Head over to the New Adventures YouTube channel or select from the following:

• Building Better Worlds, from Cennydd Bowles
• Radical is Close to Home, from Akil Benjamin
• Unknown Unknowns: Collecting our digital lives, from Natalie Kane
• Productivity recreates disability, from Liz Jackson
• Defying the mainstream: building technology that respects our rights, from Laura Kalbag
• Designing for a collective futurity: mapping the unseen, from Florence Okoye
• Our Banal Binary, from Tatiana Mac

Completists can also listen to both panel sessions:

• Panel 1: Jeff Veen interviews Cennydd, Akil and Natalie
• Panel 2: Jeff Veen interviews Liz, Laura, Florence and Tatiana

Our videos are also available to Sitepoint Premium members. We’re immensely grateful to Sitepoint for editing and hosting the videos. If enough of you go there to watch, they may well edit the remaining 2019 videos too, so please help us out.

The videos complete the full collected coverage of NA 2020.

Videos of our 2020 talks are now available on Sitepoint Premium.

We’re immensely grateful to Sitepoint for editing and hosting the videos, and they deserve the initial exclusivity. Sitepoint Premium hosts lots of superb tech talks from events such as Web Directions, Clarity, and Pixel Pioneers. They haven’t asked us to mention any of this, we just like what they’re doing.

Oh, and if enough of you watch our videos on Sitepoint Premium, they may well edit the remaining 2019 videos too, so please help us out. Or, just sit tight and wait for them to appear on our YouTube channel, sometime in mid-August.

Check out the full collected coverage of NA 2020.

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Tickets to be won

Four lucky respondents (three attendees and one absentee) will receive tickets to our next adventure, drawn at random. Winners will be notified ahead of our next launch.

As ever, we round up all the posts, videos, images and other content, both official and contributed by our attendees. We'll be adding more links daily, so please stay tuned to our 2020 Coverage page.

Help us find your content by mentioning @naconf in your tweets. You can also use the #naconf hashtag, but we're much less likely to find stuff in there.

We’re also here because the purpose of design will change considerably, and to ignore that is to sleepwalk into irrelevance. Will the same work exist in five years? Should we expect a reimagined industry with new responsibilities? What new skills must we consider? Are we the ones causing harm? Lots of big questions easily ignored, but we’ve designed this fifth edition of New Adventures to confront them head-on.

Our industry — the one we once called web design — may no longer be an open space for bold visual and interactive creativity. In response to this, I’ve developed an interest in futures and the ideas that inform strategic, critical and speculative design. This interest gives me the belief that if design is willing to evolve responsibly, it has much to offer the future.

Ethics in practice

Speculative design is imaginative research, an opportunity to devise hypothetical disruptions and what-ifs where we find new signals and fresh narratives. Uncertain futures ask that we speculate, leading to innovation that catches problems early, highlighting unintended consequences before they cause harm. It’s one way to put ethics into practice, and has the potential to change things for the better.

To me, this kind of design feels open-minded; the antithesis of web design’s current obsession with design systems and an ever-decreasing number of accepted UI patterns. I should clarify: I value design systems — I was one of those banging on about how we “design systems, not pages” in the noughties — and there’s a reason for those patterns. It’s worthwhile work, but designers should also demonstrate care for a much bigger and broader world.

Speculative design looks outwards in search of systems for living. The work is innovative but also inclusive, practitioners eager to listen to and learn from those that might benefit or suffer from new technologies. I recently attended the futures-focused Primer EU conference in Madrid, where speakers shared case studies involving ordinary people and real communities. Here was an ethical and inclusive path into uncertainty; purpose-led projects that might mitigate harm and improve lives.

Multi-disciplinary design

There’s a legitimate concern in speculative design as more of us wade in and gentrify the field, that it be misunderstood and commodified like Design Thinking. If we make an effort to understand it together at events like Primer EU and New Adventures, we can swerve that trap and hopefully add value.

