Like Obama for Web Design
This evening, I had the pleasure of hearing friend and colleague Tyler Sticka speak at DevGroup NW, a Portland-based Adobe User Group that, among other things, sponsors the Portland Web Visions conference. Tyler's presentation, aptly titled This is Not a Graphic Design, focused on the Web as a media revolution—not simply an extension of Graphic Design into a distributed model, but a much larger and more universal medium than has come before.
The crowd was larger than I had expected and many were genuinely intrigued by this separation of the Web into its own realm. A couple sitting in front of me passed a notebook back and forth, jotting down endless references: "Accessibility!", "SIFR", and even "LCD Soundsystem". Other notepads were a-flurry, and several eyes were literally glued (well, enough that my staring at them had no effect on their attention).
As the presentation delved deeper, starting from the beginnings of photography, through radio and television, and a host of other revolutions, Tyler was truly enjoying the experience, as were we the listeners. Around the half-way point, we were stopped to participate in a Shooter (as in gun) Drill, where we locked the doors, and sat quietly, making sure no one could hear us from beyond the room; this while the projected slide sat lit against the screen, featuring a screaming woman pulling her hair out over her Web browser options, which stood ominously above her. As the lights sprung to life, so did Tyler, with a joke and continuation into, what I've dubbed, the Why-Having-Multiple-Browsers-Doesn't-Suck section.
Following the hour long presentation, I was surprised to see the questions people were posing. Living in the world of passionate Web developers as I do, I often forget that Web Standards, accessibility, layout, and typography are still rather new concepts. Many solid, helpful questions were asked and answered: "How does SIFR fit into Web Standards?", because it uses unobtrusive JavaScript and Flash; "What's this MovableType?", simply a Content Management system, along with WordPress (good) and Joomla (bad); "I love accessibility, can Flash be accessible?", lean on Flash when it solves a problem Flash should solve, lean on HTML/CSS/JavaScript otherwise.
I took only one note through the entire event (not to say I didn't learn anything, I just forgot I had my notepad): He's like Obama for the Web. While he may not be campaigning for President of the World Wide Web Consortium, he is certainly proclaiming change—a change towards Standards, a change to how Typography is handled on the Web, and change for the overall good of the Web. Which, most certainly, is not a graphic design.