This is my talk from Config, @figmadesign’s first conference. It’s 20 minutes on typography, keyboards, weird bugs, and complexities of building anything that deals with fonts.
I’m happy with how this turned out, and I think you’ll like it:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVD-sjtFoEI …
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The first one was sound. A very simple one – a sound of a keystroke – but I think it helped in making the issue easier to understand (particularly when ⌘B was failing), and it also felt like a fun little aural signature of the whole talk. (I used it in title slides, also.)
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Also, at one point I went for a black side, with literally nothing on it. It was a deliberate pause, and also meant for the audience to have no choice but to look at me, at the moment when I had something (slightly) more personal to share.
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Lastly, I also asked a few A:B questions. Audience participation is tricky for me, and can feel a bit forced/cheesy – here I went for it in part so I could subvert it later in the talk, hoping it’d be funny.pic.twitter.com/hhkEORRyct
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Here a few other small, but intentional things. I really like when talks at one conference exist in a “shared universe.” My hope is that this makes things more fun for the audience – rewarding the presence and attention throughout the day.
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So, after seeing
@craigmod’s last slide going missing during his morning keynote, I asked him for it, and then incorporated it as a small joke at the end of my talk.pic.twitter.com/dQlJeO5H8F
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Also, after seeing
@zoink’s announcement of Twitter emoji library, I incorporated them into one of my slides.pic.twitter.com/xQ2xgOlvpF
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One experiment that I abandoned: After learning about two screens, I was hoping I could use them together to create a larger canvas… but later I learned that the physical setup meant a lot of people wouldn’t be able to see both at the same time.pic.twitter.com/qkHLgx7unf
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Lastly, I incorporated an inside joke of Flippy – our internal rogue mascot I’m probably not supposed to talk about. Flippy’s tragic (as usual) fate was that he got obscured by closed captioning, but now you know he was there all along!pic.twitter.com/moTlYid0SA
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And! This is my Figma file with final slides and prior explorations. Since I do my slide decks in HTML, not everything will be here – but you can see earlier takes, and designs, and tracks I eventually abandoned.https://www.figma.com/file/0FXwfvMCyjNPFR1PiKn5Iy/Config-2020-final-slides …
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The funniest thing: The person who reported that bug was my friend
@kowitz (probably not knowing that I even work at Figma) – and he was also in the audience during the talk. :·)https://twitter.com/kowitz/status/1225554793076117504 …
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And, by the way. If you like that kind of stuff – as a designer, or as an engineer – come work with me:https://www.figma.com/careers/
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(Also, huge thanks to
@carmeldea,@nikolasklein, and@cristentor for their fantastic feedback that made the talk much better than it otherwise would end up being.)Show this thread
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