Multi-disciplinary practice excites me. Here’s this open-ended space for digital and data practitioners to collaborate with artists, architects, writers, actors, etc. The fruit is often conversations and prototypes for new experiences where everyone is a stakeholder, not least those directly affected by a proposed technology. This appeals as I’ve reconnected with art and poetry as a means to imagine, ask questions and enable discourse. With my background as a conceptual artist and my old school designer preference for open thinking and experimentation, a professional shift to futures makes sense. I think there’s a role there for me, but I’m still on the outside, looking in.

Anyway, for some time I’ve wanted to take NA in this direction. We’ve always looked ahead, but now the future feels closer. Our opening speaker, Cennydd Bowles, was on board from day one and helped me identify the right minds; brilliant practitioners like Florence Okoye and Akil Benjamin, out there doing the work, and Natalie Kane, making sense of it all through objects and acquisitions. With their support, I’ve been able to curate a day that meets my ambitions.

Hope, not harm

Speculative designers work with people to better understand and support their lives now and into the unknown. Digging into these topics feels like a natural extension of NA’s ongoing conversation about what inclusivity really means.

NA has provided many pinch-myself moments, not least Ethan Marcotte’s The World-Wide Work. I’d asked Ethan to explore his interest in how we work and the damage we can do. I knew he’d prepared some bold points, but it was an exceptional keynote; the resulting video shared far and wide. Several people suggested it would pair well with Tatiana Mac’s 2018 talk, How Privilege Defines Performance. We agreed, and Tatiana was the first person we invited. Immediately, she began sharing ideas for a new talk and referencing books with tremendous enthusiasm.

We then approached Liz Jackson, whose Empathy reifies disability stigmas talk I found so captivatingly confrontational. I kept thinking “I want more people to hear this,” then remembered I run a conference. I’m in awe of Ethan, Tatiana and Liz and their steadfast commitment to ensuring design is an agent of hope, not harm.

It’s about time we invited Laura Kalbag, who many will know for her excellent book, Accessibility For Everyone, or perhaps for her work to highlight data misuse and surveillance. Oh, and we’re so chuffed to welcome web pioneer Jeff Veen! This year’s talks may offer as many questions as answers, so Jeff’s here to extend the debate with two live editions of his popular Presentable podcast.

An uncertain future

This has been an even tougher ride than 2019, and we’ve fallen below conservative ticket targets. Sponsorship proved tough too, partly because we refused to compromise our principles. Despite this, we have some wonderful sponsors, and their support has helped us invest in live captioning and invite thirty scholarship applicants. We’ve also introduced a climate impact policy, because every event should have one.

We don’t yet know if NA has a future. There’s a core in this community that we call our “hand-raisers”. They’re the ones who always attend or offer to help, and amplify our message online. They give us much encouragement, but their number has dwindled since we began. I think we have one last chance to increase the size of our community, hopefully by finding a way to sustain a permanent online presence with regular online content.

Short-termism is a problem. It’s a results-driven industry, and people are individually ambitious; too few look outwards, seek multiple perspectives, and travel without speed. It’s all about hoovering up hot new tricks for immediate deployment, with a diminishing appetite for deeper thinking, honesty, and critique. I don’t know what that means for design, but it worries me.

Yes, we are excited!

I am very proud of our events and accompanying publications. Recently, we’ve been building an archive, revisiting every contribution. Much of what our speakers said and authors wrote makes as much sense now — if not more sense — than it did at the time. I think that speaks to the value of NA.

And so, despite everything, we’re more excited than ever because this one feels so very right. It’s serious stuff and probably won’t be laugh-a-minute, but we think it’s the conference the design industry and design-minded practitioners need right now. We love you to bits for understanding that and for being here with us, and we hope you have a brilliant day.

The most efficient event is no event. Even online conferences create energy waste. Well, we again decided that yes, we as an industry do need this conference and that we still value spending time with each other IRL. And so, by bringing this thing into existence, we must commit to ensuring we run it as efficiently as possible.

The climate crisis weighs heavy on all of us. The need for significant system change seems to mock our efforts at home, but we must do our bit both personally and professionally. We believe every positive action is a small protest, and that if millions of us protest in this way, we might collectively have influence. This belief has been a guiding principle behind our preparation for New Adventures 2020.

