Coding Takes ClemsonGC Students to FEDC 2016

August 22, 2016

Written by: Bekah Shaffer, Melissa Thompson, & Kelsey Worthington

Networking:
The empowerment we felt attending Front End Design Conference was incredible. We had so many opportunities to learn from and interact with leaders in the industry. After each day packed with experienced speakers, we had the chance to attend networking events where we could connect with people in the industry, from freelancers to agency employees to Ethan Marcotte, who coined “responsive design.” The passion of the designers and developers at the conference was infectious, and we began every day excited to learn and grow together as an industry. Everyone that we met was encouraging and eager to advise us and answer all of our questions. For any students on the fence about attending this event, the sense of community in the industry and the knowledge you’ll gain is absolutely worth it.

Day 1:
We began the conference facing a star-studded lineup of speakers, well, star-studded to us web nerds. Matt Griffin, Smith Schwartz, and Sam Kapila spoke before lunch then after a break for food and socialization, Samantha Warren, Rachel Smith, and Aaron Draplin brought day one to a close. The topics each speaker covered varied from more technical topics like SASS and Javascript libraries to more inspirational topics like collaboration and maintaining a balance between work and life. One of my favorite things shared was during Samantha Warren’s presentation and it’s a video called “The Gap.” I highly recommend watching it—regardless of your age, gender, or profession. Another thing that I loved about day one was that many of the speakers emphasized the importance of using research to support design decisions—a topic that we covered in one of the workshops the previous day. For me, although I identify as a “creative” and “designer,” I am still highly analytical and always wanting to know the why of things. Research and testing supply that “why” and it’s something that I never really thought of in terms of web design before this conference.

Day 2:
We were just as excited for Day 2 as we were for Day 1 and the speakers didn’t disappoint. The day started out with the ever so great Ron Edelen, Ethan Marcotte, and Doug Neiner. There was a lot to think about after these awesome speakers so we took a lunch break around downtown St. Pete then came back to hear our final speakers: Greg Rewis, Amanda Cheung, and Tiago Garcia. My favorite speaker of the day had to be Ron Edelen because he spoke about a topic that I had never really paid too much attention to: Motion Design. What I really enjoyed about it was that he broke down the best practices for a great UX when incorporating motion. The timing of each motion is also so very important and can really make or break the UX. I also really enjoyed Greg Rewis’ presentation on Flexbox and how incredibly simple it is to use. I definitely see myself using flexbox, something I knew nothing about until this conference, in the near future. At the end of the day, closing keynote, Carl Smith, wrapped everything up so nicely with a little story about his life and where he is in the world today.