At the mercy of the Twitter critics.
Robin Richmond is left wondering what defines value at TYPO Berlin
Last year’s Eye blogs, by long time TYPO contributor Jan Middendorp, raised a healthy debate about the value of the event (see Day 1, Day 2 & Day 3). As this year’s conference is a sell-out, with roughly 50 per cent of delegates returning each year, it is safe to assume that demand outstrips the concerns. I am however left to wonder what defines value at a conference like this? Is value diminished by a poor presentation or content that doesn’t interest the individual? I’m personally horrified by the platform given to crowd-sourcing design businesses (see Eye 74) but then the point of a forum like this to investigate and understand other perspectives and the changing landscape of the industry. I’m reminded of the maxim that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer still.
In general, portfolio presentations are met with polite yet neutral applause. Where laptops were prominent in previous years, delegates hold iPhones and DV Cams in the air to record presentations and tweet. From the back, it’s like being at rock concert. The official TYPO Twitter stream ‘#typo10’ provides an interesting dimension and another conference channel. Of course the output polarises the audience. One poster retrospectively tweets ‘Postmodernism is getting old, along with its protagonists’ while another retorts that ‘Erik’s presentation was as usual spontaneous, freeform, interesting and entertaining’.
David Carson (above) is introduced as the ‘Godfather of Grunge’ and is warmly welcomed as he begins his presentation. Several nude slides of his girlfriend later and the audience’s exasperation begins to show, with tweets suggesting that he ‘was okay for fifteen minutes and now he’s wondering aimlessly’ and the harsher ‘the time of my old idol David Carson is genuinely past. Should not really hold more lectures’. Some people walk out, but given that the hall was packed for his presentation, the dynamic isn’t much different to other talks. At least Carson starts off as the darling of the audience. I miss the Studio Dumbar presentation, but if Twitter is the only vehicle for assessment it seems that the audience was unimpressed, ‘(the) presentation is like an adolescent with art academy ambitions. Unbearable.’ Meanwhile another delegate saw it as ‘just pretentious’.
TYPO has evolved over the years and the programme includes portfolio shows, the more personal musings and scrapbook presentations of established conference veterans, contemporary graphic design, at least two variations on how to ‘establish yourself online’, pitches for and against crowd-sourcing, design planning, strategy and research. Given speaker list inclusions like Julian Smith (above), we may well see less and less typographic content at future TYPOs, with increasing emphasis on social media and general design and communication. Feedback to many of the presentations is enthusiastic. Jonathan Barnbrook, Jan Chipchase, Erik Kessels, Eike Konig, Joachim Sauter (below) and Carlos Segura are well received. And despite the Twitter feedback, I suspect David Carson has sold a batch of books from the event.
Top photograph by Thorsten Wulff; speaker photographs by Gerhard Kassner
TYPO Berlin 2010, 20 > 22 May
15th International Design Conference
Eye 75 is a typography special issue, featuring illustrative type and lettering, calligraphy, type on the Web, a profile of Anthony Burrill and Mark Thomson’s Reputations interview with Peter Biľak. You can read a selection of pages on Eye Before You Buy on Issuu. Student subscriptions are half price, bit.ly/EyeStudentOffer.
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May 24th, 2010 at 5:36 pm | by Jürgen Siebert
Tiny correction: The official twitter hashtag was #typo10
May 24th, 2010 at 9:21 pm | by Etienne Girardet
hi robin, thanks for your view on TYPO2010. as there seems to be some kind of “positivism” online (tweets+blogs) where people dont dare to ask critical questions its good to find some of those questions here. the official TYPO twitter stream is (other than you write above) ‘#typo10’. here.
May 24th, 2010 at 11:44 pm | by kupfers
The “official” hashtag most of the attendees used is #typo10, not typo2010 as stated above.
May 25th, 2010 at 3:38 pm | by First Video Impressions of TYPO Berlin 2010 “Passion” | The FontFeed
[...] to be found online. And that same afternoon the Eye blog published Robin Richmond’s incisive At the mercy of the Twitter critics which questions what defines value at TYPO Berlin – food for [...]
