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Upcoming Events

SmashingConf Toronto 2018
Toronto

What’s the best way to learn? By observing designers and developers working live. For our new conference in Toronto, expect interactive live sessions, showing how web designers design and how web developers build — including setup, workflow, design thinking, naming conventions and everything in-between.

What’s a SmashingConf like? We’ve prepared a little elevator speech with photos and videos from past events. Also, here’s a Convince Your Boss PDF (1.1 Mb) to convince you-know-who to send you to the event. Obviously.

Get Tickets ↓

The Speakers

  • Rachel Andrew
    Pattern Library First: An Approach For Managing CSS
  • Nadieh Bremer
    Creating An Effective & Beautiful Data Visualization From Scratch
  • Eva-Lotta Lamm
    You Can Sketch (You might just not know it yet)
  • Marcy Sutton
    Accessibility Audit (Live)
  • Sara Soueidan
    TBA
  • Aaron Draplin
    Tall Tales From A Large Man
  • Gemma O’Brien
    Live Lettering
  • Joe Leech
    Applying Psychology And 13 Years Of UX To Get The Details Right And Leapfrog The Competition.
  • Tim Kadlec
    Auditing Performance (Live)
  • Sarah Drasner
    Building an SVG Animation from Start to Finish
  • Lea Verou
    CSS (Variable) Secrets
  • Dan Mall
    Designing Live
  • Seb Lee-Delisle
    Hack to the Future

Event Schedule

Day 1

  • Doors Open
  • Dan Mall

    Dan Mall will speak on

    Designing Live

    Designing at your desk with Photoshop or HTML and CSS is easy, but getting your bosses and clients to give your work their stamp of approval is often quite a feat. In this webinar, Dan will share some stories of tools, methodologies, and non-traditional deliverables that can help you get the buy-in you need. Follow along to learn how to make everyone you work with say “please” and “thank you!”

  • Lea Verou

    Lea Verou will speak on

    CSS (Variable) Secrets

    This talk will show how CSS Variables are much more powerful than static preprocessor variables and can be used today without compromising progressive enhancement.

  • Coffee break
  • Sarah Drasner

    Sarah Drasner will speak on

    Building an SVG Animation from Start to Finish

    In this talk, Sarah will start with only an Illustrator document and by the end, make it move! It's not clear what exactly will move and how- this is something she and the audience will discover together.

  • Tim Kadlec

    Tim Kadlec will speak on

    Auditing Performance (Live)

    In this “this-is-how-I-work” session, Tim Kadlec will conduct a performance audit on the fly. You’ll get a feel for how to analyze the performance of a site using a few different tools, key issues to zero in on, and how to prioritize the results of your analysis.

  • Lunch break
  • Joe Leech

    Joe Leech will speak on

    Applying Psychology And 13 Years Of UX To Get The Details Right And Leapfrog The Competition.

    Mr Joe will take you on journey, showing how to take an average website and make it exceptional. Joe will talk through a framework for looking at the interactions you design everyday and making them as good as they can be. Then we'll look at how to take your site to the next level 💥, redesigning the experience live based on psychology and UX theory.

  • Gemma O’Brien

    Gemma O’Brien will speak on

    Live Lettering

    Over the past 10 years, Australian designer and artist, Gemma O’Brien, has taken her passion for typography and built a flourishing career around drawing letters. Her bold type and detailed illustration can be seen in work for advertising and editorial clients or painted large-scale onto the walls of galleries, offices and interiors around the world. At SmashingConf 2017, Gemma will tell the story of her big break in the design world, explain how an Australian outlook shapes her work, and consider the importance of analogue craft in the digital future.

  • Coffee & Snacks
  • Aaron Draplin

    Aaron Draplin will speak on

    Tall Tales From A Large Man

    Using scientific proof and state-of-the-art multimedia techniques, Aaron James Draplin of the Draplin Design Co. delivers a suckerpunch of a talk that aims to provide bonafide proof of work, the highs and lows of a ferociously independent existence and a couple tall tales from his so-called career in the cutthroat world of contemporary graphic design.

  • Yiying Lu

    Yiying Lu will speak on

    Cross Cultural Design in the Age of Globalization

    In this talk, Creative Director Yiying Lu will share her branding design, illustration and typography projects from a multi-cultural & linguistic aspect. She will showcase and talk about her cross cultural design practices for global companies and organizations, such as Disney Shanghai, NYU Shanghai, Twitter, Cre8 Summit, 500 Startups, the Dumpling Emoji Project and so on. This talk will take audiences on a journey of exploring creativity within cross-cultural communication in the age of globalization.

  • Closing remarks
  • Party time :-D

Day 2

  • Doors open
  • Welcome back
  • A Mysterious Speaker
  • Sara Soueidan

    Sara Soueidan will speak on

    TBA

    A brand-new talk on something that can’t be revealed just yet.

  • Coffee Break
  • Marcy Sutton

    Marcy Sutton will speak on

    Accessibility Audit (Live)

    In this “this-is-how-I-work” session, Marcy Sutton will conduct an accessibility audit on the fly. You’ll get a feel for how to detect and resolve accessibility issues and a strategic roadmap on things to keep in mind when improving accessibility.

  • Eva-Lotta Lamm

    Eva-Lotta Lamm will speak on

    You Can Sketch (You might just not know it yet)

    In this hands-on session, Eva-Lotta will show you some basic techniques to start sketching your ideas. You'll get some hands-on practice on how to sketch simple pictures to inject into your everyday notes and work. She’ll show examples of how easy-to-do sketches can help make your thoughts clearer, your notes more structured and your communication more engaging.

