Just getting back from Chicago, fresh and rejuvinated, I wanted to share my experience with all of Catalyst before any memories faded. Overall, I had a great time and feel fortunate to have been able to attend the conference. Thank you Jason & Beth. My aim here is to share the wealth of knowledge I soaked up over the 3.5 days at HOW so that I am not the only one to benefit from it. I will also share with you some images and valuable links for your own further investigation. If you so desire you can view all of my trip images in a folder on the xServe>PERSONAL>•Community Photos>HOWconference_Chicago05, organized in groups so you have some idea of what/who you are looking at. So without further ado, here we go >>>




Day 1 : Saturday, June 11th
I arrived in the city at noon to find myself in 93 degree heat. I was using only instict to find my hotel and thus got lost momentarily. As I trounced under a giant underground parking lot where temps topped out easily at 120 I approached an aged man sitting on the sidewalk. I was loosing my cool from all the sweat and bewilderment when he spoke out to me "Keep ya head up big guy, keep ya head up". It was then that I knew I was going to enjoy Chicago, and out of seemingly nowhere I had the strength to push on.

Long story short; I found the Hyatt, got to my room, cleaned up just in time for my first pre-conference session with Ken Barber of House Industries.

Ken Barber/House Industries - "Hooked On Classics"
He talked about the differences between typography, lettering, and writing. Writing being the creation of a letter form with a single pass of a writing instrument, Lettering consisting of successive strokes to build a letter form, and finally typography being a system of preformed letters that are easily duplicatable. Here you can see an example of some of Ken's hand lettering.




Much of what House does is take classic type and reinterpret it into handdrawn letterforms then configured into typeface sets. When the presentation was over we had our own hand at lettering some words, which was nothing new to me. Ken was a great speaker and quite entertaining but was the class $150 worth; hmmm....

A link that he referenced other than House Ind. was:
Letterror.


Tom Monohan - "The Do It Yourself Lobotomy"
This was the first Keynote speaker that everyone attended. The conference room was down at the Navy Pier and as some of you that have been there know, it is cavernous. There were birds living inside and I think I saw a rabbit too. This was the scene >>>



Tom took us through several brainstorming exercises that he has facilitated with the likes of Virgin records, Target, AOL, and Hewlett-Packard.



Much of it had to do with breaking from what you already know into the unknown. If you think about it, it's tricky business coming up with new ideas because they must seemingly come out of thin air. If you saw it somewhere else it isn't new and it isn't fresh. If you haven't seen it or heard about it, then where does the idea come from? Stop for a second and try to think of something you have never seen or heard about in any respect.

If you would like to know more about brainstorm excercises such as Mind Sprinting, 100mph thinking, and 180 degree thinking ask me and I'll go over my notes with you. Or you could visit Tom's site to buy his book.

Before-After


Resource Center Opening
After the keynote was done, everyone went back to the Hyatt to take part in the opening of the resource center and free drinks. It was pretty maddening with 3,500 designers crawling over each other in an attempt to win free iPods and drink tickets. Most accurately, it was like the Bauhaus meets Animal House.




Day 2 : Sunday, June 12th

Day 2 started out with a hearty breakfast of bananas, toast, and hard pears. There was always lots of food but nowhere to sit; only bar height mini tables to stand by. We opted for sitting on the floor.


Pash/Digital Soup - "Inspirability"



This guys book is the only book I bought at the conference simply because it seemed different than most other creativity books. He essentially interviewed a ton of top designers on the topic of inspiration and what it takes to be someone with "inspirability". Inspirability being "the ability to inspire other people". There was a huge chasm of responses, some serious, some humorous, and some seriously humorous, all culminating in Pash's climactic phone interview with his one and only Uncle Milt (Milton Glaser). I found it to be a great presentation, worthy of book buying. I have more notes on this as well if you are interested, or you could buy the book too.

Pash - Inspirability


Sam Harrison/Portfolio Center - Creative Zing: Zipping - Instead of Zigzagging- Toward Fresh Ideas

Sam was a gruff older fellow with a great sense of humor and a great ability to get people thinking. His opening statement was: "Creativity is about exploring freedom and embracing life." He also stated that there is no formula for creativity. No cookie-cutter solution. But there is definitely a flowing form in the way highly creative people glide toward exciting, endless ideas.

1. Explore -> 2. Freedom -> 3. Pause -> 4. Embrace -> 5. Life

I can explain this in greater detail if you are interested. He had great insight and opinions on brainstorm sessions too, like holding hourlong sessions with 1 person taking the notes because the side of the brain you use for creating is the opposite side from your motor skills side. Things can lock up. Also he said to limit meeting sizes to 6 people or so. The only other thing that should be mentioned was a quote he dropped. Ready...It's pretty heavy...

