Smashing Magazine

Our mission; to explore real-life web design problems, projects and techniques in a way that’s relevant and applicable to your work straight away. A single track with 12 speakers means a focused, well-curated learning experience, and an intimate environment of just 260 attendees ensures a friendly atmosphere!

A Community Event For Web Designers

We’ll be keeping to our trademark mission, to make SmashingConf a unique, valuable and friendly event for everybody involved. There will be a strong focus on practical, actionable learning—with speakers packing as clever techniques, tips and tricks into their sessions as possible. We don’t care about volatile trends and we don’t believe in overnight success stories. Every success requires hard work and failures along the way. There are lessons learned, takeaways, and problems solved.

We are interested in how problems are solved—ideas that failed, and why exactly they failed and what decisions were chosen instead. Specifically, we’ll look at mid- and large-scale projects, techniques, tools and the lessons learned along the way. We’ll also be putting a special emphasis on networking, creating an atmosphere that encourages friendly conversation and new connections between everyone present; expect photo walks, contests, an amazing party and plenty of extra surprises along the way. But we won’t reveal everything at once!

Speakers

Some speakers aren’t fond of it, some speakers love it, but we thoroughly curate every single talk and work alongside our speakers to make sure that each talk fits nicely within the overall theme of the conference. For our Freiburg Conference we’ve put together a line-up that you won’t believe:

• Rachel Andrew, on modern layout mechanism, the CSS Grid,
• Umar Hansa tackling modern development workflows with DevTools,
• Alla Kholmatova, speaking about scalable, maintainable modular design systems,
• Scott Helme on how to make your website more performant and secure,
• Chris Wright on shiny new front-end techniques for more flexible layouts,
• Sara Ramos and Tiago Pedras on preparing ourselves for the next generation of developers,
• Mathias Biilmann on speeding up your workflow with static site generators,
• As well as the Mystery Speaker — someone you definitely know

...more speakers will be announced soon!

Smashing Workshops

Our Freiburg workshops are offered as either an addition to the two conference days, or as a standalone event for those simply wishing to delve deeper into their topic of choice. Sit in a historic venue that’s almost 500 years old and learn about the very latest in modern Web design! On Wednesday, September 13th, we’ll be hosting full-day workshops in our beautiful Kaufhaus venue. By registering for a workshop while buying your conference ticket, you save $100 on the regular workshop ticket price.

Workshops on Sunday, September 10th

Vitaly Friedman on Smart Responsive UX Design Patterns

September 10th • In this brand new workshop, Vitaly Friedman (editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine), will cover practical techniques, clever tricks and useful strategies you need to be aware of when working on responsive websites. From responsive modules co clever navigation patterns and web form design techniques; the workshop will provide you with everything you need to know today to start designing better responsive experiences tomorrow. Read more...

Workshops on Wednesday, September 13th

Alla Kholmatova on Reaching For Particles On The Web: Modular Design

September 13th • We’ve all been there: once a new, thoroughly crafted website becomes outdated, inconsistent, bloated and expensive to maintain. Can we continue scaling the platfor, without losing its original essence and making it feel like it’s been patched together? Can we keep our code clean, flexible and future-proof long-term? Read more...

Rachel Andrew on Advanced CSS Layouts With Flexbox and CSS Grid

September 13th • This workshop is designed for designers and developers who already have a good working knowledge of HTML and CSS. We will cover a range of CSS methods for achieving layout, from those you are safe to use right now even if you need to support older version of Internet Explorer through to things that while still classed as experimental, are likely to ship in browsers in the coming months. Read more...

Umar Hansa on The Modern Front-End Workflow Bootcamp

September 13th • In this workshop, Umar Hansa, a senior front-end web developer at Springer Nature, will share obscure practical workflow tips, tricks and techniques that will supercharge developer’s workflow. Read more...

---

Location

At SmashingConf, we always strive to host events in the most memorable of venues. In Freiburg, our home will be the magnificent “Kaufhaus” – a stunning, central venue that blows our audience away every year.

The historic "Kaufhaus" (Merchants’ Hall, built 1520-30) is the venue for the two days of conference and one of the workshops.

It is a symbol of the importance of trade in medieval Freiburg. The municipal market, customs and financial administration building is identified as a center of trade by its arcades hall. Its façade is decorated with coats of arms and statues indicating the city’s links with the House of Habsburg.

Why This Conference Is For You

The Smashing experience is like walking into a cozy little place around the corner. You know everyone personally, and you have an authentic, intimate, genuine experience, with lots of learning, sharing and networking along the way. For front-end and UX, this conference will inspire you and significantly push your boundaries.

You'll learn:

• 1. How to improve your workflow with DevTools,
• 2. How to publish new sites much faster with Static Site generators,
• 3. How to make your website more performant and secure,
• 4. Strategies to break out of generic layouts with CSS Grids,
• 5. Approaches for better visual/brand identity design,
• 6. Guidelines for building maintainable modular design systems and pattern libraries,