Every Design School on the Planet Should Make ‘HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions’ a Required Textbook.
— Jon Tan

Reading this book felt like I was at the web design school I never had the chance to attend. It’s truly a course in a book: it explains the basics that every web designer should know.
— Yaili

More than just another book: it’s a textbook. Each chapter builds appropriately on the previous and each chapter ends with an exercise for the reader. The exercise enforces what has been learned up to that point and sets the stage for the chapter to come.
— Jonathan Snook

About the Authors

In addition to their role as lecturers in interactive design at the University of Ulster at Belfast, where they have been active in promoting a web standards-based curriculum, Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson are practicing designers and digital artists. Their work has featured in a variety of design books and magazines alongside numerous internationally respected designers and they are regular speakers at design conferences and workshops worldwide.

The What

3 copies will be divvied up among the participants and winners will be notified on August 23rd 2010.

The How

Fairly simple: follow @fuelcreativity as well as @standardistas and tell us something you love about design on the web. It could be your favorite site, the coolest thing you’ve ever seen, the best site you’ve ever designed or a just a reason why you think web design is awesome. There is no wrong answer as long as it pertains to web design.

Need more Standardistas?

Follow them on twitter

Dig through their site

Buy the book on Amazon

Winners

Elizabeth Bartoccini @ebartoccini

Rowell Cruz @rowjie

Robin Doty @dakotadesigner

Contact me at chad(at)fuelyourcreativity.com to get things set up for shipping & receiving prizes!

Sponsored by

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Fuel Brand Network 2010 cc (creative commons license)

Web Standardistas Book Giveaway **Updated With Winners**

The Details

Now, we know we said this is a One Day event but, there’s stuff going on over several days that can gain you some awesome one on one time with the presenters as well as other designers which, as we know is awesome.

The Conference:

July 23rd

9:30 a.m.-5:00p.m.

Registration and continental breakfast begin at 8:30 a.m.

Hilton Bayfront
333 1st Street South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701

$99 Hotel Special

Google Map

After-Party

6:00 – ?
After-Party

We’re working out where we’ll be getting together for some drinks and converstation.

Ignite Session and Meet-up

July 24th

11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

This will be bonus time for attendees to get together, meetup and share an Ignite presentation if they’d like. Maybe we’ll find some speakers for next year…

Studio 620
620 1st Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL‎ 33701

Studio 620’s Site

Google Map

Photo Walk

July 25th

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

This will be open to anyone that wants to grab their camera and wander around downtown St. Petersburg. We’ll have some sort of contest and prize, too.

Hilton Bayfront
We’ll walk the downtown area, but begin and end at the hotel.

The Presentors

This might possibly be one of the most elite all female line-ups to ever grace the design stage together. This is surely going to be an informative “amazing-fest.”

Personal Site: LarissaMeek.com

Follow Larissa on Twitter: @larissameek

Personal Site: Owltastic

Follow Meagan on Twitter: @meaganfisher

Personal Site: XOX

Follow Lea on Twitter: @lealea

Personal Blog: The Design O’Blog

Follow Niki on Twitter: @nikibrown

Personal Site: Sushi & Robots

Follow Jina on Twitter: @jina

Personal Site: AdelleCharles.com

Follow Adelle on Twitter: @adellecharles

Personal Site: Sazzy.co.uk

Follow Sarah on Twitter: @sazzy

Connect with Front End Conference

Blog: blog.frontenddesignconference.com

On Twitter: @frontendconf

On Facebook: FrontEndDesign

On Flickr: View Pictures

Sponsored by

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Front End Design Conference – The All Female Line-up

Proposed Q&A site for professional graphic designers and non-designers trying to do their own graphic design (e.g. programmers creating icons/logos for their applications)

It’s had a good amount of proposed questions like: What is kerning?, Does this design look good?, Is it still important to use so called web safe colors anymore? etc. This would be a very good added resource to the design community. It’s also a place where knowledge and helpful instruction and learning could come from. Fuel Brand Network has become an official supporter in the cause for better more relevant content throughout the design world. If you are interested in this site hop over to Area 51 and sign up, commit to the project and help the design world have another great resource.

