The Art of Designing for Clients

With Matthew Smith, Principal, Creative Director, Designer at Squared Eye

It is likely you've heard of Matthew Smith's company Squared Eye. Also, my students and I use his design resource Pattern Tap when brainstorming site design. We appreciate his sites because of their strong artistic conceptualization, great use of type, and overall attraction. Unbeknownst to us, he also has great skill in working with clients. In his presentation Matthew shared a lot of often overlooked subtleties to working with clients like not devaluing your work and selling your design decisions to your clients. This is something all young people who even flirt with freelancing need to hear (and some experts too).

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Freelancing as a College Student

With Delaney Brown, Student / Freelancer

Delaney Brown is likely a name you've never heard before. However, if you've been around the Damascus, Maryland community you may know him. Delaney graduated from Damascus High School in 2007 and was one of the first graduates of our then newly established web program. As his teacher I reflect fondly on how interested and passionate he was about web design, everything you hope to see in your students. He would come in after school for one on one sessions where he would ask me to "teach me more".

In our class we take on community clients when we have time. He took the lead in his team and went on to develop a freelancing relationship with that client and still freelances while completing his bachelors degree at University of Maryland. Although not studying web design full-time he is a student that really embodied everything I hoped my students were gaining from my courses. I asked him to come back and speak to my current students about what its like freelancing as a college student but he also through in some of his own commentary on being successful as a web professional.

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On Brainstorming

With Dan Mall, Senior Designer at Big Spaceship

Dan Mall is another one of those guys that oozes with creativity. His portfolio is quite amazing and he's still a pretty young guy. He spoke to the class about developing concepts which Big Spaceship seems to take seriously. He discussed how their team structure is grounded in developing unique ideas where all team member's input is valued. In addition, he took a broad view of what a website is supposed to do for a client and its users. There's a lot of valuable stuff here on website design strategy and theory. Thanks Dan.

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KickStart Your Brain: Exercises in Rapid Creative Concepting

With Owen Shifflett, Web Designer at Viget Labs

Owen Shifflett is a web designer at Viget Labs. With no concern for repeating myself, Owen Shifflett is one of those guys you get so jealous of because you know even if you practice for 50 years you'd never be as talented an artist as he. He has more creativity in his little finger than most people have period. His work is unconventionally creative and unlike most others. He spoke and demonstrated some creative brainstorming and reviewed his portfolio.

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Making Money with Web Skills

With Chris Coyier, Web Designer, Blogger, Author, Entrepreneur

Chris Coyier has lots of experience in monetizing the web, whether its advertising on his highly successful blog, CSS-Tricks, his independently published book, Digging into Wordpress, his full-time Web Designer gig, or his entrepreneur adventures. This is the second year Chris has joined the class and is always willing to be candid and honest about how he makes money as a web designer. If you're an web entrepreneur or business savvy this is a must see.

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Interview with Dan Philibin and Michael Castilla

With Dan Philibin and Michael Castilla, Students / Entreprenuers of WPCoder

There are two young web professionals I've been watching for the past two years, they are Dan Philibin and Michael Castilla. I came across them after seeing WPCoder, a business they run together for marking up mock ups into Wordpress themes. I was astounded to find that these two guys are a mere sophomore (Dan) and senior (Michael) in high school. Read those last two words again, I said HIGH SCHOOL. I see adults struggle with some of the things these guys are doing. I knew they had to speak to my students and we've been trying for a year to get them to Skype in but since they have school all day it's been difficult.

We set up a live Interview where we picked their brains about how they've learned, what's possible, and their future plans. These two guys are truly amazing and the work they are producing is well above their age bracket. It was inspiring to have them and good for my students to see what is possible, despite age.

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The Making of a Big Idea

With Nclud, Creative Web Design Agency

The Nclud team including Martin Ringlein, Dan Drinkard, Lauren Moon, and David Desandro spoke about the phases of web development. How to take something from a pure conceptual level to a completed project. Throughout they used a recent project, Gdzlla, as an example of the process which demonstrated their sexy design skills and quick turn around. Additionally, as with all of their work they shared how their tight attention to detail, or the small things, is what makes them stand out, an example.

Nclud's real attitude and willingness to give the straight dope on their work makes this a great presentation. You can download the slidedeck on their site.

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Web Accessibility Fundamentals

With Jared Smith, Associate Director

Jared Smith brought a wealth of Accessibility experience to the classroom via Skype™. With a cool new screen sharing feature in Skype™ we watched his slides from his computer.

In this presentation Jared shared some common web accessibility considerations and opened the eyes of these young people in regard to impairments. It was a solid fundamental approach to accessibility with insights for both the noob and experienced.

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Start at FAIL: Steps Along a Meandering Career Path

With J. Nicholas Tolson, Entrepreneur

How does graduating high school lead to becoming a web developer? Whats the path I should follow? What does that path look like?

Freelancer, J. Nicholas Tolson answered all of these questions and more with his inspirational discussion on his personal career path. He emphasized the non-linear path he followed and how that is just fine, all without a projector or slideshow. He also touched on how youth can be seen as a obstacle but really is empowerment, you'll have to watch to find out how he drove this point home. Nicholas ended his presentation with a gift. A passionate storyteller and good quality points shared, leaving the students feeling powerful.

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A Lesson in Vocabulary

With Jason Leveille, Web Developer at Blue Atlas Interactive

Jason Leveille is a reformed High School Web Design teacher. For approximately 8 years he taught at Quince Orchard HS in Montgomery County. The web developer bug bit him, hard, so hard in fact that he left teaching to explore the field full time. He now works as a web developer at Blue Atlas Interactive in Germantown, MD. Jason is one of those people that takes a book home on Friday and can use, explain, and understand the contents by Monday, which makes people like me jealous.

I mention this because his presentation was based around the overarching concepts young web designers and developers won't really understand until they have years of experience. As a seasoned vet he spoke about how to continue to learn, problem solving skills, and evaluating failures and successes.

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Is Your Website Accessible?

With John F. Croston III, Web Content Accessibility Manager for the US Army

John Croston is the accessibility guru. He manages old and new content on the United States Army sites ensuring that blind and disabled users can use the site(s) effectively. After a brief overview of accessibility, John ran through some common mistakes people make and the relatively easy fixes for them. If you know what Accessibility is, but want to do more than just add alt attributes to your images and titles to your links then this is a great watch.

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Becoming the Compleat Web Professional

With M. Jackson Wilkinson, Strategist for Viget Labs

Who better to kick off this year and this podcast series than one of our most faithful visitors. For the past 3 years M. Jackson Wilkinson, Strategist at Viget Labs, has been visiting and speaking with the students at Damascus. In his presentation, Jackson talks about the qualities an up and coming web professional should have with a surprising twist at the end. Something great not only for students but also web educators.

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