Toronto – modern, vibrant metropole with the CN Tower visible from every corner of the city. Atmospheric cafes and restaurants, skyscrapers and PATH – the maze of underground tunnels, where it is very easy to get lost. A city full of colors – fitting given that June is the month of LGBT festival, one of the biggest in the world. Very open, not judging, just fair and right.
With this feeling I have started my exiting adventure with SmashingConf.
What’s special about SmashingConf?
Balloons were launched to kick off the SmashingConf event.
The unique atmosphere of the conference was already perceptible at the very beginning of the event. Everybody was asked to inflate the balloons and in the same time put them into the air – in this magical way the SmashingConf in Toronto was opened.
The conference is like no other I’ve come across – speakers don’t present slides. It’s all about coming up with solutions to real-world programming problems. They show how they work in live interactive sessions, giving the opportunity to observe the setup of the presenters, witness techniques they have used and correct mistakes together with the audience. It also illustrates how complicated things can be done within 45min.
Organizers were also strongly advocating for the “pac-man rule”. I found this very thoughtful and personally could experience a very welcoming attitude from everybody.
The conference itself was fulfilled with many side events and activities: morning runs, graffiti/ photo walks or conference party – bowling evening. It all gave an opportunity for networking and getting to know better other people within the industry.
Oh and I couldn’t forget about the DJ – Tobi, who was mixing all the speeches during the breaks. It made the conference even more special.
Day 1
As there was one track of speakers, I could see all the speakers live in action, and I gathered some inspiration for future development.
| Speaker | Title |
| Brad Frost | Let’s Build a Design System |
| Sarah Drasner | Let’s Write a Vue App From Scratch |
| Phil Hawksworth | JAMStack: Silly Name. Serious Stuff. |
| Chris Gannon | Make It Move! Create a Web Animation From Scratch |
| Kristina Podnar | Help! I’m Your Ailing Website. The Digital Policy & Standards Rehab Hour |
| Steven Hoober | Authentic Digital Design By The Numbers |
Brad Frost in his talk has brought a lot of inspiration for all the people interested in the topic of design systems. Apparently building the design system might seem to be easier than it is in reality – “atomic” design mindset is useful. And what’s even more important: building design system through the lens of real products.
I found the speech from Jenny Shen to be broadening horizons. Building websites for global users is even more challenging than it has been before. Users need a product that acknowledges their unique cultural characteristics and business practices (so it’s no longer enough to simply offer a product translated in ten to twenty different languages) – and only then it increases trust and engagement.
Personally, I was the most impressed by the esteemed Sarah Drasner. Sarah took a step by step approach demonstrating how to build apps in Vue from scratch, using Nuxt.js, her own Vue snippet extension in VS Code, beautifully styled (with flex grid) and SVG animated – and all of that only during 45min!
Day 2
On day two dessert was served first. The most inspiring talk of the day was done by the mystery speaker: Seb Lester. Going through his life we could discover how even small details could make a difference and decide about big opportunities. The speech was not only very motivating but also very entertaining. A true genius.
“Passion from youth can be the fire that fuels your career” Seb Lester
| Speaker | Title |
| Phil Nash | Diving Into Service Workers, Live |
| Jules Forrest | For The Love Of The Grid |
| Dan Rose | Seeing The Pages For The Components |
| Diana Mounter | The Secret Lives of Color Systems |
| Scott Jehl | Move Fast & Don’t Break Things |
“Never ask for push notifications permissions on page load. Give people context for what reason they’re being asked to give that permission.” Phil Nash
“Creativity isn’t necessarily a good thing. Keep common UI patterns consistent to help your users easily navigate.” Jules Forrest
Lately design systems are becoming a big thing. The first day Brad Frost was giving his best tips and tricks how to create a functional design system and on the second day Diana Mounter only made this impression stronger. The real life example was based on Github and showed how working with colors can be difficult: not only abstracting the names to make effective and functional theming, but also testing color contrast and full accessibility for e.g. color-blindness.
And last but not least, Scott Jehl covered the most important topic, which was partially covered through all the speeches: performance. This one word describes the main pain point for all webmakers. Although 5G is around the corner and more people have access to the Internet, web performance is getting worse for many people. Scott shared all the best practices for that to help us build performant experiences regardless of network and expectations that devices and technologies are getting better/faster.
“It’s easier to make a website fast than to keep a website fast” Scott Jehl
If you are interested in it and would like to read more, check those Day One Collaborative Doc and Day Two Collaborative Doc. Also the videos from the conference will be published soon.
Workshop
Smashing Conference surprised me with the amount of valuable workshops with great industry leaders. I found it really hard to choose just one.
| Name | Workshop |
| Rachel Andrew | Next Steps With CSS Layout |
| Chris Gannon | Designing Delightful Animations For The Web |
| The Deque Team | How To Translate Wireframes Into Accessible HTML/CSS |
| Vitaly Friedman | Smart Responsive UX Design Patterns |
| Scott Jehl | Lightning Fast Web Performance |
| Sarah Drasner | Intro To Vue.js |
| Brad Frost | The Design System Process |
| Vitaly Friedman | New Front-end Adventures, 2019 Edition |
| Cloudinary | Hacking Lizard Brain: Improving Visual Experience On The Web |
I was the lucky one to attend the New Front-end Adventures, 2019 Edition Workshop with Vitaly Friedman (co-founder of Smashing Magazine and front-end/UX consultant). The day was filled with the practical knowledge, the newest practices, and a handful of examples and exercises in the groups.
The topics which were covered are: variable fonts, image/ video optimization techniques, web font loading strategy and options, deferring and lazy-loading JavaScript, performance optimization strategy (best practices + HTTP/2), including transition from HTTP to HTTPS, layout techniques (Flexbox and CSS Grid), CSS Houdini and more. This workshop made participants aware how complicated role has a front-end developer nowadays in order to follow all the newest standards and practices. Those are true adventures, indeed.
And what’s the best way to finish those 3 amazing days? Experience the city from the top.
It was just a few weeks ago when I was on the other side of the pond in sunny Toronto, but I still feel like a part of me is still there. I reflect on how much I have learned, about the inspiring encounters I had with people of different backgrounds and the culmination of all the good feelings that the conference encompassed.
I would like to thank oddEVEN for giving me this opportunity to be able to attend this incredibly inspiring conference.
Photos by courtesy of Marc Thiele
