Front-end & design conference in Groningen
In 2014, an initiative has been set up to share knowledge between front-end developers and designers in the Dutch city of Groningen. Every two months there are meetups where speakers from all involved fields are given the opportunity to talk about a subject, a case or tooling / technique.
Due to growing interest in the meetups, the initiators decided to organize the first Refresh Conference in DOT. After a great success, this year's edition of the conference took place in Der Aa-kerk.
Der Aa-kerk
A great location with an interesting line-up. The schedule was set up with both international and regional topics about design (ethics) and front-end implementation of techniques. Many interesting examples were shown by the speakers.
Get inspired
One of the speakers that I found particularly inspiring was Aga Naplocha. She is both designer and coder. During the talk she showed many examples of different styles and (CSS) techniques, making clear that so much more is possible than the current 'standard' layout for websites. Think of examples such as collages, parallax effects and unusual grid-patterns.
Jeroen van Eerden also gave a very nice talk. He gave an insight into his way of logo design; how he became a logo designer, what he believes to be 'good' logos and his drive as a designer.
Inclusive design
Darice de Cuba spoke about making website accessible. Next to taking ARIA into consideration, Darice explained from personal experience how an improperly optimized website comes across to someone with a disability. Her examples and tips on how to apply small adjustments are of great value to every designer and developer.
{live:js}
Personally, I enjoyed the explanation about the Live.JS platform: a collaboration between artists who had made software (by means of Javascript) for live performances. The presentation was comprised of not only a live demo of the software, but also an explanation of the impact on the environment by traveling to different countries for performances. The initiators strive to eliminate just that negative impact by transferring knowledge to local artists so that they can now continue to perform in their own country.
On to the next edition
Throughout the day there were 12 talks. Despite the fact that it was a packed program, I felt that the day did not last too long. The set-up of the day (30-minute talks, enough breaks, good food & drinks) made me leave the church full of inspiration and a dose of motivation to put the learned 'tips & tricks' into practice. Next year I will definitely be there again!
By the way, there is no need to wait another year for new inspiration: the meet-ups will coninue as usual.