Sponsored by

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A new Q & A Graphic Design site proposed from Stack Exchange

To enter, submit a design for a desktop background that is big enough to cover the wide field of view that Eyefinity provides: spanning from, at a minimum, 5760×1080 up to 7680×3200 pixels. Three winners will be chosen—one by popular vote, one by AMD, and one by Icrontic editorial staff.

Entries can be renders, photography, or original artwork—anything that takes advantage of the enormous resolution made possible by Eyefinity—but must include the Eyefinity logo somewhere in the design.

Rules are as follows:

* Artwork must be your own design—no using any copyrighted artwork!

* Artwork must include the Eyefinity logo (provided here)

* By submitting your artwork you give express consent to PowerColor, AMD and Icrontic to use your artwork.

* The deadline for entries will be 11:59 P.M EST. June 20th, 2010

* The winners will be announced on June 23rd, 2010

* The contest is open to all countries, and AMD will pay shipping, but taxes and tariffs for import (if your country levies them) is the winner’s responsibility.

Prizes are:

Popular vote winner: PowerColor Eyefinity edition 5770

AMD-chosen winner: PowerColor Eyefinity edition 5670

Icrontic staff-chosen winner: PowerColor Eyefinity edition 5670

To enter, one must have an Icrontic forum account, and your profile must be filled in with an accurate email address, since we will notify winners via email. Submit your entries to the comments, and best of luck!

Checkout the full rules and where to submit over at Irontic.

Sponsored by

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AMD + Your Design = Powercolor Video Card

What’s this conference all about? In their own words:

New Riders’ Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference, now in its fourth consecutive year, will take place June 28-29 in San Francisco and the timing couldn’t be better! Web design is undergoing an historic transformation: while the basics of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript haven’t changed, the new and evolving functionality in the HTML5 and CSS3 specs, the number of new ways in which people access the Web, and the rise of social media mean that Web designers need to know more than ever.

Don’t miss this opportunity to meet face-to-face with industry greats and discuss Web design’s most critical topics! We’ll open with a keynote address from Jesse James Garrett, author of The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and close with a keynote address delivered by Steve Krug, author of the well known book Don’t Make Me Think and the brand new book Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems. From start to finish this conference will blow you away.

How to Enter

Enter to win a free pass (a $595 value) to the conference:

• Visit this post on Fuel Your Coding and just leave a comment (just say anything you like!) and we’ll pick one lucky commenter at random this Friday, May 14th!

Bonus: Special Savings

All FUEL readers can save $150 off the conference fee by providing priority code WBNBLGA when registering. Register before May 14th and save $250 as this $100 discount is combined with the early bird pricing!

Sponsored by

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Giveaway: Voices That Matter Web Design Conference Pass

The best part is that we are giving away entries to both events! By commenting on this post, you will have the chance at winning your choice of 1 LessConf ticket or 1 of 3 Front-End Design Conference tickets! There is a catch, though: We want to know why you attend events like these.

So, check out the information on each conference and leave a comment using the guidelines at the bottom of the post. We will draw the winners on Friday, May 7th.

LessConf 3010

May 21st-May 22nd, Atlanta, GA - www.lessconf.com

LessConf is a conference with talks ranging from startups to design tomarketing to business. It’s a casual two-day event in Atlanta Georgia with awesome speakers to inspire you. It’s for people creating “things”, communities, followings, businesses offline & online.

Do you LOVE design, user experience, marketing, entrepreneurship or social media? Then you should attend this conference! The awesomeness includes amazing speakers like Jason Fried, Cameron Moll, Saul Colt, David Heinemeier Hansson and bacon filled pancakes for breakfast, don’t forget the bacon filled pancakes!
- @lessallan

You can follow the event at @lessconf or Register Now while there are still seats available.

Front-End Design Conference

July 23rd, St. Petersburg, FL - www.frontendconf.com

Front-End is a single-day web design conference focused on content, presentation and behavior.

