X@HOWLIVE: Day Two Recap

Chip Kidd has made a name for himself as a book cover designer. In his session, he shared some of his best work and talked us through his thought and design process, from the moment he reads the author’s title for the first time to the book on the shelf. I did some sight seeing over lunch, enjoyed a hamburger at Boston Burger Company, and walked half way to Fenway Park before turning around from heat exhaustion. I thought a trip to Boston would be escaping the Louisiana heat, but no. The weekend I am here, Boston is experiencing an unusual heat wave. Yay! After lunch, I attended “Design Death Match – It’s Your Design Versus Your Life” by Steve Cullen of Creature. His session was not only creatively inspiring, but he provided us with actual tools to implement in our personal lives and work lives to improve overall quality of life. The following session was by Stefan Mumaw, Creative Director of Callahan Creek. I saw him yesterday and loved his energy, so I chose to go to his session “Chasing Monster Ideas,” and I am glad I did. He shared 7 characteristics of those “monster ideas” – those ideas that became some of today’s greatest advertising moments like the Volkswagen Darth Vader TV Spot to Halo 3′s launch campaign. The night ended with an AWESOME party hosted by Shutterstock that involved a designer face-off and free drinks at a local bar called Stage. Shout out to Shutterstock for a great event of networking and just plain ole fun!!

I’m half way through the conference now, and have a full sketchbook of ideas to show for it. My brain is in overdrive trying to process all of the great insights, and I can’t wait to put some of these new ideas into action. See you tomorrow after what I know will be another great day at #HOWlive.

-Tiffanie | @tiffaniepitre