By attempting to run an efficient, low-waste conference — and talking about it — we open ourselves up to criticism when we inevitably fail in some areas. We’re OK with that because at least we’re trying.

Change and sacrifice

By organising a conference, we create for ourselves a temporary position of power. We can use that for good and make smart decisions, or shrug and say ‘whatever’. We must use this opportunity to make the changes we’d like to see at other events, and ensure our every decision stacks up against our principles.

This year, we chose not to work with several companies who think differently to us about things like fossil fuels, worker rights, and whether it’s acceptable to provide services to racist networks. Taking this stance has caused problems as we’d already fallen way below our sponsorship targets this year, but integrity is everything.

Below, we outline the primary changes and actions we’ve introduced to reduce waste, and initiatives we’re sharing with attendees to help them reduce their impact.

No more goodie bags

Instead of preparing several hundred identical goodie bags, we’ll offer a take-what-you-need zone. Attendees will choose what they’d each like to take — our magazine and pin, hopefully, and only the sponsor materials they find interesting. We’ll provide a box of surplus totes from previous events, but we’re asking attendees to use the bags they bring with them. Volunteers will restock the bagging zone as necessary, and collect surplus material for return to sponsors, or recycling.

Changes at the venue

We’ve asked the Albert Hall to help us reduce waste where possible, notably with refreshments and prepared lunches (there are a few third-party supplier obstacles, and we’re still offering bags of crisps). Most of these small changes cost more money, but they’re worth doing.

This year, we will:

• Avoid single-use plastics where possible.
• Use compostable coffee cups and wooden stirrers.
• Provide jugs of water; attendees will use cups or refillable bottles.
• Provide carton juices in packed lunches, instead of bottled water.
• Provide water in 250ml recyclable cartons where jugs are not permitted (on stage, attendee seating areas, etc.).

Event material

We’ll reduce the quantity of display material that gets used for a couple of days and then binned. In the past, we’ve been able to refit roll banners with fresh graphics, and there are other means of reducing waste. Our only new banners will be our stageside sponsor banners.

This year, we will:

• Reuse materials from previous events — signage, t-shirts, stickers, packaging, workshop materials, etc. — even if inconsistent with this year’s branding.
• Reduce the number of roller banners and other single-use decorations.
• Mend existing items rather than replace, where possible.
• Print on the reverse of used paper where possible.

Travel

We’ve welcomed statements from speakers looking to reduce their travel overheads, and it makes sense that organisers also seek to reduce the reliance on overseas speakers. Closer to home, we can reduce the use of cars and promote more sustainable travel options.

This year, we have:

• Invited primarily UK and European speakers (two speakers will fly from the US, one from Ireland, and one by train from Germany).
• Committed to offsetting all speaker flights.
• Encouraged train travel instead of cars to transport speakers to Nottingham (cars are often a necessity when flights arrive and depart at awkward hours, and you consider Nottingham’s distance from major airports).
• Chosen to cease car park reductions for attendees.
• Enabled free bicycle storage.

Web and data infrastructure

We must make changes not just at our event but also to our permanent presence on the web, and in our data storage and office setup.

This year, we have:

• Continued to improve our website performance and compression methods, reducing the energy impact of data transmission.
• Switched to more efficient web tracking with Fathom Analytics (and, finally, removed all use of cookies from our website).
• Moved our sites to Guru, a greener host.
• Attempted to rely less on cloud storage.
• Held more meetings online to reduce travel impact.

It’s only a start

We think it’s important to be vocal about the changes we’re making so that we might encourage other organisers. There’s a long way to go, and we’ll fall short of the significant waste reduction we’d hope to achieve. Following the conference, we will perform a detailed evaluation and share the results on our website.

Simon Collison and Geri Coady

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Resources

AirCare

Our friends at AirCare created a unique service for our attendees, asking them to think twice about flying to the conference. The service allows them to calculate the emissions of flying to our event and understand the potential harm to the environment. From there, they can view alternate travel methods, or offset emissions if they must fly.

