This month's Design Interest was jam-packed with four talks ranging from eyescanning apps to design manifestos. They were:

Designing Catalogues: Understanding the Chaos
Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson talked about the Herculean task of desiging several hundred pages worth of bathroom catalogues, and some of the trials and tribulations (dont' cut corners when it comes to printers, his company did and ended up with boxes of catalogues with the cover rubbed off!)

He had a few tips for tackling the task, including

• Styles are your friend (much as webdesign has CSS styles, an efficent print designer will set up paragraph, character and object styles in Indesign to save time and allow for quick global changes should when the client changes their mind).
• Set up grids (necessary with all of the constraints)
• Get sign off on copy (and other people to proof read!)

There and Back Again: Academia/Design/Academia
Vicky Teinaki (me)

My talk reflected on my having bounced around from academia (undergrad and a Masters) to industry (web design) and academia again (a PhD and design research). I also shared some of the cool stuff that has happened through PhDs, for example Tony Dunne's post-optimal objects or Jane McGonigal's ubiquitous gaming.

[Someone rightly pointed out that I didn't really talk about my work: to be honest there isn't that much to show as of yet because of paperwork, oops!]

Imagine Challenge Cup
Colin Bobwhite 

Fresh from their win in the UK Imagine Challenge Cup semi-finals and preparing for the final in Australia, Colin Bobwhite shared Team Eyeworks' winning idea:  the MIRA (Mobile Intelligent Retinal Analysis) app that combined with a special lens can help medics in third-world countries diagnose eye problems.

A Freelancer's Manifesto
James Rutherford

Design Interest co-organiser and design freelancer James Rutherford shared his manifesto for freelancers.

Abandoned Latvian buildings, the secret life of wikis, and Facebook from the perspective of a child in poverty: those that braved the snow(!) were treated to a wide range of topics. 

 

For an as-it-went summary, check out the Storify of the night, or read on for brief recaps and video.

Designing for a different type of the website: the wiki
Richard Carter 

While Wikis are fairly basic, they are more than wikipedia. And at least they're not Myspace or Geocities. Richard Carter reflected on his experience with designing for wikis (his company uses MediaWiki), and key things to look out for. 

As it turns out, wikis are often used for internal knowledgebases, document sharing, and public opinion sites, as their point of differences from CMSes are that they don't require logins to post and generally have few admin rights. They often have to deal with extra complexity (for example, that 6 letter word in English may be 22 in German) and really require content from the start. Still, they can look good as well as be powerful, with examples including the Mozilla Wiki and Carter's own CMK Alliance. 

Showcase of Republika - a book which explores architecture as a metaphor for occupation 
Livi Dale

Livi Dale emphasised the importance of personal projects—'they force designers to have to handle not having constraints'—with her grad year final project Republika, a book on abandoned buildings in her ancestral home Latvia. Along with giving some tips on doing urban photography (for example, get a local guide as they can give you information about hidden places as well as ones you probably want to avoid), she pointed out how accidents can work to your advantage: her borrowed camera only took small photos, which forced her to adapt her book accordingingly, with great results. She's looking to redo this book in the near future. 

She also showed that she's not the only one who sees personal projects as being useful: when 20 top design studios were inverviewed on what they look for in a potential candidate, most included 'personal projects' as being a key differentiator. (See The Ideal Candidate site for more information)

Culture Hack Codes

It finished with a free-for-all of hacks from last week's Culture Code hack.

These included:

• An app showing positions of commemorative plaques on a map.
• A Day of Hope (child poverty data reimagined into a child's Facebook posts) 
• Two library related hacks
• Making 3D shapes based on the Flow Project
• Making the Lindisfarne Gospels both interactive and a source of generative art

Next month's talk will happen early May, with talks and design work to show welcome. Other upcoming events include DIBI from the 15-17 April.

Can't wait for tomorrow's meetup (or can't make it?). Here's some optional reading and viewing for the talks.

We're going to have someone talking about a designer's take on the Culture Code Hack, but there have also been a series of talks for designers and cultural institutions leading up to the event, which Codeworks have kindly released on video. Here are some highlights:

The lovely Naomi Atkinson talked about the future for designers:

And, much as he did at Thinking Digital last year, Jer Thorp of the New York Times and programming language Processing wowed the audience with examples of the future of visualisation.

Take a look at the Codeworks vimeo feed for many more of the videos.

Finally, if you want a sneak peek of what went on, check out this super-detailed blog post about abou the hack event, or Christian Payne (aka Documentally)'s storify of the event.

Tickets are now available for our next event, on Tuesday April 3 at the Post Office NE1.

We have some exciting talks prepared :

• Designing for a different type of the website: the wiki - Richard Carter (@RichardCarter)
• Showcase of Republika - a book which explores architecture as a metaphor for occupation - Livi Dale (@Laiferr)
• A demo of projects from, and discussion of, the Culture Code 24hr hack event — various (does that mean @alistair?)

If you'd like to bring work along to discuss, please contact us via twitter in advance!

Book a ticket

This month's talk inluded 3D printing, brand strategies, and managing clients. And for the first time the talks were videorecorded (thanks Paul Lancaster), and are here for you in all their glory:

The night kicked off with everyone wanting coverting their own 3D printer, courtesy of product designer Bettina Nissen

G Moon, a graphic design student at Northumbria University, talked us through one of his latest branding briefs and the design process behind it.

And to finish it off, illustrator Graeme Metcalf (aka @Grabbins) talked about the difference between good and great design, and how we shouldn't be decorators.

 

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First time Design Interest-er Heather also had these kind words to say about the event:

The one thing that struck me about Design Interest was it's much more informal style, it still followed the template of guest speakers followed by networking but I felt it had a much more relaxed atmosphere. It was also good to get a variety of speakers talking about their own passions and practices rather than a set theme throughout. I also particularly enjoyed the review of design work that people brought in for critic, it was great to see a full room of designers bouncing ideas and thoughts around! Overall I will definitely be signing up for more Design Interest events, its a good relaxed starting point for little old me I think!

This month's format was a bit different: instead of talks, the evening was a workshop format. The audience was split into two teams, and given the topic either on the future of news or creating a design conference.

Some great concepts came out of the workshop: in particular, a lot of people are keen on the idea of having a design picnic! For a great writeup, check out Lauren Thompson's writeup of the night. Thanks to Lauren Thompson and James Rutherford for organising the workshop.

Andy Dunn also spoke about the upcoming Global Service Jam. Its a global service design event happening worldwide over the last weekend of this month, and there'll be a Newcastle group based at the Toffee Factory. You don't have to be a service designer (or even a designer!) to attend, as long as you're keen to play with making new experiences. The theme will be revealed on the night.

 

There was a great and varied selection of talks this month:

Rose Mockford: Celebrating Children’s Creativity

Liz Douthwaite: Lighting for Portraits

 Paul Thompson: Comics: words + pictures where time = space

For a full breakdown, check out this storify of the night.

 

Top image from Leanne Johnson, others Vicky Teinaki.

As mentioned in January's meeting: