Swans on a Train - Observations from the Ordinary Everyday
Brendan Dawes, Creative Director for magneticNorth
Date: 8 Feb 08, 10.00am - 12.30pm
Cost: Free
Where: The Lighthouse
Description
Using examples from his latest book Analog In, Digital Out, Dawes explains some of the ways he finds inspiration from the seemingly mundane things he encounters in daily life. From train journeys and passengers on planes to parcels wrapped in brown paper and string, Dawes talks about how he believes these insights can help us to create better interaction design and, most importantly of all, a warmer more human centered approach to our relationship with technology.
Biography
Brendan Dawes is Creative Director for magneticNorth, an interactive design group based in Manchester, UK. Over the years he's helped to realise projects for a wide range of brands including Diesel, BBC, Fox Kids, Channel 4, Disney, Benetton, Kellogg's and Coca-Cola.
Ever since his first experiences with the humble ZX81 back in the early eighties, Brendan has continued to explore the interplay of people, code, design and art both in his role leading the team at mN and on brendandawes.com, a personal space where he publishes random thoughts, toys and projects created from an eclectic mix of digital and analog objects.
Brendan’s work has been featured in numerous journals including idN, Creative Review, MacUser, Computer Arts, Create, Wired, Eye, The Guardian, The Times and Communications Arts. He has also been featured in various books including "New Masters of Flash" (2000 Friends of Ed), "In Your Face Too - the best of interactive interface design", "Personal Websites", "The Digital Canvas" , as well as authoring "Drag Slide Fade - Flash Actionscript for Designers" in 2001. In October 2006 he published "Analog In, Digital Out" - an eclectic mix of anecdotes, observations and thoughts on technology and interaction design, inspired by the world around him.
Three of Brendan's most famous pieces of work are born from his on- going love affair with film. The Webby nominated "Psycho Studio", created in 1998, was one of the very first video editors created in Flash and allowed people to re-cut their own version of the infamous shower scene from Psycho. "Saul Bass on the Web" is an online homage to the father of film titles, the graphic design legend Saul Bass. "Cinema Redux" attempts to distill whole movies down to a single image using specially written software that samples a single frame of a movie every second. The Museum of Modern Art in New York will feature Cinema Redux as part of an exhibition running in 2008.
Brendan spends much of the year speaking at various conferences around the world which in the past have included the HOW Design Conference Chicago, Flashforward New York, New Media Age Congress London, South by Southwest Austin, Microsoft Research, Macromedia Web World Seattle, Art Directors Club of Spain, Madrid, Europrix Vienna, Voices that Matter San Francisco, Future of Web Design London, Internet World Los Angeles as well as various lectures in universities around the UK. He also sits on the advisory board for D&AD North.
To reserve a place contact Event Manager, Yvonne Kincaid at [email protected] ,call 0141 225 0103, or book now. Please note that places are limited and are allocated on a first come, first served basis.