Website Carbon Calculator

Test the impact of your website with the Website Carbon Calculator. Our 2020 website is cleaner than 74% of those tested, and the average visit produces only 0.53g of CO2. Each year, we’re emitting as much carbon as three trees can absorb in that period.

See also

One of our speakers, Cennydd Bowles, released his Air travel policy last year, clearly visible on his Speaking page. His policy ensures organisers understand his capacity for travel before reaching out to him.

Another of our speakers, Bastian Allgeier, often speaks about his climate anxiety. He has made a commitment to reduce the impact from his product, Kirby, and offers free licenses to all environmental projects, climate activists and Friday for future groups. Bastian is traveling to New Adventures from Germany by train.

Note: we haven't linked book titles as we do not want to lazily send you to Amazon, nor do we want to link loads of random websites. Hopefully, a copy/paste isn't too annoying.

Cennydd Bowles

London-based designer and futurist. @cennydd.

Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems: a one-way valve into a new way of thinking. And Nigel Slater’s Real Food, particularly the recipe for white chocolate cardamom mousse on page 300.

Tatiana Mac

Independent American designer. @TatianaTMac.

Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble. I’ve had discussions with “hardcore devs” who maintain a “separation of concerns” — or separating the “true technology” discussions on frameworks from the “human” discussions. They often ask: “what do people have to do with code?” “why can’t it just be about tech and not these social justice discussions?” The answer is that code is made by, for, and with people. Abstracting humans from code, ignoring power and privilege, leads us to create technology that enables murder, evangalises exclusionary systems, and relieves ourselves of the responsibility of its impact. In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya aptly reminds us of the role that we play in perpetuating the broader social systems that dominate us.

I also recommend East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It defined my belief in whether or not people are good or evil (a huge part of my NA Conf talk!).

Akil Benjamin

Biologist turned design thinker. @akilbenjamin.

Shopping in Jail by Douglas Coupland. This book is what a daydream would feel like if we organised all of our wild thoughts into constructive arguments and discussions. As I spend time looking further into the future and world-building, this book offers an alternative perspective on a world I thought I knew.

Looking Ahead — The Sustainable Global Agenda. A well-designed picture book encyclopaedia. It tells a story about the world, which is difficult to see when you’re working day to day. It’s informative and has informed strategies for all my businesses.

Laura Kalbag

British designer and author living in Ireland. @laurakalbag.

Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff. An intense look at the business models of mainstream tech and their terrifying aims. It provides clear evidence of the Big Tech agenda, although focused on the effects on individuals, rather than the disproportionate impact of surveillance capitalism on the vulnerable or marginalised.

The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin. A page-turning saga that also touches on modern world themes with characters whose hope and hurt you really feel. I’m not usually a fan of fantasy, but this trilogy is about as far as you can get from drama with dragons.

Helen Joy

UX & UR consultant and diversity and inclusion champion. @LittleHelli.

Ends by Joe Mcleod. Endings are discussed across a variety of contexts: death; divorce; waste and recycling; and the customer experience of leaving services. This book advocates for producing true end-to-end digital services where we design meaningful off-boarding experiences instead of focussing only on consumer-oriented on-boarding.

How to own the room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking by Viv Groskop. I read this before speaking at NA 2019. Each chapter explores the speaking style of notable women. The speaking voice that resonated most with me was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s calm storytelling approach.

Relly Annett-Baker

Lead volunteer, content wrangler. @RellyAB.

I’ve been reading Lara Hogan’s Resilient Management – a concise, insightful and witty book on learning how to be a good manager. Plenty of people in our industry get promoted for their design skills and not their people skills and you need both to manage well.

One of the best fiction books I’ve read in the last few years: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. Agatha Christie meets Inception.

John With Beard

Trusted volunteer. @johnwithbeard.

Disrupted by Dan Lyons, a good laugh (none of us work in places like this, do we?). Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli, to remind us about wider questions of our humanity.

Bastian Allgeier

Creator of Kirby CMS. @bastianallgeier.

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I recommend it to anyone who’s trying to spend less time with their smartphone and social media. It was eye-opening how far my screen addiction has come. Working in our industry often left me with a fear of missing out on trends and meaningful business relationships if I didn’t spend enough time online. It’s very liberating to take a break from that and re-evaluate how I want to spend my time.

