Day One of An Event Apart in DC

Yesterday I was given the opportunity to attend day one of An Event Apart in DC because the lovely people who organized the event allowed me to make up the second day of last year I couldn’t attend. I picked day one for this year’s event because I wanted to hear Jonathan Hoefler’s presentation on web typography.

Hoefler made the case that he didn’t like the phrase “Fonts on the web.” He prefers, “Fonts for the web.” The main different is that web font is a new creation rather than taking existing fonts and put them on the web. Hoefler went on to explain and demo how he and his designers reworked their fonts to solve problems specifically for the web. They focused on making types clear on screen and extending their family and features for multipurpose usage. Hoefler also showed off the tool they built in house to allow their designers to see how the fonts render natively in the browser. After seeing the works that go into their web fonts, I wish I could have a subscription to its cloud typography.

While Hoefler’s talk was eye-opening, Whitney Hess’ was inspiring. I could definitely related to the struggle of being presence: Get distracted easily, find themselves easily irritated and feel imbalance in their work life, health and family. As I am listening to her presentation, I kept thinking to myself that I need to be better at being presence. I need to turn off all electric devices after work and being presence when I am with the kids. I made the change immediately yesterday.

Another engaging presentation was from UX expert Jared Spool. He was such a smart speaker. I wish I could go to his new school and learn just a bit of his skills on UX strategy, but I don’t have $60,000 and two-year commitment. On top of that, I have a family to feed.

Jeffrey Zeldman, Luke Wroblewski and Josh Clark were all great. I was glad that I sat right on the first row, kept my laptop closed and my eyes and ears opened.