Sure, there are times when you want to rip your hair out because of some technical glitch, and there are days that turn into weeks where you sleep very little and drink way too much coffee.

But the end result is always totally worth it. Despite the thrill of designing a site from conception to completion, it’s still nice to be recognized for a “job well done” every once in a while. It also doesn’t hurt to put your Webby Award on your resume either.

Here are some of the most prestigious web design awards to write home about.

Webby Awards

The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences’ Webby Awards have been around since 1996. It is perhaps the most hyped web design award of the year.

The Webbys get a lot of press from The New York Times, Wired, Elle, and The LA Times, not to mention 750 media impressions worldwide, so this is one exclusive awards ceremony you won’t want to miss.

Favourite Website Awards (FWA)

Since 2000, the Favourite Website Awards (FWA) has judged websites for design, navigation, graphics, content, and personality. Previous winners have called this event “The Web Oscars” and “The Holy Grail of Web Awards.”

You’ll gain exposure under the “Recent Sites of the Day” thumbnails on their homepage. Compete to win “Site of the Year,” as determined by judges, as well as the “People’s Choice Award,” decided by online public vote.

WebAwards

The Web Marketing Association has been running the WebAwards program since 1997. You’ll compete in 96 industry categories, from advertising and architecture to travel and universities.

Each entry is judged based on design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity, copywriting, and ease of use.

Design & Ad Awards (D&AD)

The Design & Ad Awards began in 1962 and is considered an elite troupe. The judges are not at all bashful about calling themselves “picky.” Imagine a board full of Simon Cowells assessing your work.

If you are one of the lucky winners, then you have made it into the true ranks of excellence. If you are really lucky, then you may win the golden pencil or the ever-so-coveted black pencil.

Clio Awards

What’s not to love about the Clios? Not only do you receive a lovely statue, but you get the prestige of knowing you smoked the competition in one of the biggest award programs of its kind.

The Clios primarily focus on excellence in design and advertising, but the “Interactive” category covers web design. More than 100 judges from 60 different countries will judge your work, but… no pressure!

Addy Awards

The American Advertising Federation is huge! Every year, over 40,000 people compete for this prestigious award, which includes not only website design but also TV campaigns, brochures, magazine campaigns, posters, and packaging.

Keep This In Mind…

It’s important to remember that nothing in life is free. You will need to pay a fee to enter your web design into all these competitions, so…

1. You’d better have a top-notch website
2. You’ll need to choose your award programs wisely
3. You should be prepared to shell out even more cash should you win, at which point you may need to pay for your award or your trip to the winners’ ceremony.

It may sound like a rocket, but it’s the nature of the beast. No guts, no glory!

The post The Prestigious Web Design Awards Worth Striving For appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Personally, I tend to prefer WordCamps over other types of events. The laid-back atmosphere and very reasonable cost attract a diverse group of both users and developers. I find it to be a fun experience. And who couldn’t use a free t-shirt or two?

But regardless of the event you want to attend, you should have some basic criteria for making the right choice. Events don’t always live up to their billing. So, it’s wise to temper any dreams of life-changing moments.

Still, the right conference can benefit you both professionally and personally. With that in mind, here are some things to consider before you buy that ticket.

Opportunities to Learn

Education should be one of the main selling points for attending a conference. Therefore, it’s important to look over the list of speakers and the subject of their presentations. Find things that interest you, even if you don’t know a whole lot about them.

Don’t be afraid of subjects that may be over your head. You can still pick up some useful tidbits of information during a talk. That knowledge can actually be a great way to spark further curiosity. This could encourage you to take the next step in the learning process.

Presentations can be especially worthwhile if they are interactive. For example, a talk that makes time for a question and answer session expands on the topic being discussed. Sometimes, you end up learning more from a follow-up question than you do from the more formal parts of the talk.

Lastly, if there are multiple presentations you want to attend, make sure you can fit as many as possible into your schedule. Bigger conferences tend to have multiple, concurrent sessions. If everything that interests you is happening at the same time, you’ll have to make some tough decisions.

Costs and Travel

Determining your own idea of a “fair cost” for a conference is more than just looking at a number. It’s also a matter of comparing the price to what you believe you’ll gain from the experience.