My second recommendation is one of my all-time favourites: the sci-fi trilogy The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin.

Geri Coady

Designer, illustrator, NA organiser. @hellogeri.

Robin Ince’s book I’m a Joke and So Are You deals with plenty of familiar topics — impostor syndrome, anxiety, and mental health. Written from the perspective of a comedian, it will resonate with anyone who works in a creative industry.

I also recommend What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. An essential read for any runner or jogger.

Simon Collison

Designer, writer, NA organiser. @colly.

I loved The Social Photo by Nathan Jurgenson. Highly recommended if you’re interested in the literacy of visual culture and networked images as communication tools. A social-savvy addition the best “how to see the world” authors.

Convenience Store Woman is a slightly sci-fi tale of a Japanese store worker defined by her mundane job and inability to meet societal expectations. She develops a symbiotic relationship with the store that I find delightfully weird.

Other questions

• Q2: advice for an uncertain future.
• Q3: what common fallacy should we wake up to?
• Q4: what gives you hope?
• Q5: tell us a fact about yourself.

Cennydd Bowles

London-based designer and futurist. @cennydd.

Distrust orthodoxy. It helps to begin with, then becomes a straight-jacket.

Tatiana Mac

Independent American designer. @TatianaTMac.

Consistent efforts, no matter how small, compound. When faced with an onslaught of endless choices or pathways, it can be daunting to want to take on the weight
of the industry as an individual. Repeated actions — whether that be actively correcting ableist, anti-trans, racist, sexist language in multiple interactions or learning one JavaScript function a day — are the way we can grow and progress. Changing directions midway is okay; you did not waste time if you moved on from something that no longer served you.

Akil Benjamin

Biologist turned design thinker. @akilbenjamin.

Take stock of your resources, make a plan with a clear simple goal. Use all your resources appropriately to deliver on that plan.

A couple notes on execution: Take your time but don’t be slow, usually big goals required lengthy time, find a good pace and stick to it.

Simple is not easy, it’s usually requires good insight and high levels of discipline or consistency. With that in mind keep your goal front of mind at all times, write it on the walls if you have to.

Don’t sleep on yourself, don’t wait for anyone to have your back. This isn’t a casino, stacking the deck in your favour is allowed. Therefore work out all the different ways you can ensure the plan goes your way. Having at least two alternatives to any grand plan is helpful for freedom.

Laura Kalbag

British designer and author living in Ireland. @laurakalbag.

I’m not really qualified to give advice to others in the industry. I’ve always been an outsider, self-employed, and for the majority of my decade in the industry I’ve been running a very small not-for-profit organisation. I’m independent but my future is not certain, I have no financial security or job security. All I know is that we are living in a time of uncertainty, fragility and widening inequality. In a world that is facing climate catastrophe and an industry that is seemingly dominated by exploitation, more things need to change than stay the same.

Bastian Allgeier

Creator of Kirby CMS. @bastianallgeier.

I can only give the advice that I try to give myself. Stay interested and excited about as many things as possible. Motivation, creativity and energy can be found anywhere. We only need to keep the ability to learn and change.

Helen Joy

UX & UR consultant and diversity and inclusion champion. @LittleHelli.

It’s ok to not have a set career plan or 5-year goal. The tech industry changes at speed and new roles develop that you might realise you’re looking for until you
see them. The work you do — how it makes you feel and how it sits with your own moral compass — is more important than job titles.

Geri Coady

Designer, illustrator, NA organiser. @hellogeri.

Have interests and hobbies outside of your industry. Nerd out on something different. It’ll help you come up with new or creative solutions to problems that might not happen if you’re only ever looking in one place.

Other questions

• Q1: book recommendations.
• Q3: what common fallacy should we wake up to?
• Q4: what gives you hope?
• Q5: tell us a fact about yourself.

Cennydd Bowles

London-based designer and futurist. @cennydd.

