight presentations given by active practitioners on topics ranging from JavaScript and Scala to Rails performance and security. Each is tailored to give you insight into various topics that may positively influence how you work, regardless of your specialization.
Registration is only $50 for the entire day.
Samantha has been invited back to the great state of Pennsylvania, this time to speak at Pittsburgh Design Day on Saturday, April 4.
The one-day conference is catered to web professionals in Western PA, and Samantha will be talking on a topic similar to the Refresh Pittsburgh typography presentation she delivered last November.
Mindy and David work well together; that is, particularly since they identified ways in which designers and developers can better communicate.
They'll be telling Refresh the Triangle all about their experiences this Thursday at 6:30 pm when they deliver, "10 Things That Designers Do that Piss Off Developers (And Vice Versa)."