Front-End Conf was created for anyone interested in front-end design to spend a day learning and hanging out with a bunch of like-minded peeps. The topics are intended to cover as much of the spectrum of front-end design that we can squeeze into a single day.

FUEL has supported this event from its beginning and attendees will actually get to see FUEL’s co-founder, Adelle Charles, speak this year!

You can follow the event at @frontendconf or Register Now!

How to Win

Comment below with:

• Which conference you would like to attend
• Why you attend conferences
• Your Twitter Name (Optional, of course)

We will draw the winners on Friday, May 7th. Good luck!

We used random.org and put the names and requests into a list. Thank you to @kragit for tweeting back the random number of 6, which we used to randomize the list 6 times.

So, here are the winners:

LessConf: Brian McDaniel
Front-End Design Conference: Jeff Bridgforth, Estelle and Natalia

Sponsored by

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**Updated with Winners** LessConf and Front-End Conf: Business and Design Events

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ideas are worthless if you can’t make them happen.

Many of us believe that great ideas inevitably lead to success. Nothing could be further from the truth. Whether it is the perfect solution for an everyday problem or a bold new concept for a creative masterpiece, you must transform vision into reality for an idea to have value.

This book chronicles the methods of exceptionally productive creative leaders and teams – companies like Google, IDEO, and Disney, and individuals like author Chris Anderson and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh – that make their ideas happen, time and time again.

Making Ideas Happen will change the way you work:

Overcome “reactionary workflow” and start pushing ideas forward.

You can easily spend your entire day just responding to incoming communications – email, texts, voicemails, tweets, etc – while never finding time to push the big, meaningful ideas forward. Learn proven methods for organizing with a bias-toward-action, prioritizing amidst a creative process, and pushing bold projects to completion.

Let go of the myth of the lonely creative genius.

Understanding how to leverage your community for feedback, resources, and exposure is crucial to gaining traction with your ideas. Discover the advantages of broadcasting your ideas early, seeking out competition, tapping into the power of “Circles,” and overcoming the stigma of self-marketing.

Push through the “project plateau”… and finish!

Most ideas get lost in that dreaded period of execution where your natural creative tendencies turn against you. Acquire methods for thriving when long-term vision is not enough. You will learn how to short-circuit the traditional rewards system, fight your way to breakthroughs, and gain strength from the doubts you will face along the way.

If you are interested in picking up the book or ordering it online, check out this link.

Sponsored by

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Fuel Brand Network 2010 cc (creative commons license)

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

Now in its 9th year, FITC Toronto is one of the largest and longest running events of its kind in the world. With some of the most unique and engaging presenters from around the globe, FITC Toronto is an information blitz of presentations, demonstrations, and panel discussions, sandwiched between our legendary FITC parties and abundant networking opportunities. Topped off with the FITC Award Show, it’s three days and nights that will leave you inspired, energized and awed.

Here’s the skinny

• April 25-27, 2010 Toronto, ON Canada
• Three full days and nights of events, plus one day of optional pre-festival workshops
• Over 70 presentations and panels covering the Creative, Technical, and Business aspects of Flash and digital media
• Over 1000 attendees from around the globe
• Over 70 internationally renowned design and technology presenters
• Includes the annual FITC Awards Show
• Includes four FITC evening events
• Includes the ‘FITC Get a Job’ event on Saturday, April 24, a free-to-attend job fair for the Interactive industry

Ticket Information

If you would like to purchase tickets, enter coupon code “fuel” for a 10% discount.

FUEL is an official sponsor of the event.

Will you be there?

We will. Let us know!

Sponsored by

Advertise on Fuel Brand Network.
Fuel Brand Network 2010 cc (creative commons license)

FITC Toronto 2010: Design & Technology Festival

The competition will award over 40 winners.  The first place winner will be awarded $20,000, one Wacom Intuos4 medium tablet, and Autodesk industrial design software.  The second place winner will be awarded $10,000 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro software, and the third place winner will be awarded $5,000 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro software.  To reward as many people as possible in the name of creativity, LG will also be giving out a whopping 37 honorable mentions at $1,000 each.

