After An Event Apart Chicago

August 28, 2007

design / life

So An Event Apart Chicago is finished. Several things were new to me, and several were somewhat familiar, but for me, even the familiar ones were very relevant. In a way, these are the parts of the event that stuck out to me. Many of them were part of my design education, but, of course, things that are not used are easily forgotten.

For a time during the latter part of my design education, I spent a lot more time programming than I did designing in school, and in various work projects I needed to use different methods of design than I often would have liked, or was taught to use. Many of the design theories and processes had been underused for a while, and it was wonderful for these to be refreshed and re-emphasized, and also phrased in different ways than the ways I learned them.

So much of design, and particularly design on the web, is as much about continuing education as it is about a base of knowledge. When I was studying the Bible and theology for my first degree, I had a professor that I’ve quoted here and to anyone who will listen, and he said that if a person were to earn a PhD in theology, and not read a book for six months, they would no longer be relevant. Their field would have passed them. Obviously, the web is younger than theology, and this idea works on the web at least as well as it does in theology.