With the end of the year rapidly approaching, and having just got back from 2008’s last speaking gig, I thought now would be a good to time to consolidate my presentations from all of the events I spoke at this year.

Future of Web Design – London, UK (April)

The first speaking event of the year was a particularly memorable one. On the day of the actual event, I got on stage with Andy, Jina, Jon, and Hannah and we undertook a ‘Photoshop Battle’ (which essentially involved a fair bit of piss-taking at the expense of poor Andy). After that, I presented a talk about taking influence from the world of print design, fueled by a bottle of 12% beer supplied by my notorious Belgian friend Tim van Damme. I also got to meet a lot of my online friends in the flesh for the first time, and the many parties were incredible. All in all: a bloody brilliant event.

• Title: Print Is The New Web
• Video: view on Vimeo
• Slides: view on Slideshare | download PDF
• Website: FOWD past events

On the second day of FOWD – coincidentally my last day at Carsonified – I gave a half-day workshop entitled Professional Photoshop Effects and was then taken out to a swanky lunch by my Spanish chum and favourite web designer Miguel Ripoll. More parties ensued, fireman hats were worn, the next day we moved flat, and a week later I’d left the country to live in Norway for two months. Crikey.

SkillSwap – Brighton, UK (August)

Refreshed from my Viking adventure and on the hunt for more villages to plunder, I presented a session at SkillSwap Brighton. This was my second SkillSwap, having appeared at the Bristol event last June, and I was once again joined on stage by a ClearLeft-er: that parallax-purveying gentleman of the web: Paul Annett (the Bristol event being with Andy). We both talked on the subject of fine details in web design, and I even managed to drop an Aphex Twin reference in there.

• Title: I Care Because You Do
• Slides: view on Slideshare | download PDF
• Website: SkillSwap goes pretty

Spletne Urice – Ljubljana, Slovenia (October)

We returned from Slovenia only last week, having been throughly looked after during a fantastic trip, escorted by Marko, Jernej, Marta, and various other fantastic people of the Slovenian interwebs. I spoke at Kiper Pipa (or ‘Cyber Pipe’), a venue doubling up as a computer museum, displaying some of the almost-forgotten relics of childhood, like the first Macs and tape-based game consoles. Very cool indeed.

Not only did we have a great time and get given Slovenian Absinthe, but I was also photographed by Marta, who took some great shots at the event and at other times. After that, I was interviewed for Blogorola magazine, and a translation will be coming soon…

• Title: Close Your Browser: Finding Inspiration In The Offline World
• Video: view on Viddler | download MP4
• Slides: view on Slideshare | download Social Media Soup
• Website: Spletne Urice

Web Developers Conference – Bristol, UK (October)

In contrast to the other events this year, I didn’t actually do a presentation at WDC and instead appeared on a panel called Working in the industry & loving the web. It was good fun and we got some interesting questions from the audience, mostly made up of students from the University of the West of England. It was so nice to get down to Bristol and briefly become part of the great web scene they have there. I’ll be back next year…

• Title: Working in the industry & loving the web (panel)
• Website: webdevconf.co.uk

Wrapping up

It looks like I achieved my goal of doing at least four gigs this year. Phew! I can’t wait to see what 2009 will bring (I already have four events planned in the first few months) and I’m really looking forward to seeing all of my friends from around the world that I usually only get to see at events!

Lastly, thank you so much to the event organisers for inviting me along and putting me up! :)

FOWD photo by Eamonn Murphy
SkillSwap photo by Natalie Downe
Spletne Urice photo and main illustration by Marta Lamovsek
WDC photo by Jon Tan