This year’s competition marks the inaugural participation of Russell Bobbitt, a world renowned movie prop master.  Bobbitt has worked on a variety of visually stunning films such as Star Trek, Iron Man and Iron Man 2™.  He recently received the prestigious “Behind the Camera” prop master award for his work on the first Iron Man film.  Bobbitt will serve as a guest judge to reward one contestant’s cutting-edge design with the Prop Master’s Choice award.  The contestant’s design will then be created into a non-working mock-up that could wind up in Bobbitt’s next blockbuster film.  The Prop Master’s Choice winner will also receive $3,000 plus Autodesk SketchBook Pro software.

“We’re very excited about this competition because it gives consumers and design enthusiasts all a chance to exercise their creative imaginations and have their ideas be heard,” said Ehtisham Rabbani, vice president of marketing and innovation for LG Mobile Phones.  “You don’t have to work for LG to make an impact on the future of mobile phones.”

Autodesk will supply participants with a free 15-day trial of HYPERLINK SketchBook Pro, a paint and drawing application for use on the Mac or PC.  It offers an intuitive, streamlined user interface so even new users can be productive within minutes. The 15-day trial will give all competitors access to industry-leading professional design software and levels the playing field for professional and amateur designers alike to create the phone of their dreams.

“We’re thrilled to partner with LG and Autodesk on this innovative design challenge. The challenge represents the real power of crowdsourcing – by allowing anyone to have the opportunity to design the next generation mobile phone for a global leader,” said Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING.  With a pool of over 55,000 designers and writers in more than 170 countries, crowdSPRING is one of the world’s largest creative communities and is an open platform where anyone can post projects or submit entries. Both seasoned and aspiring designers can submit their entries until April 26^th at http://www.crowdspring.com/LG

Competition Details:

Eligibility: Any U.S. resident (citizen or green card holder) that is 18 years (or age of majority in state of residence) and older

Start and End Dates: The competition begins on March 15, 2010, at 12 a.m. PST and ends on April 26, 2010, at 9:00 a.m. PST

Winners will be announced on May 14, 2010 at http://www.crowdspring.com/LG/winners

Prizes:

First Place:

$20,000 Cash Award + 1 Wacom Intuos4 medium tablet (ARV of $349) + Autodesk industrial design software (ARV of $500)

Second Place:

$10,000 Cash Award + Autodesk SketchBook Pro software (ARV of $100)

Third Place:

$5,000 Cash Award + Autodesk SketchBook Pro software (ARV of $100)

Prop Master’s Choice:

$3,000 Cash Award + Autodesk SketchBook Pro software (ARV of $100) + 1 non-working concept mock-up creation (ARV of $4,000)

37 Honorable Mentions:

$1,000 Cash Award

Official rules can be found at http://www.crowdspring.com/LG NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.  A PURCHASE WILL NOT INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED.

Sponsored by

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LG presents: Design the Future Competition

Cleveland’s progressive design firm, Go Media, is pleased to announce the first annual Weapons of Mass Creation Festival. On May 22 and 23 this two-day art, film, and music event will highlight work from both local and national talent, a celebration of creative visionaries who defy the hand they’re dealt. Much akin to Austin’s popular South By Southwest, this festival will host film screenings, musical performances, art and design showings, and various panel discussions at the Go Media Headquarters, a three-story warehouse located in Ohio City.

Co-owner of Go Media, Jeff Finley, dreamt WMC Fest into existence after a sleepless night wondering why none of the popular festivals seemed to be held in his hometown. Tired of Cleveland’s reputation as a miserable city, he put his head together with like- minded community members and decided to form an event that would not only gather the artistic community of Northeast Ohio, but the nation. By dipping into his vast network created over the years as an acclaimed designer, Jeff managed to collect an inspiring and diverse group to display their work in May.

