After a longish summer break and a longer radio silence - DesignUp Newsletter is back 👋 bursting to the seams with updates, and more!

DesignUp Asia Conference (Singapore) wrapped up in mid June - writings and sketch-notes from the event follow. The DesignUp Bangalore event has moved on from being a conference to a Festival 🥁And the Call for Speakers is now open (but not for long)!

Meanwhile—

TikTok just turned a year old, India went bananas over a Rahul Bose moment, Grumpy Cat's death marked the end of the joyful internet and the FaceApp fad may just have faded although the security concerns linger on!

Flashback: The History of Web Design — thehistoryofweb.design

A fortnight ago, we were discussing on twitter about a time when Ux wasn't even a thing. Serendipitously, I stumbled upon this site (companion to the book) - taking me back to 1999 - to an island nation where I learnt coding and published my site over dial up internet. Reminder: by late 90s, Macromedia Flash was The Thing. So here's a flashback - from the rise of Flash to Steve Jobs and today, the story of how Web Design came to be and became part of our lives. If you're looking for more, here's another web-design history article!

Before the Internet

Since we are talking history - here's a reflective, nostalgic piece from NYT - "Before the Internet, you could move to a new state and no one at school would know anything about you. You’d have no online history. You could be anyone. You would lean against the lockers with a faraway expression on your face and let people assume whatever they wanted."

Teaching designers how to code — blog.avocode.com

Moving on from History, it's time to ask the age old Q: should Designers code? Or shouldn't they? I found this interview with Meng To, founder of Design+Code interesting.

The absurd language used by job adverts — www.economist.com

What's your towel's superpower? Asks a billboard, on my way to work. I had never ever considered that. But given adjective inflation - esp in recruitment ads, it's hardly shocking or surprising that Ninjas, Superpowers or Shoguns should leak onto towels...

DesignUp Fest (Nov 12-16)

DesignUp Returns in 2019 - and it' isn't (just) a Conference! — designup.io

So what should you expect? What’s changing, what’s not? How do you register? Venue? Tracks? Scholarships? Here’s an overview of what’s in store and what’s changed.

Call for Speakers, Workshop leaders

For the DesignUp Conference on November 15–16, part of the 5 day Festival — we’re inviting practitioners, researchers, students and academics to submit their ideas, drafts and proposals for talks and workshops. Non-designers welcome — from economists to data scientists, product managers, engineers and philosophers, we would love to hear your side of the story.

From DesignUp Asia Conf...

5 Lessons in Scale, Engagement and User Delight from India

Anshumani Ruddra, who spoke at Singapore recaptures his slides and notes, zooms out to a pan-Asia perspective and reminds us to pick our battles carefully, for "we live in very populous regions. If the addressable market for our product/ business is 5-10% of our region - it is still a massive user base. Focus on the opportunity."

Design Up Singapore 2019: Sketchnotes and Learnings — medium.com

Weiman Kow from Singapore captured the DesignUp Singapore Conference through words and drawings. Here's her labour of love and a tiny excerpt - "What struck me was that the circumstances and concerns of lower income Indonesians are very similar to that of lower income Singaporeans and Americans, as described in Teo You Yenn’s book, Inequality, and Lisa Servon’s book on the Unbanking of America."

In wrappingUp...

How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives: Annie Dillard on Choosing Presence Over Productivity

"There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more."

Until next week -

@jdallcaps