Jessica Walsh is a multi-disciplinary designer & art director and a partner at the New York based design studio Sagmeister & Walsh. In this session, she will talk about the role of play in her work today and how it was the foundation of her career. She will touch on the importance of play in society and how it can benefit all of our lives.

We exist in a world of lazy looking and liking. Let’s slow down and figure out why we like what we like and figure out what is truly important to us—not just stuff we think is cool looking. Once we understand more about our own perspectives on the world, we can then learn to focus on projects that we can really believe in.

Kate will discuss five meaningful things that have impacted the way that she has worked, is working, and how she aspires to work. She will inspire you to think about the objects, images and experiences that influenced them along the way, and teach you how to take a more thoughtful approach to your work.

Since the early days of the web, the only reliable way to get movement on your site was through Flash, or more recently, Javascript. But now, with WebKit and Mozilla leading the way and Internet Explorer even joining the game, transformations and transitions can be done with pure CSS. And for those in need of even more movement, CSS3 provides for keyframe-based animations, even on mobile devices! In this session, we’ll take a look at all of the possibilities and explore what works and where – from the simplest effects, to creative usability enhancements and animated eye-candy!

Consumers have more tools than Hollywood to create and share their loves, hates and opinions about your brand. Learn ways to take a proactive approach to listening and building an engaging strategy that forms two-way conversations with your best customers.

Is it okay to friend your boss? Can an email mistake jeopardize your career? More and more, creative professionals are communicating with their teammates, clients and freelancers via online tools. And there are many gray areas when it comes to interacting with others in the digital age. Join Donna Farrugia for these useful tips:
· guidelines on digital protocols in the workplace
· dos and don’ts of using online collaboration tools
· tips for managing your social networks in just five minutes a day
· advice on how your social networking style may be impacting your career prospects

As the web evolves and specs mature, the number of time- and bandwidth-saving techniques available to use today has rapidly increased. It’s enough to make your head spin! Is it worth taking the leap, adapting your workflow and beginning to take advantage of these features now? The more CSS3 you use to enhance your design, the more performant your sites will be. In this practical, design-focused talk, Stephanie will discuss the “why” while demonstrating techniques that save bandwidth; reduce http requests; increase performance, SEO and accessibility; as well as make your sites faster and easier to maintain. The importance of these advantages continues to grow as consumers adopt more mobile technology. Don’t let your skills become extinct—evolve!

History tends to define good design. Here, we’ll explore the trajectory of the Container Corporation of America, a century-old corporation that has set a strong precedent for in-house design internationally. From the World Geographic Atlas to the Aspen Design Summit, the CCA designed an ideal in-house environment. They hired designers from the Dadaist Man Ray to the Bauhaus’ Herbert Bayer and managed to change the world project-by-project. Chairman Walter Paepcke championed this methodology saying, “We believe that a company may occasionally step outside of its recognized field of operations in an effort to contribute modestly to the realms of education and good taste.” Attend this session to brush up on your design history and be inspired to lead your creative department to new heights.

In this session, you will learn key principles you can use to create great content for your organization everyday. Scott will be sharing examples of great storytelling along with case studies of companies who get it right. His talk will include excerpts from the children’s tale “Little Red Riding Hood”, and he will share a handfull of videos you’re sure to love.

Learn how to create a portfolio that attracts and keeps a hiring manager’s attention. In this presentation, you’ll discover how to showcase your particular brand of talent, present your work effectively and create a compelling online portfolio. You’ll even get tips for presenting your work to different types of hiring managers.

You make hundreds of choices every day — big choices and small choices, hard choices and easy choices, personal choices and work choices. In this closing keynote, popular author and speaker Sam Harrison will talk about how each of these choices takes you closer to creativity or moves you farther away from fresh ideas. He’ll showcase the power of making smart choices each day to live and breathe an imaginative, creative life. As Sam says, you make your choices and then your choices make you. So choose to be part of this fun, inspiring session to ignite your creativity as you celebrate Phoenix Design Week 2012.

House Industries is known throughout the world for its eclectic typeface collections, elaborate design work and far-reaching exploits into products, textiles and furniture. Through a synthesis of original elements and carefully-curated collaborations, House Industries choreographs visually tactile experiences. Their work is defined by a timeless authenticity that is only achieved with rare aestheticism, meticulously-honed fundamental skills and a genuine love for their subject matter.

A presentation about the improbable, impractical, irrational but generative, affirming, and essential importance of not only experiencing creativity, but also then talking and writing about it. As an imaginative discipline in its own right, graphic design is overdue for an unrepentantly absurd, sense-crossing, tangential, and celebratory literary indulgence. This is the start.

Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, designers are in the business of shaping human behavior and perception. But until you learn to read minds, getting the design outcomes you want will remain a tricky thing.
This presentation will help you turn the outside-in approach to designing perceptions, inside-out.

As large-format graphics continually play a major role in almost every campaign, this session will explore all of the new and most popular forms of large-format graphics as well as a hands on look at managing viewable distance, resolution and color expectations with the latest digital technology.

The purpose of this playful presentation is quite serious: to unleash the powerful potential of your mind and body for collaborative creative thinking. Experience what it’s like to tap into your senses and practice new techniques for generating ideas. You will have the chance to explore how your senses can catalyze childlike wonder and lead you down paths of connective creative thinking. Attendees will learn, firsthand, about a number of tools and activities that can be applied to an array of challenges during group and individual ideation. When you move beyond words during brainstorming you will be amazed at where your mind goes.

Attend this panel-style discussion to learn the importance of integrating well-executed design aspects into Public Relations plans and vice versa. Discover how thoughtful plans of exposure and self-marketing can enhance the work of graphic designers to get the public to recognize and interact with their work. Through this session, designers and PR Professionals will understand the importance of each other’s roles and learn how successful campaigns can elevate the product of both parties.

Usability testing can sometimes feel like burdensome task that you don’t have the time or resources to complete. Join Cindi Farmer for a dynamic session during which you will learn how to engage in practical usability testing that will benefit your team and improve the product/experience that you are creating.

Designers are a funny type of polyglot. They are in possession of learning and understanding how to communicate with a multitude of professions, wrapping their content up into a varieties of visual languages. Opara will talk about present and future based projects that use the language of information graphics systems as an infrastructure to tell many stories on various subject matters.