  • Lunch time
  • Nadieh Bremer

    Nadieh Bremer will speak on

    Creating An Effective & Beautiful Data Visualization From Scratch

    In this session, Nadieh will show you how to create a unique, effective (& even beautiful) chart using d3.js, which has become the main “tool” for doing (interactive) data visualization online. Starting from an empty white browser window she'll code & take you through all the nuts and bolts that go into creating a chart with d3, and how, with a little bit of out-of-the-box thinking you can use SVG in the weirdest ways to get what you had envisioned.

  • Rachel Andrew

    Rachel Andrew will speak on

    Pattern Library First: An Approach For Managing CSS

    CSS Layout Grid is a game-changer. But what strategy makes most sense when building layouts today? Grid-first? Flexbox-first? Fallback-first? Following along with practical examples, you’ll learn how Grid works, and how it can be used to implement modern layouts and responsive designs.

  • Coffee & Snacks
  • Seb Lee-Delisle

    Seb Lee-Delisle will speak on

    Hack to the Future

    Seb loves to strip down ding classic machines from the 80s, and give them an extreme make-over with cutting edge technology. You may have seen the hacked Nintendo light gun with laser, lights and a built-in smoke machine that became a viral sensation on the internet in 2016.

  • Closing remarks and Goodbye!

Workshops

Locations

Conference

TIFF Bell Lightbox

350 King St W Toronto ON M5V 3X5

Our conference venue, the TIFF Bell Lightbox, is located within the center of Toronto, and is well-known as the location where the Toronto Film Festival takes place — needles to say that it’s one of the most iconic cinemas in the world. We are thrilled to be hosted at the venue!

Workshops

Ivey Tangerine Leadership Centre

130 King Street W Toronto ON M5X 1A9

Toronto’s premier meeting centre, the Ivey Tangerine Leadership Centre, will play home to our workshop series. Located in the Exchange Tower in the heart of downtown Toronto’s Financial District, this centre offers a unique experience, coupled with onsite catering and attentive staff to make sure everyone is well taken care of during these immersive days.

🎟 Get Your Ticket!

Hurry up: Super Early Bird Tickets are only available until the end of January.
We reserved 20 student tickets, too — just send your ID to Mariona.
(Ah, tickets are cheaper with a Smashing Membership, you know.)


Conference Tickets (June 26-27, 2018)

  • Early Bird
    Conference Ticket
    549
    Sold Out
  • Save $100
    Conference + Workshop Ticket
    998
  • Regular Ticket
    Conference Ticket
    599

Workshop Tickets (June 25)

  • Sarah Drasner
    Intro to Vue.js

Workshop Tickets (June 28)

Sponsored by:

Why Should You Attend?

Pretty much because of the value SmashingConf will provide. We’ll explore how designers and developers work, design and build and how they approach problems strategically. Think of it as a playbook with handy rules of thumb for your next projects: it can’t get more practical than this.

Take a look at some of the videos from previous events, and check out some of the photos—The Smashing community is truly smashing, fun, inclusive and a delight to be a part of!

Watch SmashingConf Videos
Registration at SmashingConf SmashingConf Cody look-alike attendee SmashingConf attendees cheering SmashingConf attendee on the Smashing couch SmashingConf attendees with the chocolate fountain Una Kravets in Lego land I heart this Lego SmashingConf attendees using an iMac SmashingConf attendees building with Lego

Conference photos by our good friend Marc Thiele.

Convince your boss (PDF)
“8 reasons why you should send your incredibly hard-working, deserving employee to the SmashingConf” (PDF). Quite self-explanatory, really.

Need to convince your manager to send you to the SmashingConf? No worries, we’ve got your back! We prepared a neat Convince Your Boss (PDF) (0.15 Mb) that you can use to convince your colleagues, friends, neighbors and total strangers to join you or send you to the event. We know that you will not be disappointed. Still not good enough? Well, tweet us @smashingconf and we’ll help you out — we can be quite convincing, too, you know!

Download the PDF

Accessibility Statement

SmashingConf is committed to providing an inclusive, accessible, and safe space for all attendees.

The Conference will be held at Toronto International Film Festival (tiff. Bell Lightbox), a wheelchair accessible, cinema located on King Street at 350 King St W, Toronto, ON M5V 3X5.

The Workshops will take place at the Ivey Tangerine Leadership center at 130 King St W, Toronto, ON M5X 1K6. The building is on multiple levels, but fully wheelchair accessible with reserved seating in the front and rear of the classrooms.

What To Expect

  • All talks will be in English.
  • Dietary requirement-compliant, healthy, nutritious food will be served throughout the day.
  • Snacks (fruits) and drinks (coffee, tea, water) will be available at all times.
  • Wi-Fi (pw: icecream) and power outlets will be available.
  • For the conference, the lobby area is flat, with a lift between areas, while the theater consists of a stepped rake. There are reserved sections for those with moblity restrictions.
  • For the workshops, the Ivey Tangerine consists over multiple levels, but contains ramps and elevators for those who need them. There will be reserved sections at the front and the rear of the classrooms for those with moblity restrictions.
  • Anyone with mobility, hearing or vision concerns can reserve seats.
  • Our bathrooms are multi-stall and handicap accessible.
  • Service dogs are welcome.
  • The party will be after the 1st conference day, at a location TBD, and we will be providing alcoholic beverages as well as soft drinks. The venue will be wheelchair accessible and contain an area inside and outside.
  • A Code of Conduct team is available throughout the entire event and parties to address any incidents, microaggressions or ableisms.
  • Our speakers have been advised to avoid using epilepsy-inducing videos and animations, however we cannot fully guarantee compliance.

Contact

If you’re in need of any further assistance, or have questions, do not hesitate to contact Amanda (our event producer) at amanda@smashingconf.com.