21: Semi Permanent 2008

Got on a plane to Sydney last Thursday to attend my first Semi Permanent design event. Despite the fact that I am now broke, plus long delays at the airport and feeling unwell on my way up to Sydney, overall I'm really glad that I decided to go.

Semi Permanent was an excellent source of inspiration for me. It was interesting to hear these speakers - who are at the top of their respective fields - share with everyone their experience and expertise that they have gained getting to that position. I especially found it fascinating to see the variety of techniques/styles that were explored and the different methods they used to in approaching their art/designs.

So the conference consisted of the speakers partly talking about how they went about doing their work, the thought processes behind their work and mostly showcases of their work. These are a few brief memorable points from the event that I particularly liked.

Day 1:
Life Lounge mentioned an interesting philosophy of theirs about the using the Cheap/Good/Fast pricing structure when trying to price a job. Choose only two of the three things mentioned and that is how you should price your job based on those things. For example, if a client wants a good product fast, obviously you will charge a lot more. If a client wants a good product for cheap, chances are it’s not going to be fast. If a client wants a fast product for cheap then chances are it is not going to be good. Prices should be based around this structure.
What I really liked about Debaser was the fact that they actually made models of or recreated actual scenes instead of just using and relying on Photoshop. The swamp was bloody awesome!
Oh, and Sixty40 were awesome too! Another presentation that I found myself really captivated by was by the speaker, Spencer Platt. His photographs are confronting, yet disturbingly beautiful. I liked how he described photographs in comparison to the moving image as being like semicolons within a sentence; they force you stop, step back and take a breathe.

Day 2:
It was really nice to learn about the background of the speaker, Alex Trochut. Seeing his grandfather's modular system, sketches and experimentations was really interesting. You could really see how much his grandfather had played a huge influence in his life and how he drew upon what he learned from his grandfather in his practice. Alex's work is just insane, especially the Nike 'Momentum' poster he did. I actually learned a lot from his presentation, in regards to process and methods of working. I liked how he said that each time he works, he draws upon things he had learned from other projects; they are all interrelated. Gradually you build upon these skills, which will then lead you to new projects that enable you to use what you have learned. Another outstanding speaker, was Pixar's Andrew Gordon. But that was already expected. It was amazing seeing the amount of research that goes into making a film. I found it particularly interesting to hear about how Pixar functioned as a team. He mentioned how they don't intentionally choose anyone to be the 'leader' of a particular character. Naturally, the person who becomes the unofficial leader of the character can be seen by the amount of work they put into the character. I also wonder how Toy Story 3 will turn out...

Conclusion:
About 10 of the 12 speakers, I found to be truly inspiring. I have narrowed down my favorite speakers to Alex Trochut and Pixar. Overall, it was extremely entertaining, and the work was just totally unreal and inspirational. Now that I've thought it over and blogged about it, I would give the 2 day conference a good 8/10. Hopefully I'll be attending again next year.