Five filmmakers are set to screen their projects as well as participate in question and answer sessions. Among them are Lena Dunham of Tribeca, New York, the fresh-faced writer and director behind ‘Tiny Furniture’, a film that was honored by the Jury Award for Narrative Feature after its premiere at the South By Southwest Festival earlier this month. Of the nine independent folk and punk bands set to take the newly constructed stage, four are native to Northeast Ohio. David Dondero, an Omaha folk singer who is listed as an influence for national acts such as Conor Oberst, will not only perform but record a live music video being filmed during festival hours on Sunday. Strategist, Designer, and Entrepreneur Dave Gensler, well known for his founding of the creative network, the KDU, will deliver the keynote address.

Like most independently run events, Weapons of Mass Creation Fest needs the help of the Cleveland community in order to guarantee its success. Fest organizers are looking for volunteers to help out and local businesses willing to sponsor. Finley is running a fundraiser on the popular crowd sourcing site, Kickstarter, trading giveaways and benefits for funding. None of the funds raised so far will be taken unless the $2,500 goal is reached by April 15. Other fundraising efforts include a limited edition poster currently on sale at Imagekind.com, as well as a mixer being held at a to be determined local establishment in upcoming weeks.

Tickets

Tickets for Weapons of Mass Creation Fest can be purchased online, single-day passes are available individually for $15 or a full weekend pass can be purchased for $25.

Notables

Check out the site: WMCFest.com

Fan them on Facebook

Follow Them on Twitter

Grab the Press Info

Make  a pledge on KickStarter

Sponsored by

Advertise on Fuel Brand Network.
Fuel Brand Network 2010 cc (creative commons license)

Weapons Of Mass Creation Festival

Use SlideDeck For:

• Product Tours
• Service Descriptions
• Explaining Complex Processes
• How-To Tutorials
• Feature Rich Slide Shows
• Landing Pages

SlideDeck is currently available as a customizable JavaScript Library. It takes only minutes to add to your website and is available as a plugin for jQuery 1.3+. See the usage documentation for more information.

Demo

SlideDeck has setup a sleek demo site for Basecamp. It shows you exactly how you could utilize their product. This could be super effective for employee training, new app training etc. The possibilities are indeed endless.

It’s very easy to identify and navigate through a SlideDeck presentation because of the tabs on the left and the windows that switch on the right. It’s an effortless tutorial, that puts the user in control of the speed they view it and whether they can come back to it or not.

More About SlideDeck

SlideDeck was created by a user experience design company, digital-telepathy. Digital-Telepathy stumbled into the concept when trying to simplify their own message and process. D-T uses SlideDeck to share ideas, processes and products in a clear and simple way.

Social

Twitter: Follow them

Facebook: Become a fan

The Giveaway:

How to Enter

• Follow @slidedeck on twitter
• Comment with what you would use it for.

The Details

• There will be 4 competition winners
• Contest will end this Friday at 11:59p EST.
• Winners will be announced on or before Monday

Winners

1. Zack C.
2. Juarez Filho
3. Jesse Anderson
4. Rob Simpson

Sponsored by

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Fuel Brand Network 2010 cc (creative commons license)

4 SlideDeck Pro Licenses up for grabs, comment to win. **Updated with winners**

Brandstack, the creative marketplace for logos has an unveiled another way to market logo designs to the masses. Upstack. Upstack is a unique route for a person needing a logo, website, web design, advertisement or other creative service. Unlike the predecessor Brandstack, Upstack lets anyone build a team of hand-picked designers that are ready to burn the midnight oil to work on your project. Upstack manages all the processes by taking the client from the brief to the final design. This wastes no design time and spares no quality. They also do this without spec work which makes it something that isn’t frowned upon in the design world.

Brandstack is different from other crowd sourcing sites because the logos they market are from designs that didn’t sell in their agency ventures. Meaning, ideally a designer would make a client three logos and the two the client didn’t pick; he or she would fine tune and put on Brandstack to sell.

