WWDC/Layers Conference Day 3
The offcial last day of the conference.
Wednesday was upon us, and with it, came the last day of the Layers Conference. Once again, we made our way into the venue to start the day with more coffee, pastries and happy geek songs from Jonathan Mann.
Jumping into the awesome talks of the day, we began with Netta Marshall and her talk on Synesthesia and how living with a specific form of it, Chromesthesia, makes her see colours when she is listening to music and hear specific sounds when looking at certain colours…totally awesome!
Following that we had a design council talking about the considerations and constrains of designing for physical spaces. It was interesting to see how they put such focus on listening to their customers and how they balance the challenges of layering constrains and feedback. Also emphasised was the importance of prototyping and being able to zoom out without loosing the focus on the details that bring things to life.
After a quick sandwich break we received the one and only Neven Mrgan from Panic to show us a few things that inspire him and to remind us that we should always be able to surprise people with creativity. Side note: buy this book > Principles of Two Dimensional Design.
At this point we had a crazy and awesome live version of The Incomparable Radio Theatre show. Really, really, cool retro vibes that took us to a lunch break that featured colourful popsicles.
The second part of the day began with an Apple pundits “round table” lead by Serenity Caldwell from iMore and featuring Marc Edwards from Bjango, Arnold Kim from MacRumors and Wil Shipley . New WWDC announcements were discussed but most importantly a common theme seemed to emerge on how Apple should be more transparent and just better at communicating with it’s developer community and giving them a voice.
Arik Devens came on stage to show us how Criterion uses design and attention to detail to sell physical products for ‘quality markets’ and Clarko had a very interesting talk on the appeal of products. “Help your users be badasses!” by giving them tools that make them feel like they have superpowers.
The day came to an end with an entire hour of comedy value that cracked the audience up. On stage we had: Adam Lisagor from Sandwich Video, Merlin Mann, Christa Mrgan and Scott Simpson. Basically, a live episode of You Look Nice Today that had everything from ‘verticals’ to ‘pivots’ to bathroom trips. Brilliant.
It was a great conference and everyone left definetly eager to come back next year so you better get on it Jessie Char! Thanks everyone!
SFO ✈️ LHR
