Workshops

Respect the tool by keeping it sharp.

Absurdity, Tangents, and Stray Thoughts

Ham in the Fridge
Bret Hummel & Keith Williams
Explore why you should always let your mind wander in meetings, how absurdity and side conversations can lead to great things, and what Ham has created out of some of their many stray thoughts.

Adobe Workshop (Closing Session Only)

Adobe Systems
Adobe Certified Instructor Keith Gilbert, Gilbert Consulting
Learn how you can design HTML websites and publications for the iPad without writing code. With Adobe’s new technology, codename Muse, it’s as easy as designing for print.

Characters in Motion

Splice
Chris Averbeck & Brian Olson
As a designer, you want to love all of your projects and clients, but that doesn’t always happen. Explore ways to do your most interesting work with the most challenging jobs.

Creative Computing

The Foundation
Blake Pierce
Learn how you can make your technology safer, more productive, and more profitable. With a little know-how and minimal effort, you can protect yourself and your data from common computer issues, expand your capabilities at a moment’s notice, and make more money.

Demystifying WordPress

Mykl Roventine
Aaron Smith
Pick up tips, tricks, and techniques that illuminate how WordPress can become a viable opportunity for you to provide professional web design and maintenance services to your clients. Explore free and premium themes, plugins, and other resources that are available to help jump-start your next project. You’ll also learn step-by-step instructions to customize themes with ease.

Destroy Convention. Create Demand.

Space150
Dustin Joyce & Jason Strong
In today’s branding world, creating experiences is essential. Learn the value of working storytelling and character into design, identifying personality, and fighting for that personality.

Make Your Own Letterpress Calendar

Spark
Valerie Carlson & Jim Watne
Use printing plates, ink, and brayers to create a calendar that represents who you are as a designer. During the workshop, you’ll explore the ins and outs of letterpress printing, specialty papers, and finishing methods.

Minding and Managing Your Brand Online

The Geek Girls Guide
Nancy Lyons & Meghan Wilker
When thinking about professional development and personal branding, it’s hard to ignore the impact of social media. How do you make use of the tactics of social media in a strategic way? How do you make the right connections to support your business and brand? This session is designed to illuminate the social media landscape in a way that’s accessible, strategic, fun, and—most importantly—actionable. Laptops are encouraged in this hands-on working session.

Networking Workshop
Kissing Toads: Networking for the Hopelessly Shy
and Incurably Introverted (Opening Session Only)

YYES
Brent Stickels
Meeting people is easy. Join Brent Stickels for a workshop on ingratiating yourself to prospective clients and employers without browning your nose.

Professional Practice Series

Shel Perkins

Smart Pricing for Creative Services (Session One Only)
The prices that you charge your clients must be competitive, and they must produce an acceptable profit for your studio. From freelance rates to fixed-fee proposals, this discussion of the pricing process will help you sharpen the way you think about compensation and become more profitable.

Understanding Copyright and Trademark Essentials (Session Two Only)
We strive to produce work of significant value, and we negotiate with clients for its use and ownership. However, most designers don’t know nearly enough about copyrights and trademarks. This can lead to problems and significant legal liabilities. This workshop will help you understand the rights involved and avoid some common mistakes.

Negotiating Fair Contracts (Session Three Only)
A good written agreement between you and your client will protect the interests of both parties, prevent confusion, and help you avoid costly disputes. So what exactly should be in the document? In this workshop, learn the most important dos and don’ts of contracts, and take a look at the latest revisions to the AIGA Standard Form of Agreement for Design Services, which now has a module for motion design.

Print Designer to User-Experience Pro—Three Easy Pieces

Microsoft Corporation
Sara Summers, UX Evangelist
Get hands-on with real, user experience and web design problems, building prototypes, creating your own research, and testing on users. By applying your already savvy print principles—effective white space, color theory, and eye flow—you’ll discover the keys to responsive, fluid, joyful user-experience design practices.

Responsive and Mobile Design

Grandpa-George Design and Interactive
Douglas Brull, Matthew Luken & Brad Olson
Users now expect a design that works and is intuitive for both an iPhone and a 30-inch monitor—and everywhere in between. Through responsive-design and mobile-design websites, you’ll discover how design can work well for different users regardless of the technology they are using.

Social Media: Building and Protecting Your Brand

Fredrikson & Byron, P.A.
John Pickerill
With the explosion of social networking, creative professionals are quickly learning the risks and rewards of sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. John Pickerill, an attorney who specializes in advertising and design legal issues, will help you navigate the associated legal pitfalls and possibilities, including copyright, trademark, privacy, and contractual issues related to social media. Learn how to protect yourself, your business, and your work from the online free-for-all of social networking.