I always hear that design is about problem-solving. I suppose that’s not wrong per se, but it misses something important: design also causes problems. Ignore that at your peril. (Secondly, a pet gripe: there’s no evidence the golden ratio is aesthetically special or sacred to humans. It’s mathematically fascinating but worthless for design.)

Helen Joy

UX & UR consultant and diversity and inclusion champion. @LittleHelli.

It really bugs me when people refer to designers as “the creative ones”. I work within an interdisciplinary team of talented individuals who are all as creative as each other. Solving complex coding problems is equally as creative as designing a user interface. All forms of creativity should be celebrated equally across the industry.

Tatiana Mac

Independent American designer. @TatianaTMac.

The fallacy I wish to disrupt is there is a best way to do things. Daily people are fighting about let versus const, whether Typescript is a good or bad idea, etc. Instead of encouraging a wider array to approach things, we tend to want to narrow. It comes, generally, from a place of insecurity. If we can fight for the way we do it to be crowned “correct,” perhaps we can fend imposter syndrome off for another day.

Instead of crowning a best, we can create an environment where we share context and circumstances. What is “best” for one person, in one product team, with a specific audience is going to be worst for another person. Perpet- uating the idea of “best” also tends to lead into people, where we crown individual members of the community as heroes—a dangerous sport when we’re all so fallable.

Akil Benjamin

Biologist turned design thinker. @akilbenjamin.

Microsoft isn’t behind, I think they’re just busy doing something else radically different. Watch how they’re doing more and more infrastructure projects around the world. I think we should pay attention to that, just in case.

Laura Kalbag

British designer and author living in Ireland. @laurakalbag.

We need to stop pretending that Big Tech can be changed from the inside. The people running these corporations are unprecedentedly powerful, wealthy, and (by their own benchmarks) successful. They do not perceive a problem with their objectives or their funding models. By entertaining the idea that they’re interested in change we are, at best, gaslighting ourselves. At worst, we’re complicit.

Bastian Allgeier

Creator of Kirby CMS. @bastianallgeier.

What we are doing is not neutral, but way too many people in our industry want to believe it is. Every project has an effect on the people and the environment around us. We, as designers and developers, need to take responsibility for those effects and take them into account when we make decisions. We are facing problems in the next decade that cannot be answered with ignorance or by trying to stay neutral.

Simon Collison

Designer, writer, NA organiser. @colly.

The idea that art and poetry are irrelevant or pointless; that culture is not worthy of investment. In a world of closed down thinking, a poem is valuable because it doesn’t tell you how to think about it, and art helps by undoing the illusion of a smooth functioning world to expose the truth. There is propaganda everywhere, and it’s hard to make sense of things. More than ever, we need these open, democratised spaces in which to see ourselves. What matters is not always what you think, but how you think, and culture is an ongoing training plan for that.

Geri Coady

Designer, illustrator, NA organiser. @hellogeri.

Not everything has to tell a story. Learn to appreciate when people simply want to get tasks done without dealing with extraneous fluff.

Other questions

• Q1: book recommendations.
• Q2: advice for an uncertain future.
• Q4: what gives you hope?
• Q5: tell us a fact about yourself.

Helen Joy

UX & UR consultant and diversity and inclusion champion. @LittleHelli.

People. Over time I’ve learned that when things get tough, people who offer support are the most valuable thing you can have in life. I’m eternally grateful to have a number of amazing friends and family who have helped me through tough times and who I know will always be there for me.

Akil Benjamin

Biologist turned design thinker. @akilbenjamin.

They finally found a buzzword to put their money where their mouth is, “Embedded Ethics”. Now they’ve worked out how to make ethical practises attractive I’m interested to see if it can change design patterns worldwide. It’s already started; just depends on its impact now.

Relly Annett-Baker

Lead volunteer, content wrangler. @RellyAB.

My kids and their friends. That whole generation. They haven’t got time for pandering to old ways and old ideas. They want to save the planet and if we let them they will, and maybe they’ll save us too.

Tatiana Mac

Independent American designer. @TatianaTMac.

