Malarkey is Andy Clarke, a creative designer with a passion for accessibility and web standards. This is his personal website.

Done @nd dusted

These last few days I’ve been looking back on @media2006; 800 people, two amazing days and one designer left feeling very humbled by the whole experience.

The speaker presentations are the reasons why many people attend (or convince their bosses to pay for them to attend) conferences like @media, SXSW and Web Essentials Directions and while it was almost impossible to choose who to see during this year’s two track conference (I wanted to see Tantek Çelik dammit!), the sessions I attended each had something different to offer.

Like SXSW, @media is now more than just a conference, it has become a festival where the hallway chatter and social events are as important as the sessions. Saturday’s post-conference social at the Livery brought this into even sharper focus for me as I watched Cameron Adams, James Edwards, Dean Edwards, Jeremy Keith, Peter Paul Koch, and Christian Heillman, some of the most brilliant minds in scripting, gathered in one place and swapping ideas. These, and people like them are changing the web and conferences like @media provide the venue (or the excuse) for them to get together. This year’s conference has given me renewed hope that collaboration and sharing will continue to make the web and the world a better place.

On a more personal note I was left humbled by the passion of almost everybody I spoke with. While conferences like @media provide a focus for ideas, it’s in the day-to-day life of a designer or developer where the real hard work takes place. There seemed to be no lack of passion or excitement about design, standards or accessibility and still a great deal to talk about.

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art Of Web Design

My presentation files are now available to download in two formats; a monster 50Mb PDF and a smaller 13Mb Quicktime movie.

After the success of last year’s @media and Web Essentials in Sydney, this year’s event had a lot to live up to. It didn’t disappoint. I would like to congratulate Patrick and the whole of his team on making the event run so smoothly (with the possible exception of the wifi)

Wild horses wouldn’t stop me from being there in 2007.

Replies

  1. #1 On June 21, 2006 01:18 PM Guy Carberry said:

    Hiya Andy, cheers for pointing to my grid in your slides. That was one of many grids i’ve made and the only one I posted to flickr! Was talking to Mark Boulton about this grid business last week - specifically relating to the golden section.

    Ive unearthed quite an old book called ’flash design for mobiel devices’. A misleading title since it actually covers a hell of a lot of design therory before getting to applying it to flash design.

    Anyhow, the book suggests that when designing for mobile devices we can use the golden section principle ratio since we hold mobile devices at a similar distance to a book. Ive done some design around this and it does indeed work quite well.

    Really enjoyed your presentation and not just cos you mentioned me! lol. Beautiful slides, fascinating anecdotes and a bucket load of humour. You are a rock star.

  2. #2 On June 21, 2006 02:28 PM JackP said:

    Thanks for making your stuff available. Unfortunately - as I believe I mentioned - work had pushed me in the direction of the microformats one so I missed you. Now, has anyone got a transcript of what you had to say?

    Oh, and by ’eck it were a right good do, weren’t it? I’ll have to try and catch up with you for a pint or two again next time…

  3. #3 On June 21, 2006 02:37 PM JackP said:

    Ah, I’ve found some:
    https://muffinresearch.co.uk/archives/2006/06/16/media2006-notes-andy-clarke-transcending-css-the-fine-art-of-web-design/

  4. #4 On June 21, 2006 02:52 PM ppk said:

    Thanks for calling me "one of the most brilliant minds in scripting", but if writing a book and attending @media has taught me one thing, it’s that I still have a depressing amount to learn.

  5. #5 On June 21, 2006 03:58 PM Jonathan Snook said:

    Looks like it was a nice presentation. Nice to see my screenshot dead center. ;) Hopefully it’ll be in the conference budget for me to attend next year!

  6. #6 On June 21, 2006 04:13 PM Daniel Wilkes said:

    Andy your presentation was fantastic, as was lasts years.

    I’m the guy with the Vauxhall Nova, but I’ve shared the illustration with my team at work. It was a good one!!

    Even though it seems a long way away, I’ll definitely be getting the book.

    Its fair to say your points were inspirational, all the best for the next year, hope you close again at @media 2007.

  7. #7 On June 21, 2006 05:55 PM Richard Rutter said:

    Good to meet up with you again Andy. Thanks too for a great presentation - your usual smooth style and fabulous slides carried it beautifully. And I’ve come away inspired and reinvigorated, hoping to push some boundaries design-wise and code-wise. And if that’s not worth the entrance fee, nothing is!

  8. #8 On June 22, 2006 10:15 AM Miles said:

    Andy, thanks for the amazing presentation - it was definitely my favourite one of the conference by a long long way. I was really blown away by what you had to offer us - great looking slides & insightful ways of translating real life designs into web. Oh and still love the story about your son and his web page :)

    Glad to hear you’ll be back in 2007 and hope to meet you then.

  9. #9 On June 22, 2006 03:01 PM LintHuman said:

    Your presentation was one of the highlights of @media 2006 for me. Long may you continue to occupy the lucky final slot! And glad you liked the photo I managed to get of you. You’re a difficult subject to capture live - you just keep moving, dammit!

  10. #10 On June 22, 2006 07:36 PM Malarkey said:

    Thanks for all your kind comments guys, I really appreciate them.

    @ Daniel Wilkes: "I’m the guy with the Vauxhall Nova"

    You have my condolences :)

    @ Miles: "Glad to hear you’ll be back in 2007 and hope to meet you then."

    I’ve not been invited back to @media2007 as the dust hasn’t settled on this year’s event yet. I’ll be turning up in one capacity or another without fail though.

    @ LintHuman: "You’re a difficult subject to capture live - you just keep moving, dammit!"

    You haven’t seen me first thing in the morning, it takes me until 10am, three cups of coffee and several ciggies to get me to move at all!

  11. #11 On June 23, 2006 02:39 PM Daniel Wilkes said:

    Sorry Andy, Can I just ask a quick question?

    Just been going through my notes from your presentation.

    You said that "absolute positioning is the new dom scripting".

    This may be a dumb question, but was that a serious comment or a tongue in cheek one?

    I know different people go different ways on the fixed vs liquid debate.

    Thanks a lot

  12. #12 On June 23, 2006 02:45 PM Daniel Wilkes said:

    Andy I’ve just been reading the notes I took from your presentation, and would just like to ask a quick question?

    You said that "absolute positioning is the new dom scripting"

    Was this a serious or tongue in cheek comment? It’ll be interesting to see where you stand on the fixed vs liquid debate.

    Thanks mate

  13. #13 On June 23, 2006 03:35 PM Daniel Wilkes said:

    Sorry, I didn’t think the first one worked!

  14. #14 On June 23, 2006 05:10 PM Malarkey said:

    Daniel Wilkes: Yeah! I did say that absolute positioning would be the new DOM scripting. It was serious but a tongue in cheek swipe at what Jeremy Keith has said about the DOM being the new CSS. Actually to work really well in practice, positioning often needs DOM scripting to help it along as Shaun Inman has shown.

  15. #15 On June 24, 2006 09:51 PM Kris said:

    Andy, you made the most sensible comment during the whole of the WCAG2.0 discussion. You are my hero now’ deal with it :)

  16. #16 On June 26, 2006 12:56 AM Malarkey said:

    @ Kris: Jeebus Kris, thanks! What did I say again?