"Are you filling your work with life, or are you filling your life with work?"

You can read more about Sam Harrison Here:
Zing Zone


Tim Cole/Adobe - Creative Sweets, Adobe CS2
Adobe CS2

This was the only technical talk that I went to over the weekend and it was well worth it. It made me want to make the time to take more tutorials and technical classes. In one hour Tim showed us some stuff that could cut our production time in half on many projects. Sadly much of the goodness lies within CS2, especially using InDesign as the hub for Photoshop & Illustrator integration. Not to cut on Quark more than it deserves but its performance is archaic compared to that of InDesign.

Being that we aren't working in CS2 yet I won't bore you with tutorials that aren't implementable yet but I will mention some of the things Tim showed us.

Photoshop CS2
New Warp feature
This is going to be sooooo great for all the photoshop mockup images we do for Target presentations. It is super sweeeeet!

Smart Objects
" Smart Objects allows you to take a layer or group of layers and treat them as a single unit—a unit that you can scale, warp, and transform in any way you like without losing any of the data from the orginal layers that make up the "smart object" set. This smart object can be duplicated as many times as you want, and then it is possible to edit the master smart object and see all the changes applied at once." For a quick tutorial go here:
Photoshop CS2 Smart Objects

Vanishing Point
Oh, this is "brilliant" as Tim would say. No more guessing if your perspective is off. CS2 snaps it in perfect position and perspective for you! Yes, it works amazingly! Check it one time bwoyee:
Photoshop CS2 Vanishing Point

Illustrator CS2
Streamline is finally back as "Livetrace" within Illustrator CS2! It has much more control too. See more here:
Illustrator CS2 Livetrace

In Design CS2
Tim Cole's specialty is working with In Design as the hub for Photoshop and Illustrator so he went over a bunch of stuff in In Design. It was hard for me to follow being that I use Quark more often but there are some really good tutorials out there.

Some of the stuff I was amazed by was the new type engine that ID uses. He did things in 1 minute that normally take us and hour with applying type styles and paragraph styles. No exaggeration! He also went over Adobe Bridge, psd and pdf layer support, snippets and smart text handling. If you would like to see these features in action check this out:
InDesign CS2 Features


William Travis/Attik - "Reboot, Refresh, Reframe: Branding for a Young Audience"

This guy had a great story with lots of big ups and downs, including landing the entire Scion account with Toyota to having to close down every international office but one in order to stay afloat.



Attik, as the name alludes to, started in the attic of this dudes grandmothers home in 1986. These guys found fame by creating the techy, 3D-style imagery that you can see still present today in companies like 2Advanced among many others. The only difference is that they were doing 15-20 years ago around the same time David Carson was doing work for "Raygun" magazine. These guys were really forerunners and yet managed to stay underground. So much of the design we saw throughout the nineties was lifted from their work.

Anyhow, William Travis and co. were able to get big accounts like Scion by researching their target audience (18-34 year olds) and meeting them where they were at. They infiltrate clubs, bars, and the streets with messages that kids can relate to - in mediums they can relate to, thus building allegiance to Scion because "Scion get them". He said gimmicks will not work with people anymore. You have to speak to them like the intelligent consumers they are. The surprising result is that Scion has sold 3 times as many vehicles in the last several years than MINI! Check out the Scion site. There is tons to do in here.


Scion

Travis also said in response to their success, "Part of the answer lies in utilizing multiple media platforms." He showed us Attik's approach to youth branding by using several cross-media solutions including, interactive, broadcast, geurilla, and print designs. They even developed a Youth Research Vehicle called "TAXI" that would cruise around to events gathering info by observing the culture and trends going on, while injecting new means of advertising into the culture at the same time. Very similar to what we were wanting to do with the Tween "LUV BUS". To read more about their approach to branding go here:
Creating the Brand

Travis also talked about their company growth and how in happened in big part to being confident when dealing with clients, and selling ideas that were outside of the norm. Never turning something down because they thought it was out of their league. It was very similar to Catalyst's approach. If there is something you can't do, join up with someone who can. (Ham, John Golden, Jason Gherling, illustrating ladies, etc.) Networking was huge for Attik. They were simply a print design shop until they got people to believe they had the resources for broadcast and video. Now that is a huge part of their studio's work.

I could tell more stories about Attik but will spare you here; so if you are interested we can talk.