May 25th, 2010 at 3:45 pm | by mg
Was also going to correct the poster but this now seems to be updated to the correct tag.
May 25th, 2010 at 7:23 pm | by #typo10
Strange that as ‘Europe’s largest design conference’, only 10% of the speakers were women.
May 25th, 2010 at 8:21 pm | by Joe Clark
This nonsensically overshort coverage of a multi-day conference proves Eye’s inability to adapt to a medium with no length limitations, among related inabilities.
Is it a coïncidence that the review gripes endlessly about Internet usage of attendees, then actually fails to use the Internet save for a publication platform functionally identical to the “real” platform, print?
May 26th, 2010 at 10:29 am | by david carson. typo berlin 2010 « kandegginanelcielo
[...] fonte: eye blog | typo berlin videoblog [...]
May 26th, 2010 at 1:50 pm | by Stephen Coles
Whoops, Robin. Maybe you’re new to TYPO, but I believe the amount of typographic content was actually higher than it’s been in recent years. Looking at the program there was at least one type-centric presentation in nearly every time slot. One could go through all three days seeing nothing but type stuff almost every hour. That’s what I did and everything I saw was good.
May 26th, 2010 at 6:34 pm | by robin richmond
It seems useful to deal with comments in order. The official TYPO Berlin #tag is #typo10, which is now correctly hot linked to the correct Twitter page. Sorry for the confusion. That was my ‘typo’ contribution to TYPO.
I also noted that few women spoke on the platforms at TYPO but given the parameters of my brief (yes Joe, I had a word limit) I decided to leave that one alone. I don’t think the issue is exclusive to TYPO or conferences in general, but yes more women speakers are needed to make events like this balanced and dare I say like everyday life. The audience seemed pretty balanced male:female, so hopefully future TYPOs will address this.
The editors at Eye can respond about the organ’s ability to connect with people online. My reviews, and there are potentially two – either two online or one here and one in the print magazine – are the result of a two day visit to TYPO, Thursday and Friday. So there are logistical issues with covering the Conference, especially one with four stages and parallel content running. You just can’t write about everything. I have a brief to write to a number of words and that is determined by what Eye thinks people will ultimately want to read about.
As regards internet usage of attendees, I really enjoyed the Twitter feed. I think that the anonymous nature of the medium can result in some very negative comments as people don’t have to qualify their remarks – so saying, as one Tweeter did, that their expectations for this speaker or that were not met doesn’t particularly help – it’s just opinion. When three or four people start calling a presentation poor it becomes a more qualified mood that you write about. So actually I don’t think this is griping I see it as reporting. It’s clear that real time media has a huge potential to provide the barometer from the event. I see it that there were four stages/platforms of speakers and a fifth stage being the delegate commentary.
I also decided not to post content from dystopian commentators. In the case of comments for David Carson the posters had a sequence of positive and enthusiastic tweets at the beginning of his presentation and they changed with the content and so by the end of proceedings it was interesting to see how the hall, packed to the rafters, interacted. Carson himself has responded to this thread by posting links to an interview outside the Kongressehalle and I suspect like Oscar Wilde he fully understands that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all. The irony of my comments is that the 464 words used to write this are almost as long as the original review…
May 27th, 2010 at 10:47 am | by robin richmond
Re Stephen Coles. Glad you enjoyed the Conference. No problems with your assessment as regards the Programme. I don’t however see my review as stating that there was less typographic content at TYPO 2010. It speculates that future TYPOs may well see less typographic content. We will see. My first TYPO was when the event was called FUSE, albeit in London, and I was at the first TYPO at the Kongressehalle, which was 1996.
May 30th, 2010 at 10:40 am | by Eye blog » More TYPO Berlin. Likes and dislikes: part two of Eye’s coverage of the 2010 conference
[...] design, advertising, research and now social media, across four stages over three days. See ‘At the mercy of the Twitter critics’ on the Eye blog and the official TYPO Twitter stream, [...]