That Was SmashingConf Toronto 2019
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We all enjoyed returning to Toronto for the second Smashing conference, and in this post, I am sharing some of the things that took place as well as the resources that were shared over the course of the two conference and two workshop days. Look out for the videos of all the presentations which will be released very soon.
The team worked hard to create a friendly welcoming space for everyone at the conference. We all know how it can be a little overwhelming to walk into a room of a few hundred strangers, knowing that you would love to make friends and have interesting discussions, but finding it hard to get started.
In order to avoid that, we asked everyone to read and follow our Code Of Conduct, try to create a range of spaces and activities where people can meet like-minded people, and also encourage everyone to follow “The Pac-Man Rule” when standing in a group.
"I’m not usually a conference Twitter person, but I have to shout-out the fantastic job @smashingconf have done of making this such a warm, welcoming, inclusive place.
— Em Domingues (@MiaSparkles) June 26, 2019
Some places talk inclusivity, but here you can feel it, even in the little things. Thanks y’all!#SmashingConf"
“It’s a genuine friendliness that the Smashing team possesses, and that serves as the foundation for an inclusive, approachable event. It turns out that little things like launching balloons to kick off the event and advocating for the Pac-Man Rule go a long way towards making everyone feel welcome.”
— Dan Rose
The Presentations
The first thing you think about when attending a conference is to wonder who is speaking, and what they will be talking about. At SmashingConf Toronto, we had an amazing lineup of speakers, with people you might know quite well plus some new faces. As many of our speakers presented without slides, we don’t have a huge number of slide decks to share. However, the list below links to some of the resources our speakers shared. We will also have videos available very soon!
Day One
The Day One Collaborative Doc created by attendees is full of takeaways from day one of the conference.
In 45 mins @sarah_edo:
— Alex Okrushko @ ng-MY (@AlexOkrushko) June 25, 2019
- creates SSR Vue app
- with multiple routes
- beautifully styled (with flex grid)
- SVG animated
- calls 3 party APIs
- hooks up state management
- pushed to GitHub
- and deployed
Incredibly impressive!@smashingconf #SmashingConf pic.twitter.com/omN3EB3cVT
| Speaker Name | Talk 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 |
Day Two
Check out the Day Two Collaborative Doc for more resources and thoughts from our attendees and speakers.
Our mystery speaker was Seb Lester, and many of you were thrilled to get to hear his talk.
This is the type of inspiration one needs in their life every morning! So humbled and honored to hear @SebLester chat with us about his journey and process 🔮✨ Thanks @smashingconf for making this happen! #mysteryspeakersolved #nasa #apple #doritossalsa 🤣 pic.twitter.com/rlCPtlDFvb
— Shane (@ShainaSilver) June 26, 2019
We then enjoyed talks covering a wide range of topics from our day two speakers.
| Speaker Name | Talk 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 |
We found a few blog posts sharing takeaways from these talks. Arshabhi Rai recapped Day 1 and Day 2, and Qihuan Piao shared his takeaways in “What A Lovely SmashingConf!”
Workshops
Our workshops are a big part of each of our Smashing conferences. In Toronto, we had two days of full-day workshops, with some attendees choosing to do a workshop day before and after the conference. Workshops this time round were as follows:
| Name | Talk Title |
|---|---|
| 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 |
A great day learning about everything #designsystems with the talented Mr. @brad_frost! The cherry on top to a wonderful week at #SmashingConf 🎉🎉 Can’t wait to share all this knowledge with the rest of the Hulu design family 🤓😊🇨🇦💚🎉 pic.twitter.com/EaTndwlFxm
— Shane (@ShainaSilver) June 27, 2019
Side Activities
A conference isn’t just about the talks and speakers. We want to make spaces where attendees and speakers can learn from each other and share experiences in a more informal setting. To help with that, we ran various other things over the conference. At lunchtime, we had lunch sessions run by Deque on Day 1, and Netlify on Day 2, attendees could grab a plate of lunch and settle down in a more cozy environment to take part in those sessions.
How to test your website with AxePro and build better accessible websites with @theHarrisius at the @dequesystems lunch session. #SmashingConf pic.twitter.com/7f79jFEqdn
— SmashingConf (@smashingconf) June 25, 2019
We had a great lounge area, with the talks live-streamed for folks who wanted to step out of the movie theater for a while.
Morning Run
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’m a keen runner, and it’s always nice to have some company on an early morning run. For a few conferences now, we’ve been organizing pre-conference runs — Toronto was no exception. We had 12 runners on Day 1, and 6 hardy souls on Day 2 joining us despite having attended the party. We only got slightly off-track once, and got a nice view of Toronto to take our photos.
Doing a lovely morning run with#smashingconf Toronto peoples pic.twitter.com/rFmCKRZRxP
— Jarijn (@jarijn) June 25, 2019
Jam Session
First Jam Session talk at @shopify of the evening, @tiffany_tse talking about Building Accessible Experiences, while the volunteers dogsit Walnut. #SmashingConf pic.twitter.com/oCwnURjGHs
— SmashingConf (@smashingconf) June 25, 2019
On the evening before the conference, we had a Jam Session at Shopify hosted by Tiffany Tse (and her lovely assistant Walnut). There was a speaker panel featuring Steven Hoober, Scott Jehl, Kristina Podnar, Brad Frost, Jules Forrest, Phil Hawksworth and myself, plus lightning talks from Tiffany Tse, Kelly Harrop, April Ellsey, Steve Pereira, and Christine Fowler.
Graffiti And Photo Walks
On the day before and last evening of the conference, walks took place to explore graffiti around Toronto and take photos of the city. A great way to meet people and explore the location for those coming from out of town.
Conference Party
There has to be a party, and we always try to do something fun and perhaps a little unusual for our conference parties. This time, we went bowling — courtesy of sponsorship by SpeedCurve.
Focus On The Local Community
Between sessions on stage, we invited organizers of community groups in the Toronto area on stage to share information about their groups. We hope that local attendess found some new meetups to go to. The groups that we featured were:
| Name | Details |
|---|---|
| Women Who Code Toronto | Twitter: @WomenWhoCode, Introduced by Stephanie |
| DevHub Toronto & Vancouver | Twitter: @devhubTO Events, educational programs, collaboration, and co-working Introduced by Emma |
| The DevOps Toronto meetup | Twitter: @devopsto Introduced by Steve |
| Designers & Coffee | Twitter: @Doriganic Meetups, hands-on design challenges and feedback sessions, to casual networking nights. Introduced by Dorsa |
| DevTO | Introduced by Nael |
| Serverless Toronto meetup | Introduced by Daniel Zivkovic |
| Toronto Web Performance Group | Twitter: @towebperf Introduced by Henri Helvetica |
Want To Join In The Fun?
We packed a lot into those few days! If you were there, we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did. It was great to meet so many of you.
If you would like to be part of the SmashingConf fun next year, we already have tickets on sale for SmashingConf San Francisco and you can leave your email to be the first to know when SmashingConf Toronto 2020 goes on sale. The rest of the 2019 events (New York and Freiburg) are already sold out! There are a few workshop-only tickets available for New York 2019, but be quick!
Further Reading
- What Was SmashingConf In San Franciso Like?
- The Conference Platform We Use For Our Online Events: Hopin
- Sketchnotes And Key Takeaways From SmashingConf Antwerp 2023
- How To Become A Better Speaker At Conferences
(il, mrn)