Creative Mornings NYC

11th November 2012

Last month I was thrilled to speak at the Creative Mornings Benefit in Brooklyn, alongside Jason Santa Maria. By way of record, I’ve pulled together videos of both talks plus my slides and a few thoughts in this quick post.

What is Creative Mornings?

Creative Mornings is a breakfast lecture series for creative people currently happening in over thirty cities worldwide. Each monthly event is free of charge and includes a 20 minute talk, plus coffee. However, on Tuesday 9th October 2012 there was a special one-off paid benefit for everyone who backed the recently successful Kickstarter campaign.

Short, sharp and very honest

My own talk was a short, sharp and very honest fifteen minutes about being a web designer, managing the weight of learning and noise, turning that noise into signals, communicating with our cousins in print, and more besides. I might have lost a handful of friends with this one, but hopefully I’ll gain a few more.

You won’t really need my slides to enjoy the talk. I opted for a new method, a sort of Subterranean Homesick Blues approach using only selected words to emphasise key points. This was a timesaver for sure, but the idea was to give the talk a simplified visual identity which I hope worked to support the raw messages at the venue. Anyway, here are the sides and video.

Just say “No”

Next up was Jason. We’re friends and have shared the stage a few times, but for many years I was a secret JSM fanboy. I still am a fanboy, but try to pretend otherwise. He’s always been my number one web design hero, and few speak so eloquently about the uniqueness of web as a medium. At the benefit he spoke brilliantly about simply saying No. Here’s the video.

If you’d prefer direct links, my slides are here (Speakerdeck), my video is here (Vimeo) and Jason’s video is here (Vimeo).

Thank you

I’d like to say a huge thank you to Tina, everyone at Creative Mornings, and all those who backed the Kickstarter campaign. Thoughts also for our friend Frank Chimero who had to pull out of speaking for personal reasons. On the day both Jason and I quoted Frank in our talks, so he was most certainly with us in spirit.

Sandy and Galapagos

Finally, the brutal storm surges of Hurricane Sandy devastated much of Brooklyn’s DUMBO, including Galapagos Art Space, the venue for Creative Mornings. So, if you are able please consider supporting Galapagos Art Space. They need all the help they can get to restore the beautiful venue to it’s original glory.