HOW Design Live: I cared the most.

Upon return, I get asked, What was the best part of the conference?

I recently attended the HOWDesign Live conference in Boston, which I look forward to every year after the INFORMS Analytics conference, as a chance to take a breath and refill the creative well. 

This year, I swear HOW bugged my office. The opening keynote, Susan Cain, talked about introverts. I went to sessions on marketing and data. Nick Law shared the idea of story as an interface. Giorgina Lupi showed how data visualization can elicit empathy. The average doesn’t exist, so don’t design for it. The science of timing can help optimize your day to be more productive, creative, and awesome, courtesy of Daniel Pink. 

And how to create boundaries and balance. I’m not sure how this one is going to go, but I really needed to hear it. How can we do our best work when we are spread a molecule thin? How can we let go when clients don’t follow the rules?

Storytelling, data, boundaries, authenticity. All of these made an impact, but the one high level takeaway can be illustrated by the slides that Sagi Haviv shared in his “Things I Learned from Ivan Chermayeff” talk. Designers are all the same. We all face the same challenges, from ‘make the logo bigger’ to ‘I don’t like it.’ We’ve all presented an idea to a client that has been rejected, only to have it wind up being the final after many rounds of crit. This realization helps when you have put your heart and soul into a piece, only to hear “Don’t you think it would be better if you…?” 

And we all care. A lot.