For instance, if you’re looking for employment, you may be more likely to spend extra to attend an event that will have lots of potential employers on site. Or, the possibility of learning a new money-making skill could also be worth a premium.

On the other hand, an expensive event that seems like a glorified sales pitch could be worth avoiding. There will always be salespeople, but commerce alone shouldn’t be the main focus.

Some conferences, like the aforementioned WordCamp, are incredibly affordable. In that way, cost really isn’t much of a factor – unless a lot of travel is involved.

Speaking of travel, it is often a matter of convenience. How far are you willing to go to attend a conference? Will you have to miss any work time? The costs of getting (and potentially staying) there should also be a factor in your decision.

Networking Possibilities

Maybe “networking” isn’t the right word. Depending on your personality, just the mere mention of it can make you cringe. But it is something to think about with regards to a design conference.

Ideally, you’ll do best at an event where at least some of the attendees come from similar work disciplines. That way, you can talk shop with others who’ve had similar experiences.

However, there is also a benefit in being around people with a mix of specialties and experience levels. It often makes for more interesting conversation. And there is an opportunity to learn about the challenges that others face. It can be eye-opening.

If you’re a front-end designer, starting up a conversation with a developer can be a real learning experience. Finding out, for example, what techniques developers use could positively affect your design work – and vice-versa.

Overall, think about the target audience for the event and how it lines up with your interests. The crowd is often just as important as the presentations.

Have Fun!

Web designers often spend long hours toiling away at their desks (not to mention those after-hours emails). Therefore, a conference provides us with a chance to relax and have a little fun.

Learning skills and meeting people are core parts of the experience. But it works best in an atmosphere that is light and casual. The last thing you want is to end up in a place that makes everything feel like work.

If you look around, you’ll find that there are plenty of design-related conferences to choose from. Here’s hoping that the one you choose turns out to be both fun and educational.

The post How to Choose the Right Web Design Conference appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Many of these conferences are private, but there are quite a few that release their presentations online. You can browse these keynotes on YouTube and find hours of information at your fingertips.

I’ve listed my personal favorites below. They cover modern CSS, Sass and the future of the language. Take a peek over this list and be sure to bookmark any videos that catch your eye.

1. The Future of CSS

Aptly named The Future of CSS, this talk was given by Guil Hernandez at the CSSconf Europe event in 2017. It paints a clear picture of where CSS is moving and what developers can expect in the coming years.

Topics include more advanced properties like color manipulation and even custom CSS properties. Nobody really knows when major advancements will be released. But there’s always a push for the web to move beyond its current state.

Developers need to keep up with these changes and adjust their typical workflows. The more you can work around modern CSS, the easier it’ll be to adapt.

2. Let’s Build a CSS Game

Here’s another fantastic talk given at CSSconf, this one by Una Kravets. She covers a CSS game process, where viewers can follow along and build a custom CSS game from scratch. Pretty cool!

It’s rare to find such interactive talks, but they do exist. This one is probably my favorite because it’s so new and fresh – not to mention the topic is superb. I’m a big fan of experimental CSS and this presentation takes the cake.

Note that this runs for about 30 minutes and does use Sass as a preprocessor. So it helps if you’re already familiar with the language before watching.

3. Houdini: Demystifying the Future of CSS

Developer Das Surma wrote a lengthy blog post on Houdini a few years back. This eventually led to his talk, Houdini: Demystifying the Future of CSS, given at the Google I/O conference in 2016.

The goal of Houdini is to create certain specs, called a set of drafts, which would expose parts of the CSS language to the developer.

It’s a huge undertaking with the combined power of Mozilla, Google, HP and many other tech companies.

I find the video easy to consume, but it’s not meant solely for beginners. This is a solid intro to the concepts of Houdini for CSS.

And if you’re hoping to learn more about this topic, have a look at these related links:

• Houdini Drafts
• Houdini Wiki
• Houdini: Maybe The Most Exciting Development In CSS You’ve Never Heard Of

4. Make CSS Fun Again with Flexbox!

We all know about the magic of flexbox. It’s the newfangled way to structure pages, create grids and build responsive layouts without all those obnoxious breakpoint styles.