Wes Wilson, Brandstacks CEO says that the beauty of Upstack is that their designers are all at the top of their game in the respected industries: web design, print, advertisement, illustration & logo design. He also goes on to mention the best part about Upstack is: “Joining Upstack is joining the right against spec. Working on Upstack prokects, you will be paid upfront for your time & effort. Happy designers and happy clients. Happy happy joy joy.”

Some well known competitors, Crowdspring and 99 Designs also offer logos & identities at similar price. Their pay structure is different, paying the designer based on the work that is chosen. A client can ask for a logo and receive 50 or so logos that have been executed. The client then picks the winner and that determines who gets paid.

Brandstack

Company: Brandstack

Twitter: @Brandstack

Founded: April 2008

Sponsored by

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Brandstack gets a new sibling. Introducing: Upstack

Gavin Elliott is the creative mind behind DIBI conference. What exactly is this magical DIBI conference? We will get to that in a minute along with a promo code for the conference and a wicked competition to win a free ticket. But, first we are going behind the scenes with Gavin Elliott- you can also follow him on twitter.

The Skinny on Gavin

Gavin has some notable facts to bring him into the role that he is in today. He worked as a civil servant, a soldier in the Royal Corps of Engineers & ran his own business.

He now works at Codeworks as the Marketing & Creative Executive where he primarily works on looking after the Thinking Digital Conference and other projects within Codeworks.

What is your typical daily routine?

Typical doesn’t happen for me that often. Every day is usually different. I’ll generally get up at approximately 6.30am get things sorted and make myself a coffee (Starbucks ground coffee FTW) for the trip into the office. I’ll arrive around 7:40am and look over Twitter, I still don’t use an RSS feed and Twitter seems to work well for me. I like to get my emails sorted as soon as I sit down, so the music goes on and before 9am and I can usually have all of my replies done. I’ll check my diary to see if I have any meetings but my work pretty much is around the creative and ‘social’ side of Thinking Digital, DIBI then working with the other teams within Codeworks. I get up to alsorts whether it’s designing or writing. I’m pretty much busy all day. Head back home approximately 5pm before getting in to other projects or more writing. I love what I do so I probably seem like a workaholic.

What are the three things you could not live without?

1. My macbook and macbook pro (we’ll count those as one)

2. Basecamp (For managing my daily life and all the project I’m involved with).

3. My notebook where I draw or make notes. (I carry this pretty much everywhere these days.)

Do you find time to devote to all of your creative endeavors?

I do, I often think of ideas on the fly and quickly have to tell someone. I’ve set up various blogs over the years but am starting to tailor these back. I write quite often about design on my personal blog and have just had an article published in .net (Practical Web Design in the US). I enjoy writing and joining the Project 52 I’ll be publishing a specific post every week. Working out the time between design and writing can be somewhat cumbersome. I’ll be working on a small personal project over the next few months which the design community can use which I’m definitely looking forward to getting started on.

What do you think we will see in the design community in 2010?

I’m hoping there will be a lot more collaboration between designers. I think we’re now finally starting to see the community coming together and learning from each other. In past years there have been a select few who’ve been fortunate to build strong bonds with others but now with all of the social apps we’re seeing more communication with the community as a whole. I would say that the financial climate doesn’t seem to have hit the design/development community so bad over the past year or so however a lot of companies and freelancers have upped their game to hone their skills and decide what is exactly for them and then price themselves accordingly for being a professional in that particular field. 2010 could bring some very specialised designers in to the public spotlight. On top of that we’ll definitely see a surge in mobile design.

What drove DIBI conference to become a reality instead of just a dream in someones head?

We have a lot of web conferences in the UK including the likes of dConstruct, FOWA, FOWD, UX London and Build. Generally though, the conferences never reach further than Leeds/Manchester. Build took place in Northern Ireland last year so when you look at it, conferences have never been taken further North to the likes of Newcastle upon Tyne/Gateshead where DIBI will be taking place. We have a vibrant web community in the North East of England and it is an ideal place for people to travel to. With an international airport, train and ferry links it is an ideal location.

DIBI has a unique cast of characters speaking. Most of which are very prevalent in the web design community, how is it important to make sure you get people to present who are on top of their game?

