The Eighth Wonder Of The World! Smashing Conference NYC 2014

SmashingConf NYC 2014 won’t solve all complex problems, but once it’s over you’ll know how to conquer yours. Our new conference in New York has 1 track, 2 conference days, 7 workshops, 18 excellent speakers and just 350 available tickets. With a heavy focus on networking and practical takeaways from real-life projects, you really don’t want to miss out on this one. To the tickets.

About The Conference

When we organize a conference, we make sure that it provides a lot of value for everybody involved. We don’t care about volatile trends and we don’t believe in overnight success stories. Every success requires hard work and many failures along the way. There are lessons learned, takeaways, and problems solved, but also many sketches and designs and ideas and prototypes thrown away because they didn’t work. We are interested in how problems are solved—ideas that failed, and why exactly they failed and what decisions were chosen instead.

SmashingConf NYC 2014 is a two-day event taking place at the TimesCenter in the very heart of New York. We won’t conquer all complex issues, but you’ll learn how to conquer yours.

And this is what the conference is about: lessons learned in front-end, UX, workflow and other design-related disciplines. This is what we encourage our speakers to share and what we are all going to explore in the conversations before, during and after the conference days.

Networking is important, and we’ll provide many opportunities for networking throughout the conference. Ah, and the party — oh, the party! You’ll remember that one! Taking place on June 17–18th 2014 in the lovely TimesCenter just next to Times Square in New York City, the conference will be nothing short of smashing. Booo-yah, baby!

First Confirmed Speakers

Okay. Ready for the first confirmed speakers? Get set. Go!

First confirmed speakers, Brian Suda and Divya Manian. Divya might even volunteer to run the legendary party in the evening — you never know!

• Brian Suda
  (Data visualization, SVG)


• Divya Manian
  (HTML5 Boilerplate, Adobe)


• Scott Jehl
  (Responsive Web design)


• Oliver Reichenstein
  (UX, typography, iA Writer)


• Aarron Walter
  (User experience)


• Jonathan Hoefler
  (Typography, H&FJ)


• Andy Hume
  (Front-end optimization)


• Cassie McDaniel
  (Storytelling, UX, Mozilla)


• Tim Brown
  (Web typography)


• Eva-Lotta Lamm
  (Sketching, UX, UI, Google)


• Jonathan Snook
  (Front-end development)


• Mark Boulton
  (Grids, Web design)


• Dan Rose
  (Photoshop, visual design)


• Mystery Speaker
  (Someone you definitely know.)


• …more speakers will be announced soon!

Hands-On Workshops

We’ll also host hands-on full-day workshops with practical techniques taught by masters of the craft. Be it responsive HTML newsletters, Photoshop techniques for responsive design, SVG techniques, or strategies for delightful UX, we carefully selected topics that will help you become better at what you do. So if you are going to attend the conference, why not attend a workshop as well?

In fact, we reserved 50 early-bird tickets for $549, and if you book a workshop too, you’ll save $100 off the conference + workshop ticket price. Well, enough already. Tickets are on sale now, you know.

If you always wanted to visit New York, or just happen to live around the corner (well, more or less), that’s just the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. Grab your ticket.

Why This Conference Is For You

The conference is for you because you’ll learn many valuable techniques for your workflow, and you’ll meet fantastic, like-minded people from the industry. You’ll learn:

1. Strategies for building fast responsive websites,


2. Smart SVG techniques for scalable, future-proof designs,


3. Clever Photoshop techniques for RWD workflow,


4. Tricks to design and build responsive HTML newsletters,


5. Insights about effective and smart problem-solving,


6. Hands-on techniques for sketching interfaces,


7. Techniques and guidelines for good Web typography,


8. Guidelines for smarter front-end and CSS architecture,


9. Advanced front-end tooling and setup,


10. Guidelines for delightful, engaging UX,


11. Mistakes and lessons learned from large projects,


12. How to increase productivity and stay happy,


13. …more practical takeaways from various areas of Web design.

Ticket Sales And Pricing

Only 350 tickets are available, and we do everything possible to keep our prices fair and affordable. The price for two full conference days is $549 for early-bird tickets, and $599 for regular tickets. And again, if you book a workshop as well, you’ll save $100. Yay! Get your ticket right away.

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

We also 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 — we can be quite convincing, too!

We Welcome Lovely Sponsors, You Know

We do everything possible to keep ticket prices affordable for everyone, and we welcome sponsors to help us create a truly unique, unforgettable conference experience. And you can be a major part of it.

We have quite a number of attractive and creative sponsorship packages for you, and we are also flexible and would love to adjust them to your needs. So if you’re interested, please email us at hello@smashingconf.com — we’d love for you to be involved!

See You In New York!

We are looking forward to seeing you in New York, and who knows, perhaps we can tackle more complex problems that we thought we would! See you there!

The conference will take place in the lovely TimesCenter, right off Times Square in New York. It doesn’t get any more central than that. Grab your ticket.

© Vitaly Friedman for Smashing Magazine, 2014.