As every year at this time, our Design & Consult team set off again to visit the design and web development conference “beyond tellerrand” in Berlin. This conference was very inspiring for us, as many interesting speakers from different areas gave very informative presentations. The special thing about this conference is not only the array of lectures, but also the strong connection to the community as well as the familiar atmosphere. Also unique were the generous breaks between the individual talks to allow visitors social contact with others and to create space for interesting conversations and discussions.
Where does the internet come from?
When we arrived at the conference hall, the event was ready to take off. We were waiting for two days full of interesting presentations about different topics. Jeremy Keith, web developer and writer, started the first day with a lecture about “The Layers of the Web”. He talked about the original idea of the World Wide Web, and how the framework of technology behind the internet works. If you’re interested, you can watch the video of the presentation here.
Jeremy Keith’s talk was followed by further lectures on topics such as:
- Interactive web animation with SVG (by Cassie Evans)
- Conversational Semantics (by Aaron Gustafson)
- On Finding Purpose (by Burton Rast)
- Headbuilder (by Wilfrid Wood)
- The Story of You (by Mike Hill)
All these lectures were inspiring and interesting in their own way. One lecture dealt with the topic of barrier-free operation of a website for visually impaired people, whereas another was about interactive web animations using SVG graphics. But also motivating lectures such as the crazy, long lasting and nevertheless very successful career phase of Burton Rast were not too scarce. After the talks of the first day had come to an end, we enjoyed a team dinner, and then fell into our beds with many positive impressions.
Seb Lester’s mind-blowing calligraphy
Also the second day of beyond tellerrand was filled with many exciting content. Natalya Shelburne started the second day with a talk about how developers and designers can work together more closely in the future to achieve better results in their work, and to work more productively. Click here for the video of the presentation.
The talk by Natalya Shelburne was followed by lectures on the following topics:
- Taking The Web Off The Screen (by Charlotte Dann)
- Talking Genitals and the Oldest Women in the World (by Anna Ginsburg)
- Dynamic Typography with Variable Fonts (by Jason Pamenthal)
- Peace, Hellfire & Unicorns (by Seb Lester)
- CSS at the Intersection (by Natalya Shelburne)
- Engaging Empathy (by Sharon Steed)
Also on this day we could take something for ourselves from almost every lecture, and in addition there was much positive food for thought. But my personal favorite was Seb Lester’s talk. He is a well-known type designer and talked about how he started designing fonts out of passion. Over time, he saw his own fonts more and more in the public and ended up designing for big companies such as H&M, Intel, Nike, Apple, The New York Times, and many more.
His two biggest projects were designing a logo for a NASA space mission as well as a font for the Winter Olympics 2010 in Vancouver. However, Seb Lester is not only known for his fonts. His calligraphic arts are also popular around the world. On his Instagram profile over a million followers watch him inspire his art.
Summary
The visit of beyond tellerrand was worthwhile in every respect. Even if a single talk didn’t appeal to you personally, the following one was all the more exciting. There was a balance between lectures on web development, design, art, and motivating stories. The conference provided much food for thought and opened up new ways to be even more productive in the team, and to work more efficiently and happily overall. Definitely this was not the last beyond tellerrand for us!
If this article made you curious you can watch the videos of the different talks here.
All photos were made by Florian Ziegler.
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