I try to give myself hope every day. In the face of much hardship, I’ve been able to use my privileges to resist my oppressions, for myself and then for others. Hope, with depression, can seem like a contradiction. Hope lives in small spaces for me — when someone thanks me for something I wrote, when I see TV shows with queer people of colour where they get to be full characters, when I see a ‘skip to content’ link on a popular website, when I see someone help a stranger.

Bastian Allgeier

Creator of Kirby CMS. @bastianallgeier.

I find hope in the current climate change movement. It’s inspiring to see the dedication of teenagers and young activists that keep on fighting, even though the world around them rapidly changes for the worse. There’s hope when I see how people from all generations join them and start to wake up. Change is possible and political activism can work. We only have to look back in time to find great examples.

Laura Kalbag

British designer and author living in Ireland. @laurakalbag.

That humans are capable of change.

Cennydd Bowles

London-based designer and futurist. @cennydd.

The climate resistance movement.

John With Beard

Trusted volunteer. @johnwithbeard.

Speakers and attendees at New Adventures.

Simon Collison

Designer, writer, NA organiser. @colly.

I’m fond of this line from a 2018 Real Life editorial: “When young people receive old ideas, they find the inconsistencies.” We’re witnessing this in all kinds of ways right now because the systems we’ve grown up with seem totally at odds with a world in peril. To understand the future, we have to understand the power and determination of young people.

Geri Coady

Designer, illustrator, NA organiser. @hellogeri.

Gen Z and younger. I wish I was that switched on when I was that age.

Other questions

• Q1: book recommendations.
• Q2: advice for an uncertain future.
• Q3: what common fallacy should we wake up to?
• Q5: tell us a fact about yourself.

Cennydd Bowles

London-based designer and futurist. @cennydd.

I used to play chess to a good standard: I once drew with an International Master (one down from a Grandmaster).

Relly Annett-Baker

Lead volunteer, content wrangler. @RellyAB.

I’m studying a Masters in crime fiction at Cambridge University and I write children’s crime fiction in my spare time. And I love to recommend books.

Helen Joy

UX & UR consultant and diversity and inclusion champion. @LittleHelli.

In my first job working for Future Publishing, I ended up randomly modelling biker leathers for Fast Bike Magazine. It didn’t inspire to me be a biker, though. 13 years later and I’ve still never been on a motorbike.

Akil Benjamin

Biologist turned design thinker. @akilbenjamin.

Bring me pineapples, I will forgive almost anything.

Laura Kalbag

British designer and author living in Ireland. @laurakalbag.

I’m the oldest of five children and it explains all of my personality.

Bastian Allgeier

Creator of Kirby CMS. @bastianallgeier.

I’ve been a guitarist in a SKA band for more than 20 years. My first gig was when we opened for Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. I was scared as hell. I had only one guitar solo during that gig, and that’s when my amp broke down. Good times!

Tatiana Mac

Independent American designer. @TatianaTMac.

I studied piano for 15 years.

Geri Coady

Designer, illustrator, NA organiser. @hellogeri.

I designed The Cure’s official MySpace page in 2008. Now, if only it was acceptable to have MySpace profiles in your portfolio...

Simon Collison

Designer, writer, NA organiser. @colly.

I went to art school and after graduating I began to find success as a conceptual artist — before all this web business distrated me. My first proper residency was in Iceland, a whole glorious Summer back in 1998 when it was mercifully free of tourists. I made lots of friends and totally fell for the place, returning so many times I’d feel homesick when not there.

Other questions

• Q1: book recommendations.
• Q2: advice for an uncertain future.
• Q3: what common fallacy should we wake up to?
• Q4: what gives you hope?

JH Bowling is the official bowling fringe event for New Adventures 2020. We've had a bowling warmup at all five of our events, and it's the perfect way to settle in and meets lots of excited people in a short space of time without the distraction of top-quality conference content.

Register as a team of six or as a solo bowler to be in with a chance of winning a prize. If bowling isn't up your alley, come along and have a drink! The JH team tell us they're taking lots of free swag.

Places are limited, so make sure you strike fast. Register now!