We thought long and hard about what we wanted to achieve with the conference. It’s highly prevalent that you must reach out to speakers which are either doing something new or leading various areas of the industry to new places. It’s all well and good saying that you want to set a conference up but when looking at the finer details you want to create longevity and a good sense of hype and communication with the people who will be attending. Codeworks have a long standing commitment with the digital agencies in the North East of England and regularly hold ‘Think and a Drink’ evening events on a monthly basis.

What are you trying to make your audience aware of? Is it more of a conference where you talk about current trends and happenings or something that will educate them as a whole?

Definitely education. Whilst we’re expecting lots of attendees who are on top of their game, there is always the opportunity for people to learn more. Making sure that the topics are correct for the audience is paramount, attendees expect something different which is what we’re hoping to achieve with DIBI.

Will the success of DIBI determine the if the conference will be around next year or do you already have ideas of doing another?

Codeworks have had major success with other conferences such as Thinking Digital and GameHorizon and we’ll be looking to achieve the same with DIBI. Definitely look out for DIBI being around again next year.

How does DIBI set itself apart from other conferences? It seems the age of the speakers at DIBI is less than others. What else?

DIBI is one of the first two-track web conferences that we know of. The tickets are limited to 350 and we’re hoping for an equal amount of designers and developers attending. They will then form the DIBI 350, a unique set of professionals taking part in the first North East of England Web Conference. It’s unusual to bring both designers and developers together at the same time, we hope that whilst they’re in the same place as each other, relationships can be made and collaborations can happen. With regards to the speakers, we looked around to see who was available so that we could provide a good amount of variation from other conferences. The DIBI Conference itself will be running from 9am till approx 5pm then we’ll be moving on to a Think and a Drink/After Party in Newcastle upon Tyne.

THE GIVEAWAY

Here’s where you get a chance to win a free ticket to DIBI! Now, all you need to do is put the most creative reason why you want to go to DIBI (and a valid email in the comment box) and we will handle the rest. Do you want to go to learn? Network? See long lost friends? Tell us and you have a chance to get a free ticket!

Need More DIBI?

Site: dibiconference.com

Twitter: twitter.com/dibiconf

Discount for being a reader: Promo Code: “DIBI_hohoho”

*Winner Update**

This is quite possibly the hardest choice I have ever had to make on who wins based on a comment. There were so many good ones to pick from that I couldn’t make up my mind. So, I went to a proven system to help me pick. “The hat method”. I printed everyones name out, put it in a hat and stirred them all around. The winner came out to be Paddy Donnelly.

Thank you all for entering and I hope you all get to go to the DIBI Conference!

Thank you all for participating

Sponsored by

Advertise on Fuel Brand Network.
Fuel Brand Network 2010 cc (creative commons license)

**Updated w/ winner** The Creative Mind Behind the DIBI Conference

It’s the time of the year where we all close up shop, join in some holiday festivities and visit with family. (Hopefully not too much visiting) We over at FYC wanted to extend our warm holiday wishes to you and yours & a great break. We also want to thank you for being loyal readers of FYA & other FUEL brand sites.

Speaking of FUEL brand sites, recently we launched a network wide Best Of post which you should hop over and check out. This awesome Best Of site design is from the mind of Adelle Charles and the coding skills of Doug Neiner & Dan Denney. If you like it you should let them know.

In order to get in the holiday cheer I have compiled some entertaining holiday sites, giveaways & others that you can peruse at you leisure over your wonderful holiday break.

Knit Your Own Sweater Interactive Style

A nice interactive site where you can knit your own sweater and then print/email it to friends.

We Love – Eating Pies to raise money for Make a Wish

You get to make a dedicated employee eat pie, how awesome?

Ramp Champ – Holiday In Game App (iPhone)

The beautiful UI of Ramp Champ releases a free in app Christmas game. What could be better?

MacStories Apps Tree: 540 Licenses of Mac and iPhone Apps Up for Grabs Worth $10,000+!

