Sessions at Build 2011 on Thursday 10th November

In this presentation we consider deeply rooted notions of craftsmanship, to revive a long-standing model for learning centered upon the relationship between the master and the apprentice. This model, predicated on a deep understanding of the importance of craft and its values, foregrounds the need to develop a rounded person – in short, to craft an individual. We consider the journey one takes from apprentice to master paying particular emphasis to the notion of the journeyman – or ‘geselle’ – a practitioner learning from many masters, shaping their future as they aspire towards the position of ‘master craftsman’.

The Standardistas are lecturers in interactive design at the University of Ulster at Belfast where they have been active in promoting a web standards-based curriculum for almost a decade. In addition to being practicing designers and digital artists, Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson are also the authors of the seminal beginners guide “HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions: A Web Standardistas’ Approach”, have had their work featured in a variety of design books and magazines and are regular speakers at conferences and workshops worldwide.

It’s easy to get so caught up in theory and process that we forget that design is about relationships. It’s not about Photoshop comps or bytes of code. It’s about people. And content. And, especially today, their devices. It’s about the interplay between content and form, between real-time data and how, when and why we share and consume it. It’s about enabling connections where they couldn’t have existed before. It’s about focusing on creating experiences that are more meaningful, more delightful, and ultimately, more human.

Josh Brewer is a San Francisco-based designer with a passion for beautiful, usable products—spending his time thinking about, designing and building things that live at the intersection of form, function & aesthetic. Josh was the former Director of UX at Socialcast.com but is presently part of the incredible design team at Twitter, and is one of the co-creators behind usability blog 52 Weeks Of UX.

Great design is born from nourishing habits. The best designer is an aware designer. The best design solutions are found by deconstructing problems as they arise in our own lives. What habits can we as designers form to provide us with a more objective clarity in answering these problems? How can we apply these solutions to existing products? When is it time to build new products? There is an intersection between the cultivation of habit, personal experience and design application – it is nourishing and magic and something we should all strive to evoke.

Craig Mod is a writer, designer, publisher and developer concerned with the future of publishing & storytelling. He is co-author and designer of Art Space Tokyo, an intimate guide to the Tokyo art world. He is also co-founding editor and engineer behind TPUTH.com, co-founder and developer of the storytelling project Hitotoki, and frequent collaborator with Information Architects, Japan. He’s lived in Tokyo for almost a decade and speaks frequently on the future of books and media.

“We shape our tools and our tools shape us.” As more of the tools we live with every day become digital instead of physical, our opportunity – and responsibility – as designers is multiplying. We live in a world of screens, and we are the ones who decide what goes on them. We are in a unique position to have an impact – one that lasts longer than the next redesign or the latest technology. What happens when we stop thinking of ourselves not just as developers or experience designers, and take up the mantle as a new generation of product designers for a digital world?

Wilson Miner is a designer and web developer based in San Francisco. Currently the head of design for Rdio, a new social music service, Wilson has also previously been responsible for co-founding neighborhood news site EveryBlock, leading the first comprehensive redesign of Apple.com in more than 10 years during his time at Apple, and co-creating the original version of the Django web framework. Wilson is returning to Build after speaking at the first conference in 2009.

Achieving a thorough grasp of typography can take a lifetime, but moving beyond the basics is within your reach right now. In this talk, we’ll learn how to look at typefaces with a discerning eye, different approaches to typographic planning, how typography impacts the act of reading, and how to choose and combine appropriate typefaces from an aesthetic and technical point of view. Through an understanding of our design tools and how they relate to the web as a medium, we can empower ourselves to use type in meaningful and powerful ways.

Jason Santa Maria is a graphic designer living in sunny Brooklyn, New York. He is the current creative director of Typekit, a faculty member in the MFA Interaction Design program at SVA, the vice president of AIGA/NY, the founder of Typedia, and creative director for A List Apart. Jason is also the founder and principal of Mighty, a small studio focused on designing websites that maintain a balance of beauty and usability, where he has worked for clients such as AIGA, The Chicago Tribune, Miramax Films, NYSE, PBS, The United Nations, and WordPress.

Our communication methods have improved over time, from stone tablets, papyrus, and vellum through to the printing press and the World Wide Web. But while the web has democratised publishing, allowing anyone to share ideas with a global audience, it doesn’t appear to be the best medium for preserving our cultural resources: websites and documents disappear down the digital memory hole every day. This presentation will look at the scale of the problem and propose methods for tackling our collective data loss.

Creative people are usually deep thinkers, obsessively pursuing thorough lines of inquiry. Most of us shaping the web are no exception, each eager to learn, analyze, and share as we swim against an endless tide of information and opinion. To succeed we must understand our strengths, and develop an integrity by which we find our focus and measure our contribution. It’s not so much about a destination as it is about just doing. Join Simon as he takes stock of where we’re headed – both as an industry and as individuals – with stories designed to inspire and make us more optimistic about our roles in building the web.

Simon Collison is a web designer, author and speaker with over a decade of experience at the sharp end. Based in Nottingham UK, Simon co-founded Erskine Design in 2006, which he ran for over 4 years before his recent departure to return to freelancing—using some of his new-found freedom to organize the recent New Adventures conference and begin work on an ambitious new book.