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

How To Be A Web Design Superhero

So it’s done. This morning Mr. Budd and I presented How To Be A Web Design Superhero at SXSWi. For budding superheroes, our presentation slides are now online (PDF 13.5Mb).

I want to say a great big thank-you to everyone for coming, Mr. Budd for being a fantastic co-presenter and a big hat-tip to Alex Ross (whose images we used as our slides’ backgrounds) and to Sergio Villarreal for the fantastic Super Zeldman.

Super ZeldmanPresentation slides (PDF 13.5Mb)


Replies

  1. #1 On March 11, 2006 10:26 PM Ms. Jen said:

    Great panel today, thank you gentlemen.

    Thanks for the slides.

    I love the SuperZeldman!

  2. #2 On March 11, 2006 11:50 PM Jeremy Freeman said:

    Oh what an amazing looking presentation. Wish I was there - maybe next year. Must start saving the air-fare and the conference tickets.

    Missing you already.

  3. #3 On March 12, 2006 12:59 AM Alex Giron said:

    Best panel and presentation so far, thank you, and thank you for making me an inviseble superhero ;)

  4. #4 On March 12, 2006 02:40 AM Rob Grady said:

    Great presentation today and thanks for honest insights into your experiences.

  5. #5 On March 12, 2006 03:40 AM Jon Henshaw said:

    I enjoy your website’s content, but that presentation seemed kind of silly and self-absorbed. The visuals were of course awesome, but I struggled to find anything useful. Was the point of the presentation to bring attention to yourself, and the people you run around with? If I’m going to be a good web designer do I have to be like you and your friends?

  6. #6 On March 12, 2006 05:54 AM Martin Smales said:

    Great presentation you Andys.

    You make me see that there are superheroes and villians out there. Now I know who’s who! :)

  7. #7 On March 12, 2006 07:45 AM Matthew Pennell said:

    LOL @ The Green Goblin - very droll.

  8. #8 On March 12, 2006 09:12 AM Yasuhisa said:

    Great panel. It was the kind of presentation I was looking for! Very inspiring. I think I may take few ideas for my session next time ;-)

    Good Job!

  9. #9 On March 12, 2006 10:53 AM Ischa Gast said:

    At the end of the Superhero PDF there is one little mistake and that’s the name of Veerle Pieters. In the PDF there stands Veerle Peiters ;)

  10. #10 On March 12, 2006 03:05 PM Heiko said:

    Incredible panel and great inspiration!

  11. #11 On March 12, 2006 08:05 PM Simon said:

    Well done - a really good session, and very inspiring.

  12. #12 On March 12, 2006 09:35 PM Malarkey said:

    Thank-you so very much for all the kind comments.

    @ Jon Henshaw: Superhero was always intended to be a fun start to SXSWi, rather than ’informative’. One of our aims was to congratulate and recognise those people who Mr. Budd and I feel are our heroes and our inspiration. We feel that these people have made tremendous contributions to the web. Not everyone we know personally.

  13. #13 On March 12, 2006 10:49 PM Jeff L said:

    Hey,

    Great presentation - it certainly did it’s duty as the fun presentation to start off the conference - just an interesting way to look at some of that information.

    Great to meet you afterwards as well, thanks for humoring my curiosity about why your sites are on the wrong URL’s.

  14. #14 On March 13, 2006 09:22 AM Simon Jobling said:

    It’s great for us web developers who can’t make it all the way to Austin to catch up on all the SXSW presentations the easy way. I’m really impressed by this one Andy(s) although I did notice a little typo on slide 18:

    the best designers are skilled their with tools and have a utility belt full ofuseful stuff: fonts, icons and images

    Great work non-the-less.

  15. #15 On March 13, 2006 10:44 AM Erwin Heiser said:

    Great fun and a lot of it is oh so true… nice one!

  16. #16 On March 13, 2006 04:42 PM James said:

    That looked like a great presentation, the PDF was great to see. Would’ve loved to have been there for the Jakob Neilsen/Green Goblin slide - bet the house went down.

    If I was going to be a ’web design superhero’ I think I’d opt for Ampersand Man - because I just can’t bear to see unescaped ampersands in any project. My weakness: missing semi-colons…

  17. #17 On March 13, 2006 10:35 PM Alan Wyatt said:

    It’s cool. Only now I want to see the series/movie.

    The slides would make a good screensaver I think.

    Are there any web dev (XHTML/CSS etc) screensavers about?

    I remember seeing a site with stages of developing divs and styles going on, but can’t remember where that was now.

  18. #18 On March 14, 2006 05:58 PM Jon Henshaw said:

    Malarkey, I thought I was probably taking it out of context. But standalone, not actually being there, those were my first impressions. But if the intentions were what you say they were, then I think the presentation was beyond exceptional.

  19. #19 On March 15, 2006 11:26 AM Laura Zucchetti said:

    Thanks for uploading the slides. I can imagine you and Andy presenting that in an entertaining way.

    The women are here!! :D Well ok, I only added 2 so far, but it just inspired me to add Women in Web links section :) I like to be called Webmistress; is she a super hero? lol.

  20. #20 On March 15, 2006 06:20 PM Sean Fraser said:

    Nice collection of superheros.

    It was an excellent balance of those born with superpowers, those who obtained superpowers through carpricious Fate and those who found "superpowers" through science.

    Though, after reading the presentation, and being asked your final question, I’d rather be a member of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

  21. #21 On March 15, 2006 08:06 PM David Johns Hunter said:

    So quick question-
    I was checking out these Web Design FAQs in which they suggest going to school to become a great web-designer.
    What is your opinion- do you have to attend classes to be a web-design superhero- or is it something you really could learn for your self from books, websites etc?

  22. #22 On March 16, 2006 02:30 PM Omg said:

    Great idea! Who could think that superheroes and webdesign could go together!!? Awesome man, i want your brain and creativity!

    Whooops - I didnt turned my sarcasm button off :/.

  23. #23 On March 16, 2006 09:21 PM Travis Schmeisser said:

    Very entertaining panel! It was a great light hearted kick-off. The Eric Meyer and Jason Santa Maria comparison was hilarious!