540 Mac & iPhone Apps that are up for grabs all you have to do is enter.

What to Get for That Nerdy, Design-Savvy, Coffee-Loving, Snowboarding, Person in Your Life

Stuck on what to get your geek for Xmas? Check this out it will help for the last minute gifts.

Basic Candy Cane Text Effect in Photoshop

Get your photoshop on with some sweet Candy Cane Typography from Tutorial 9.

Beautiful Christmas Wallpapers For 2009

Xmas up your computer & get yourself into the holiday mood.

Free Christmas and New Year’s Eve WordPress Theme

A very clean Christmas Wordpress Theme.

Your Plans?

How do you plan to spend the “holidays” ? Eating, Cooking, Working, Partying, Sleeping? What cool gifts did you put on your list? Some cool Mac hardware or a big Monitor? Let us know in the comments and maybe you won’t get a big lump of coal.

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Happy Holidays from FYC

Inspiration

Carsonified.com Redesign

On the July 9th 2009 we launched a complete redesign of Carsonified and the Think Vitamin blog. I thought it’d be fun to tell you the story of how the new site design evolved and came to life. It was an interesting journey. Read the rest of the re-design here.

The Death of the Boring Blog Post?

Barring the text and images, each one generally has the exact same layout. We see little originality from one post to the next. Of course, consistency and branding are extremely important to consider when designing a website or blog, but what about individuality? Does a blog post about kittens deserve the same layout as one about CSS hacks?

Twitter.com Redesign

The most significant change you’ll notice on the logged-in homepage (/home) is that we’ve moved the tabs that were on the top of the timeline to the right sidebar. We did this for a couple reasons. Read the full re-design here.

Envato Redesign

Our marketplaces were looking a bit tired in the visual department. After all, these are sites by a company whose middle name is ‘web design’! So we set about reinventing the wheel with a whole new look, starting from the top with new logos. The illustrations were updated by the super talented Kai Loon and we are usung the wonderful open source font MgOpen Modata…

Abduzeedo Gets a Facelift

After almost a year, we have a new design! As web designers we’re always thinking about what to change in order to make the site more friendly for those who are looking for inspiration and tutorials.

Suggested Redesign Case Studies

Redesigning Craigslist With Focus On Usability

At the time this article was written, Craigslist was ranked as the 28th most-visited English-language website in the world by Alexa. Despite the fact that Craigslist receives such a huge amount of traffic each month, it is also criticized for its design, which seems to be at least 10 years out-of-date.

Dear AmericanAirlines

Treat this as a serious emergency across your entire company. Your shortfalls in customer experience do not stop at the website. Your company is losing money every day because customers hate the way you treat them. And it appears that you are doing nothing to fix this.

Facebook Facelift

The Facebook Facelift is a self initiated project to challenge the form and functionality of Facebook. It’s streamlined, structured and linear interface is more comprehendible, enhancing the user experience and absorbability of content.

Trends

Letterpress Type

Orman Clark

MetaLab

Cellar App

Big Eye-Catching Typography

Made by Giant

Pallian Creative

Huge Inc.

Erskine Design

Four24

iPhone App Site Design

June Cloud

Tapbots

Typography Manual

Tweetie for iPhone

Tap Tap Tap

LittleSnapper for iPhone

Ramp Champ

Ego App

Interviews

The Way I Work: Jason Fried of 37Signals

Jason Fried hates lame meetings, tech companies that don’t generate revenue, and companies that treat their employees like children. A peek inside his typical workday.

Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners

Jim Coudal is a truly inspiring character. His company decided to shift from the standard model of selling their creative services to clients, to a model of creating products which they own and have full control over. And they’ve been very successful at it. Coudal Partners is proof that you can indeed create your own reality.

Luminous Art of Chuck Anderson

I think different people are born with all different kinds of strengths, obviously. As for artists, I think many people are probably born into a family of creative thinking people, therefore they grow up in a setting that encourages that kind of passion and creativity.

WANT MORE?

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Best of 2009 in the Creative Industry