Design Eye Panel

March 15, 2005 | 12 Comments

SXSW has been absolutely beautiful so far—as was expected—and The Design Eye For The Idea Guy panel was a resounding success by all accounts I’ve heard.

From behind the stage it seemed that it went really well. People were entertained, engaged and hopefully were able to walk away with a few good nuggets as well. I know I did. You know a panel is good when you’ve got one of the panelist furiously taking notes while the others are speaking.

I’m hoping we can do some sort of write up, and I’ll talk to the guys about that, but really quick I want to acknowledge everyone involved. I felt truly honored to be a part of all of this and want to give a shout out:

Dirk Knemeyer. The ultimate sport and a really, really great guy. If you ever get a chance to see him speak, do yourself a big favor and check him out, his energy, passion and ideas never fail to get me excited.
Paul Nixon. I didn’t know a whole lot about Paul when this whole thing got started, but after a few e-mails I was pretty sure he was a cool dude. That proved itself out many times over the last few days. He’s genuine, nice, funny and he really knows his stuff too.
Cameron Moll. I had no doubt at all that Cameron would be great during the panel. He was on top of everything (and, trust me, it was quite a bit) from day one. But…he really blew me away with his delivery and professionalism. Cameron is a pro—no doubt about it people—the real deal and it’s clear as a bright sunny day that he loves to what he does.
Ryan Sims. What can I say about Ryan? He’s great—and totally authentic—which I love. He has a passion for what he does and it shows. Dare I mention his design sense? Probably don’t need to, but, it’s amazing and his stuff is beautiful.
Andrei Herasimchuk. Andrei is astonishingly energetic—in a good way. He knows quite a bit about quite a bit and has no problems letting you know he knows. He wears his passion for design on his sleeve (or maybe more accuratley his forehead) and has a wonderfully wicked wit. A truly great conversationalist.

It’s probably obvious I had a great time at the panel and I really hope everyone watching did as well. It’s just so much fun to get people who care about what they are doing together and get them talking. That is what SXSW is all about. I’m already looking forward to next year.

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Comments

1. Brian said:

It was one of the better panels for me. My skillset is mostly on the backend stuff, and I learned a great deal about the design aspects, especially typography and the thought process that goes into making a logo. Thanks all!

Posted on March 15, 2005 03:59 PM | #

2. Rob L. said:

I read all five panelists’ blogs regularly, so for me it was much as I expected… it’s definitely nice to break out of the browser and hear this stuff discussed live and in person for a change.

I think you’ll be more pleased to hear that I was with two colleagues who’d never heard of any of you and they really liked the panel; one even said it was her favorite of SXSWi.

Hope Andrei wasn’t too disappointed that he couldn’t cajole more dancing out of you.

Posted on March 15, 2005 06:44 PM | #

3. gb said:

Watching everyone post about their cool SxSW experiences is making me jealous… next year I’ll figure out some way to get my cheap behind down there, even if it takes hiding in Cameron’s luggage…

Posted on March 15, 2005 11:04 PM | #

4. Kevin Tamura said:

I got a chance to peep the Design Eye Site on Monday–damn that looked tasty and I can just imagine that the panel was sweet. Wish I could have been down there for it and the rest of SXSW, but I wouldn’t have missed my cousins graduation from Marine Core basic training for the world.

Great job again Keith and the rest of the Design Eye crew.

Posted on March 16, 2005 08:57 AM | #

5. Andrew said:

I basically thought SXSW sucked this year. Your panel was one of perhaps two I saw where I felt like the panelists had prepared well, really enjoyed talking to the audience, and were truly thoughtful about the work they were doing. Plus, although the type of work is of course what you guys do daily, you took on a new project specifically for the panel, which offered unique constraints and requirements. You guys took something of a chance, and that made a HUGE difference in the overall quality of the talk. Cameron Moll’s 8 minutes on typography was, for me, the single best moment of the conference: he talked about his thought process, his constraints, what made this problem special, and how he tried to solve it.

In general at SXSW, I felt like people basically rehashed whatever they write on their blogs. That kind of thing is really an insult to an audience who you should assume is in the room because your work is *already* familar to them. Repeating yourself is just…boring.

And Andrei was really a good moderator, another thing that was lacking in other panels. He can be a bit of a loudmouth on lists, but he made sure each of you guys presented for about the same amount of time, he prodded you guys with questions when necessary, he didn’t hog the floor when his own turn came, and he clearly had an idea about what the panel as a whole wanted to get across to the audience. If more moderators worried about those basic things, probably 50% of the other panels I saw would have been way better.

Posted on March 16, 2005 10:46 AM | #

6. Keith said:

Thanks guys.

Andrew – I’m glad you liked the panel, but I’m sorry that you didn’t get a whole lot out of the conference over all. I agree that many of the panels were boring and informative, but I did catch a few that I felt were worth it.

Also, it’s always been the hallway conversations and after hours events that do it for me. I learned a lot this year, made some great contacts and if I’d not seen one panel, all of that would have made it more than worth the effort for me.

Posted on March 16, 2005 11:24 AM | #

7. Britt said:

I also enjoyed the Design Eye panel as well as a few others, such as the Bluff your Way in CSS (because of the humor), Blogging while Black, and the Does Design Matter panel.

I do wish more panelists would work through problems or challenge the audience more. But for me, as Keith said, the real value was in the contacts I made outside the panels. Even if I had missed all the panels, it would have been worth going.

Plus I met Harry Dean Stanton.

Posted on March 16, 2005 01:43 PM | #

8. Andrew said:

Yes, meeting people is fun, but as Radiohead said, it’s easy. Maybe i’m getting old, but meeting more and more people, and making more and more contacts just isn’t that helpful for me. I was barely able to spend enough quality time with the people I did see at SXSW, and too much of that was just standing around at noisy parties. Sure, it’s great to talk to someone you’ve only emailed, and to shake their hand, or to tell them in person you like their work, but it’s hard to make those into meaningful connections.

Ah, you damn kids get offa my lawn.

Posted on March 16, 2005 01:49 PM | #

9. Garrett said:

I think it was great, and think I met pretty much everybody had long conversations with at least half of those people.

I think it’s like anything else, it is what you make of it. For instance, staying up until 6 am with certain individuals I’ll leave nameless was probably the most fun I had there.

Even if it’s not talking about industry stuff, meeting people for future discussions and online communication makes it so much better.

The panels were solid, but not amazing, it’s all the personalities that I have now put with the text that made it worthwhile for me.

Posted on March 16, 2005 03:11 PM | #

10. Britt said:

I suppose it depends upon how often one gets to go to conferences. This was my first time at SXSW and it was much better than most conferences I’ve attended.

Perhaps some half-day workshops on the Friday before the conference would be a helpful addition. I have found that I learn little at most panel presentations. It’s all stuff I can quickly get online.

I skipped the big, noisy parties and had dinner with one or two people instead. Meeting people isn’t easy for everyone and meeting people who share similar situations is even more difficult. I met several people who are in the same boat as me: lone web people for their companies.

While I agree with Andrew’s comments about some people rehashing what is already on their blogs (on a few panels), I would also like to know what you would like to come away with from a one-hour panel.

Posted on March 16, 2005 03:21 PM | #

11. geeky said:

as i said on my site, the design eye panel was one of my favorite at sxsw. it was just the right mix of entertainment and information. you guys did a great job!

Posted on March 17, 2005 08:10 AM | #