Day 3 : Monday, June 13th

Brian Collins/Ogilvy & Mather - "Designing the Brand Experience"



Arguably the most impactful and inspiring presentation I have ever experienced. About 2000 people packed into a huge darkened ballroom with stainglassed windows projected on the walls. I thought, my God I'm back in the Catholic church. Just then the "Priest", Brian Collins lit up behind the front podium. He briefly explained how the Catholic church was his first brand experience. Think about it, a fully branded environment from windows, architecture, clothing, tools, actions, music, etc. He then mentioned, if it was so well branded why did it not grab me and make me want to be a part of it. He explained the reason was Passion or lack thereof. Just then he said he wanted to introduce us to a few of his new friends. He called out one of Chicago's finest Gospel Choirs available. Their name I forget sadly:) Anyhow, this was the scene.



The crowd went crazy! Everyone was clapping along. I saw people crying and stuff even. They got a standing ovation and when the applause quieted, Brian Collins says, "Now that - is Passion". Everyone agreed. It was a powerful contrast of relaying information vs. passionate expression. Collins went on to talk about hating designers speaking of their craft as "problem solvers". "A good plumber is a problem solver". "We need to have more passion, more art, more courage in our craft and less worry, less doubt, and less fear".

He then showed us 5 key attributes to inspiring, inspiring work. 1) Collaborate, 2) Clarify, 3) Challenge, 4) Commit, 5)Delight. If you want to know more about this let me know. I have notes.

As an example, Brian introduced one of O&M's major clients, Hershey's chocolate. He went through their process on developing the major Hershey stores in Times Square and in Chicago. As he was speaking and showing images of their concepts and store layouts I noticed something. Damn, am I crazy or does it smell like chocolate up in here. I mentioned it to the girl next to me and she said, "Oh, you're just hungry". Then the smell got stronger and people were starting to look around with a dazed, chocolate fiending sort of look on their faces. They were actually pumping a chocolate fragrance through the air ducts. He then explained the importance of touching all the senses when it comes to designing the brand experience. They do the same thing with the fragrance in the Hershey stores because all the chocolate is wrapped up so tight that the smell doesn't get out. Plus, the smell spills onto the street and, well you get the idea...

After his personal thoughts he showed us the proof in the pudding so to speak. He introduced 3 designers that moved out with passion and are making huge ripples in not only the design world but American culture. I will just list them and let you check out the links for yourselves.

1) Leigh Okies - Dove


Dove - Campaign for Real Beauty


2) Jennifer Panepinto - Mesu


Mesu - measuring bowls


3) Deborah Adler - Target Clear Rx


Target Clear Rx

To sum it up; absolutely amazing and inspiring. This was design that changes peoples lives. Not only the lives of the consumers but the designers themselves. To see a young designer like Jennifer following her heart while developing her senior thesis and for it to take off like a rocket was really cool. I went out to the bookstore to buy Mesu right after the presentation and yep, they were all gone.


Jim Sherraden/Hatch Show Print - "A Tonic for the Information Age"
Not too much to say here being that we have all probably been exposed to their work. His presentation was very interesting though. He gave a thorough history of Hatch and showed a good number of posters from over the years. Here are examples of old-school and new-school Hatch.


Old School


New School

Hatch Show Print


Day 4 : Tuesday, June 14th

Andrew Zolli/Z+Partners - "The Road Ahead: Forces Shaping the Next 25 Years"



This dude was straight up smart as a mutha. His title is "futurist" at "Popular Science" magazine where he connects trends in demographics, technology, geopolitics and business to help organizations, businesses, and governments understand their impact. He talked about how he looks at the present and future with tips on viewing the world with futurist eyes - predicting trends, preparing for cultural shifts and creating strategies that bend with the winds of change.

Andrew covered three main points which I can't explain in detail here or probably even at length but I will list them and give you a link to his sight for your further investigation.

1) Demographic Transformation
- This had to do with world populations and how certain cultures are adapting more for certain demographics while allowing the "less important" parts of thier society are dying off. (ex. Women in the arab world are considered far less valuable than men to the point of them being aborted in alarming numbers. This will obviously have terrible consequences which aren't being considered.)

2) The Rise of Ecovation
- He gave 2 sweet examples of this in product design; self-cleaning housepaint inspired by the biological structure of a certain leaf, and self healing plastic used for airplane wings inspired by human skins properties.

3) The Participation Revolution
- Value of a network grows with members added (squared)

Z + Partners

Poptech conference


So here lies the end of possibly the longest single blog entry ever. I hope you enjoyed it and found it valuable. I had nothing to gain personally by doing this so I hope you see that I care about each and every one of my fellow Catalites like you are kin. There will be a follow up blog entry to this that will document some of the great stuff I saw around the city and some of the retail spaces I found interesting. See you soon.

SAM