I know this is very VERY late, but I just had too much going on and forgot to publish!
Last year, October 2024, our designer gang decided to go to Antwerpen, Belgium to be a part of the SmashingConf2024.
So I booked 2 workshops as well as the conference days for this. I was excited, not only for the program. But the location was also a huge plus.
So how did it go? Let me try to break it down.
Workshop day 1
I joined Vitaly’s Designing for complex UIs with the hopes of learning how to overcome these problems and struggles. The word “complex” was what triggered me to join. I had high hopes.
We tackled a case that had a complicated filtering. We were told to come up with ideas how to overcome the problems presented. I think everyone came up with good ideas, we did too.
It was okay. Actually I was a bit disappointed. I wanted to see how the solution should have or could have been. I was also hoping for more, to learn some tricks on how to handle complicated and complex tools. But I guess that is the downside of a 1 day workshop.
Conference day 1
When I saw the program, I was interested in 3 topics only. These were “When Figma meets CSS” by Christine Vallaure, “Words that bloom” by Gemma O’Brien and “Creating Beautiful, On-Brand, Inclusive Photography with AI” by Pablo Stanley.
These 3 topics were the best things I joined in, ever.
Christine Vallaure’s talk regarding CSS in Figma was very informative. She talked about how Figma uses similar, when not the same, language as what front end developers use. How the tool is actually a good point of collaboration for designers and developers. But she also gave some cool tips, even talked a bit about Cursor AI.
Words that bloom by Gemma was about her art journey specifically lettering and murals. What I liked about this was the creative part, and where the illustrations that were shown.
Now Pablo. Pablo Stanley is special man. Come on! Humaaans? Open Peeps? City Scapes? Anyways, when I saw his name, I knew I had to see his talk. He talked about how to provide proper prompts result in images that are good at first try. Yes, they need refinement, but tiny details. He also presented his new sh*t, Lummi.
Conference day 2
Day 2 actually only had 1 interesting topic off the bat, “Made for the World. Design Systems at Scale” by Cameron Worboys. I was not sure about the mystery talk from the mystery speaker.
I joined the mystery talk and this was a nice surprise. It was about fonts and how the whole 8-bit fonts was by Marcin Wichary. Now this was a nice talk because it talked about the limitations but the possibilities it still has. How even with the limited about of space, one can personalize. We even got to create our own A in 8-bit, and we were able to create many possibilities despite the restrictions. Yes, there were weird ones, but all in all it was a nice experience.
Now the design systems at scale talk was not what I was hoping for. I thought there would be a take-away especially when it comes to internalizations. But the gist I got from the talk was to just create new design systems every time. Something new for every situation. Which would be weird. The talk also felt more like promoting the visual prowess of the product, rather than the design system of it.
Workshop day 2
This was what I was looking forward to the whole time. The title “Master UI Design” was what got me, plus the instructor was Pablo Stanley.
The beginning was very promising. But at some point it disappointed. To say it shortly, this was not what I was expecting. The workshop turned into a how-to-create-components-in-figma talk, which for some might be really useful. Hey, if I was someone who has just started using Figma this would have been a blast. But not to me, since creating components is my day-to-day job.
I did not even have my laptop with me. So I left this session early.
Conclusion
Will I do it again? I have no clue. I think a real workshop would be worth the money than the two I joined here. On the other part, some topics were good and interesting. Just not all of them.
Did I learn something? I think so?
The location was great, I got to see Antwerpen during the hours I was not in the workshop or the conference.
Silke 