How Conference!!!!… Gets high marks this year… What an amazing conference… Austin, Texas and 108 degrees with no breeze… kicking off on Wednesday early evening as participants rolled in from all around the United States. There were over 60 sessions split up amongst 7 different tracks, ranging from Creativity, Design Disciplines, Business, Your Career, In-House, Technology & Production and the HOW Learning Center— and such amazing national speakers… and business consultants… and technical-driven participants who all came to share their talents, knowledge, and education, and to build relationships.

Portfolio Center was represented from the podiums of the meeting rooms of the huge Austin Convention Center ,with Dave Werner, Creative Director and Portfolio Center alum from San Francisco’s Minor Studios, seizing the dais on Thursday and speaking on Video Games and design in relationship to brands and discovery. It was music to my ears as he was sounding like he wasn’t so far away from Portfolio Center as he connected the value of storytelling in case studies of brands in the grocery store to the realities of current media and where it might go into the future. I was really proud of Dave as he has showcased his education well. You can see him in a couple of the images below.

Other Portfolio Center alumni and new Austinites were Portfolio Center alum Bryony Gomez-Palacio and her husband, Armin Vit, who hosted the Mano a Mano: Design History session, where they tested everyone’s creative knowledge. But fear not — they provided copies of their brand-new design bible book just hot off the presses, “Graphic Design Referenced.” Bryony and Armin have authored some amazing books recently, including one of my favorites, Women In Design.

Here designer Debbie Millman of Sterling Brands works frantically to discover answers in the contesting…. .. and, Bryony fires questions to the contestants.

My talk was titled Aesthetics without Ethics and addressed to young people… and that is just who came… hardly anyone in the packed room had been in business over 5 years and many were students who had just finished a month ago a college or university… what was important to get across, to share is that today companies, in little towns or big ones, are looking for special talent to help them find unique solutions to complex problems— solutions that will make a real difference in society, and those solutions are going to come from the ‘y-gens-to-the millennial’ generation and they are going to drive our economy into the future— yes! you will go in to work at noon one day. People that can think and, moreover, that are brave enough to think and put their ideas out there.

It was a commentary for young people to hear about how being PERSONAL is the most important aspect of storytelling. And, that in a certain sense IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU: YOUR ideas, your experiences, your values, and your voices. Things that are superfluous, important to structure, i.e., elements as typography, or even conceptual ones, like storytelling– yes they are important, but they mean very little without a grasp of the most essential aspect of GREATNESS in anything.

And, most importantly, the most wonderful aspect of being a creative person today is you have an opportunity to confirm your own integrity. You are the intermediaries between information and understanding— when you interpret this way, you then become the author from the process and you contribute a little more than you take away. And, yes you can change your world.

It is a very powerful position to be in, really, and it represents such large opportunity. You absolutely can impact and determine societal values by the work you do.

Great art of any kind demands RELATIONSHIPS. And, that is the most important aspect of why we do what we do. And, if you think of the audience and your clients as your friends, people you wish to help and support. You want to do whatever you can to make their lives easier, more pleasant, and more effective. Well, you have the power to do that as creative people. I’d even argue you have a responsibility- particularly a social responsibility. In this madcap economy, the old rules just don’t apply. Ideas matter more that ever.

To give you an idea of the great speakers and presenters, there was San Francisco designer Michael Osborne opening the sessions, talking about Joey’s Corner and design that matters (Joey’s Corner); DJ Stout of Pentagram talking on the art of magazine design (DJ Stout | Partners | Pentagram); Jonathan Gouthier, of NYC had a great session on how creativity can grow businesses (Gouthier Design: a brand collective); Ed Brodsky, past president of The Art Directors Club/NY, who started in the advertising and design biz when he was 8, talked about keeping creative control with difficult clients; and Alexander Isley spoke on what’s going on in design today… from Georgio Armani to the R&R Hall of Fame, from MTV to Chevron and Scholastic as case studies (Alexander Isley Inc.: Shameless Self-Promotion); and Trish Meyer showcased some amazing thinking techniques around creating motion with AfterEffects from their now famous book series; Felix Sockwell talked about Logo design from Texas to NY (Felix Sockwell Inc: home page); and Typographer Thomas Phinney, formerly heading up Adobe’s Fonts (Phinney on Fonts), talked about things you didn’t know fonts could do.

Mark Randall, delivering the closing keynote address, talked about how he and his partner Andrea Pellegrino have fused entrepreneurship to a new standard and how ‘Design Ignites Change’ is spreading meaningful messages and actions all over the globe. I want to thank Mark for giving Portfolio Center such a huge call out for our work with World Studios.

The conference was great and here are some candid shots (just below) of some of the people and events over the week… .. Huge kudos to HOW, F&W Publications, Bryn Mooth and all her various complement of support teams, Publisher Gary Lynch of Print and I.D. Magazines, and the many designers, business people, and participants who came together from around the world for a great and very ‘hot’ week of learning, camaraderie and some amazing Austin, Texas hospitality.

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