Learning Less Than Expected From Design Superheros

Last night was so much fun. So much fun that I missed my morning panel. The second panel, “Design Workflows at Work: How Top Designers Work Their Magic,” is a disappointment – especially since I really admire the work of the panelists and was really looking forward to hearing them speak.

The Panel description reads, “Have you ever wondered how the top designers work their magic? What is their workflow? What tools and techniques work best for them as they create compelling and inspiring designs. Find out the workflows that work best in today’s fast paced environments. Get tips and best practices as true ‘Design Superheroes’ share their craft.”

I felt like this was basically what you would get if you were sitting around in a bar with these guys listening to shoot the breeze with each other. Now, don’t get me wrong … I would love to do that … it’s just not what I’m hoping to experience at a panel.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 9:59 am and is filed under SxSW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Learning Less Than Expected From Design Superheros”

  • Paul Fresty Says:
    March 11th, 2007 at 11:34 am

    Mani,

    I agree. I was so close to falling asleep in there I can’t even say if I actually DIDN’T. It is quite possible.

    I mean, it was valid discussion, but like you said, this is bar talk. I got no usable information from the discussion. Not even a URL I could use (although to be fair they mentioned some and have some site with resources apparently).

    All I could think is, I am some combination of these people. Big deal. I guess I am normal then. OK. Lets talk color palettes now!

    Anyway, lost track of you last night. Possees (sp?) come and go right? I think that has really been the best part of this conference for me. The people. I have met some really cool ones. Some on purpose via stalking, and some purely accidently, like you. Everyone has been great and friendly and really interesting in their own ways. It has made for a great conference even if the panels are lame.

  • Frank Says:
    March 12th, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    The Design Workflows at Work: How Top Designers Work Their Magic panel sucked. Most walked out after fifteen minutes of hearing the “experts” talk about whether or not they listen to music while working?…WTF?

  • Jeff Croft Says:
    March 13th, 2007 at 3:58 pm

    Just dropping another apology to those who didn’t like it. I’m not sure what about the title “Design Workflows” made anything think we’d be talking about color palettes, but apparently the title left some confused about the topic.

    This was a discussion about *how* we work. Who, what, when, where, why, and how, actually. It wasn’t a discussion *about* our work. It was about our process, our task management, our inspirations, and our daily lives. That is to say, it was about our workflow. If the title and description wasn’t clear about that, I certainly apologize (I have no idea who wrote those things, for the record).

    The site, which was the main deliverable we created for this panel and the sum of all the research we did is at http://designworkflows.com. It was blown of as “some site” above, but it was *the* key thing that we did. You really can’t evaluate the panel without including the site in the evaluation, since the entire panel was based on what we learned from the 25+ designers we interviewed. I hope you’ll check it out.

    Thanks for coming, guys. Sorry we disappointed.