Weekly Recap #19: Peace yo!
The live ticker idea fails miserably, we visit the TYPO design spectacle and Lars poses with the Reichstag. What’s not to love?
Unsurprisingly I am still Harry, we are diesdas.digital and you’re reading our 19th weekly recap. You know the drill by now … so let’s get started!
Thursday, May 12, 10:32
Aah, this week was supposed to be a slow live ticker, right? Damn, I completely forgot about that and now it’s Thursday already. Anyhow, let’s see what happened so far … 😗
We’re making good progress on two projects and we’ll meet both clients at TYPO Berlin (which starts today). So that’s gonna be interesting, showing them what we made and getting their feedback.
Earlier this week one project (a lead we had been chasing) suddenly turned into a pitch and it felt really good to politely decline: “Thanks a lot for the offer, but under these conditions we prefer not to.”
Still Thursday, May 12, 10:40
A learning from budget negotiations that happened yesterday: Never call something a “microsite”. In discussions with the client we suggested building a microsite for a campaign at some point, then the scope increased, but we still called it a microsite and when we talked budget and made a reasonable proposal everyone was like: “waah, that’s too much for a microsite”. The term hints at the scope of the project, which can always change … so from now on we’ll try to choose our words more carefully.
Still Thursday, May 12, 10:56
We’re back on Snapchat and there’s some more snapping to come when I pack my stuff and leave for the TYPO conference later today. I’m looking forward to that … while Instagram is making their app duller and duller with every release, I am starting to really enjoy Snapchat. It’s playful, it’s fun, it gives you great tools to tell little stories in video, photos, doodles, text or all of those combined. It harkens back to the playful and chaotic Geocities times of the web, when stuff didn’t need to be all polished and clean. Which is ironic, because while the aesthetic is similar, Snapchat is also as anti open web as it gets, not even allowing links outside their walled garden.
Still Thursday, May 12, 11:00
Oh wait, one more thing about conferences: We booked four tickets to this year’s Beyond Tellerrand in Berlin. See you there? We sure hope so! 👌
Cool, now I’m definitely packing up to get to TYPO. I’m on the editorial team this year, writing for the official blog. Will report back once I’m there.
Already Saturday, May 14, 10:46
I’m on the subway, trying to add text with the Medium app, but it’s just impossible. Giving up.
Saturday, May 14, 12:09
Finally arrived at the TYPO venue again (pictured above) and I gotta conclude that the live ticker idea for this post didn’t work at all. I forgot about it most of the time and then, in the midst of all the conference craze I didn’t have any time to sit, think and jot down thoughts. We shall try again next week though. 👊
Saturday, May 14, 12:20
TYPO is pretty much the same as always (which is a good thing, I went every year since 2011): a huge, yet weirdly cozy conference with lots of friendly faces around. I haven’t watched many talks yet, but the conversations outside in the sun and casual chats in the hallways make up for that. That’s basically why I come here every year.
Kudos to the team behind the scenes! You are doing a stellar job to make every attendee feel welcome!
Please allow me to voice a bit of critique though: While it is nice that there’s so much going on, across multiple stages and days, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something missing: Personally I’d wish for more technical talks (all those were apparently shifted to a separate event) and digital thinking.
A large chunk of attendees are students and their work life as designers will be predominantly digital … and yet, the conference that is supposed to lead the way and inspire clings to largely dated graphic design and illustration topics. I’d like to see more talks about digital branding, generative art, user interface design, social media experiments, coding, prototyping and UX, but those are rarely represented in the schedule. I feel that if you run such a large and influential conference there’s an obligation to touch on these topics in this day and age. In the end it’s of course up to the organizers and the refusal might also be deliberate, to differentiate TYPO from all the other tech events going on in Berlin. Still. Just a little bit of honest feedback. 😇
Update on Saturday, May 14, 20:00
I’ll completely mess with the chronological order now and add an update from after the conference: The last day was full of great talks with a good mixture of topics, so that softens the critique. Well done everyone, we had a blast and we’re already looking forward to next year! 💥 🎉
And with that I gotta end this recap … I feel it’s a bit of a mess, because it’s hard to focus with all the chatter and noise around me, but the last paragraph is not gonna save it anyways. So #yolo. I’m gonna go watch a few talks now and you enjoy your weekend! Have fun, catch some sun and see you next week! 💚 🤖 💙