Make CSS Fun Again with Flexbox! is a talk from late 2016 given by Hubert Sablonnière. In this 30 minute presentation, Hubert covers some of the fundamental points of flexbox that make your job a lot easier.

You’ll learn how to vertically align content, how to organized fluid grids and generally what makes flexbox so awesome.

Yes, there are tons of videos already on this topic. But you can learn so much from this talk that presents flexbox in a unique light that I think it’s worth the watch.

5. Structuring and Organising SCSS Files

Sass feels like a gift from the developer gods. It makes coding a lot simpler and gives you so much control over your CSS files.

The trouble is that Sass files (SCSS) can get complicated. You’ll end up with tons of separate files, functions and so much clutter that it feels impossible to clean up. Thankfully Joel Pan has a solution with his talk, Structuring and Organising SCSS Files.

This comes from the Talk.CSS meetup event in Singapore, which is a pretty small gathering. This means the audience is pretty quiet and the video quality is great.

This makes for a nice watch for anyone who works with Sass and needs to do some spring cleaning.

6. The Power of CSS

Front-Trends 2017 is all about the power of frontend development. And The Power of CSS takes this idea to the next level with lots of little tips and demos built in pure CSS code.

The talk by Una Kravets uses a two-screen view: one from Una’s talk on stage and another screen displaying her slides along the way. You’ll learn about all the different @rules features, quick snippets for custom UI effects and some future ideas for CSS.

Ultimately, the goal is an accessible interface that looks great too. And Una knows how to walk that line perfectly.

7. A Modern Front-End Workflow

I’m all about productivity and finding a great workflow. This is how you get stuff done and move fast with new projects.

A Modern Front-End Workflow by Umar Hansa touches upon the major changes to frontend development in recent years. You’ll learn how newer tools like npm, Sass and Haml/Jade/Slim are changing the way we build websites.

This also covers debugging and solving problems with the newest tools at our disposal. The process of building websites has gotten a bit more complex – at least as a learning curve.

But once you get over that curve, you’ll have a powerhouse workflow that can’t be beat.

8. CSS Grid Layout

In this hour-long keynote, Rachel Andrew shares her thoughts on the newest CSS grid properties.

These are fairly new, but come with a good amount of browser support. And if you watch through the CSS Grid Layout presentation, you’ll get a strong primer from one of the industry’s most knowledgeable CSS developers.

I recommend this talk for semi-experienced devs who already know their way around CSS stylesheets. But if you feel comfortable pushing the limits of your knowledge, this is a great place to start.

9. Responsive Typography

Typography is just one aspect of responsive design – but it’s a big one. Your text needs to flow between mobile and desktop seamlessly with a brilliant experience the whole way through.

In Responsive Typography, speaker Zell Liew shares advice on structuring your pages for readability first. This goes beyond the basics like contrast and font choices to cover dynamic ideas like custom line heights, font pairings and margins between font sections.

Certainly worth a watch since it’s not a very long video and the ideas are quite forward-thinking.

10. Thinking Beyond “Scalable CSS”

At dotCSS 2014, Nicolas Gallagher gave a fantastic talk entitled Thinking Beyond “Scalable CSS”.

Nicolas is the original creator of the ever-popular Normalize.css, a powerful reset library that forces all browsers into the same defaults. He’s certainly a thought leader in the CSS space and this talk is worth a view.

He does mention Normalize, but the talk mostly discusses naming conventions and building stylesheets that can scale with your projects.

11. You Might Not Need A CSS Framework

Belen Albeza makes a compelling case for moving away from frameworks like Bootstrap. Yes, there’s a lot of great stuff you can use when building on a Bootstrap foundation.

But this 22-minute talk proves that there’s also plenty of reason to move away from that foundation. Not every project requires a bulky framework. And sometimes, it’s better to flex your CSS muscles by working from scratch.

All of these talks are worth checking out and they each bring something new to the table – including some great ideas.

Yet the only way to find out the future of CSS is to simply watch and wait.

The post 10 Talks & Presentations on the Future of CSS appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.