Charlotte Dann: Pixels, IRL

Most digital designers and developers don’t get the joyous experience of touching and feeling the things they’ve created. Interest in generative art and design on the web is at an all-time high, but predominantly confined to screens and pixels. In this talk, Charlotte Dann will champion the joy of tactility in digital design by demonstrating a handful of methods that can enable you to realise your work in a physical space.

Charlotte Dann is a creative technologist and maker. Combining her two vocations of jewellery design and web development, she created Hexatope, a web app that enables anyone to design their own jewellery online, which she then fabricates in her East London studio.

Ben Longden: Love/Hate Digital Design

Ben Longden will talk firstly about his love hate relationship with digital design, how he fell into it by accident and not really knowing that he liked it. He'll then speak about his practice - the power of being able to build websites as well as design them - and then mostly he'll talk about his work at The Guardian and the challenges and considerations they face when it comes to designing the news.

Ben Longden is Digital Design Director and at The Guardian. He has helped to shape the Guardian digital experience across the website, apps, and digital platforms as well as working on some of the biggest news events over the past few years including Cambridge Analytica and the Paradise Papers. He is also a co-director at RoomFifty.

Don't miss it!

Design Exchange takes place on Wednesday 22nd January, from 7pm at Antenna, NG1 1EQ. free entry, but we advise you reserve your place.

Prefer something a little livelier? Our friends at JH will again present our traditional bowling event. Register as a team of six or as a solo bowler to be in with a chance of winning a prize. If bowling isn't up your alley, come along and have a drink! Places are limited and selected on a lottery basis, so make sure you strike fast. Register now!

Take a look at our complete Fringe programme.

Read Our climate impact policy here.

By bringing another New Adventures into existence, we must commit to ensuring we run it as efficiently as possible. Our commitment details the primary changes and actions we’ve introduced to reduce waste, and initiatives we’re sharing with speakers, suppliers and attendees to help them reduce their impact.

There's a long way to go, but it's a start. We're hoping other organisers will embrace some of these approaches, if they haven't already.

Have a read, and let us know what you think on Twitter, Slack, or at the event.

A British designer living in Ireland, she's also one third of Small Technology Foundation, a tiny two-person-and-one-husky not-for-profit organisation. At Small Technology Foundation, Laura works on a web privacy tool called Better Blocker, and initiatives to advocate for and build small technology to protect personhood and democracy in the digital network age.

On an average day, Laura does everything from design and development, learning how to run a sustainable not-for-profit, and trying to make privacy, and broader ethics in technology, accessible to a wide audience. You can find her making design decisions, writing CSS, nudging icon pixels, or distilling a privacy policy into something humans can understand.

Check out her book, Accessibility For Everyone, and find out more about Small Technology Foundation.

This year's ambitious talks may offer as many questions as answers, so Jeff will host two special sessions. Now, these are not "panels"; we all know panels destroy a good vibe. Nope, this will be more like a chat show: a live version of Jeff's hugely popular Presentable Podcast. Jeff's a skilled interviewer and he'll represent you well, but there will be multiple ways for you to inform the debate.

So, it's like a podcast, but you're in the room; it'll feel more like a TV show. Even better, you get to ask the questions...

Presentable

The long-running Presentable Podcast focuses on how we design and build the products that are shaping our digital future. Jeff and guests track the tools, trends, and methods being used by teams from the biggest companies and latest startups. In each episode, Jeff brings over two decades of experience as a designer, developer, entrepreneur, and investor as he chats with guests about how design is changing the world.

About Jeff

Jeff is a Design Partner at True Ventures, where he spends his time helping companies create better products. He does this as an advisor, as well, for companies like about.me, Medium, and WordPress. Previously, he was VP of Design at Adobe after they acquired Typekit, the company he co-founded and ran as CEO.

Jeff was also one of the founding partners of the user experience consulting group Adaptive Path. While there, he led Measure Map, which was acquired by Google. During his time at Google, Jeff designed Google Analytics and lead the UX team for Google's apps.

Much earlier, Jeff was part of the founding web team at Wired Magazine, where he helped build HotWired, Web Monkey, Wired News, and many other sites. During that time, he authored two books, HotWired Style and The Art and Science of Web Design.