Ah, design conferences… they’re like going on a road-trip with someone you’ve never met. It could be amazing or you’re stuck in a nightmare all the way to Ft. Lauderdale (another nightmare). Luckily, This years’ Awwwwards Conference was a fun ride with some great guests, actual usable swag gifts, and nightly networking meet-ups in NYC 😉 Here are a few of the high points for me:
1. An Intro to Figma
For many I’m probably a little late to the game on this one but hey, better late than never. Multiple speakers mentioned that Figma is essential in their mutiteam design process. Described by one presenter “it’s like Sketch and Google Docs” had a baby. It bridges the gap between design and editing/iteration. Figma gives teams the ability to collaboratively design entire systems instantly and intuitively. Good stuff.
2. Pablo Stanley
A favorite speaker of mine at the event Pablo Stanley is an artist, turned illustrator, turned ux designer, which makes for a great presentation. With just the right amount of humor Mr.Stanley ran us through his UX process and gave us some insight about what he learned from building the InVision app – a popular prototyping tool.
3. Killer Swag
We can’t have a great design conference without some nice swag. I left NYC with some really great UX/UI resources online from user testing to iconography libraries. Also, so we’ll never forget what we learned throughout the week, we all got a printed booklet of speakers and notes. On top of the free stuff every day of the conference had new vendors presenting/advertising/recruiting all around the venue in-between sessions.
