Full Day Masterclasses

We’re offering a limited number of places for a few full-day exclusive masterclasses in the lead-up to the conference.

Workshops cost £395+VAT per workshop (or £345+VAT until 6th August). Attendees receive complimentary entrance to the dConstruct conference.

DateWorkshop and workshop leaders
01 Sept

Design 101

Mark Boulton

HTML5 for Web Designers

Jeremy Keith
02 Sept

Defining a Flexible Process

Simon Collison

Improving your productivity

Steven Stark & Curtis James

Workshops will take place at: Clearleft, 28 Kensington Street, Brighton, BN1 4AJ, UK. Map.

Workshops start promptly at 10:00am. Please arrive at 9:30am for coffee and registration.

Design 101

Led by Mark Boulton

£345 + VAT until 6th August

Sold Out!

Visual design is not magic, or the result of some God-given talent, but the result of applying rules, techniques and practice.

Mark’s workshop will cover the basics of visual design. From collaborative idea generation and visualising ideas, to the fundamentals of typography, grid design, composition and colour theory. Good visual design is like good jazz; it’s about having the chops to improvise around the constraints. That’s what this workshop will do: it will give you the chops. All you will need to do afterwards, is practice.

This workshop will cover:

  • Critical thinking, ideation, visualising your ideas
  • Re-writing the creative brief
  • Brainstorming and the Four R's
  • Sketchstorming and collaborative wire-framing
  • The Fidelity Curve
  • Visual design techniques, rules and constraints including typography, colour theory, grid design, composition and imagery.

HTML5 for Web Designers

Led by Jeremy Keith

£345 + VAT until 6th August

Sold Out!

Quite simply, HTML5 is the most exciting thing to happen to markup in years.

Jeremy’s workshop will distil the most relevant parts of the daunting HTML5 specification into a day of hands-on discovery and exploration. Discover the design principles that are informing the latest version of the web’s lingua franca, and find out why HTML5 is more of an evolution than a revolution.

Get to grips with the new features in HTML5, from audio and video to more powerful forms and new structural elements. Gain an understanding of the new semantics and get an insight into how new features should be used. Focusing on the practicalities of using HTML5 today, this workshop will benefit any web designer who wants to stay up-to-date with the latest standards.

This workshop will cover:

  • The road from XHTML to HTML5
  • Design principles of HTML5
  • Syntax: marking it up your way
  • Shiny new JavaScript APIs
  • Using audio and video
  • Turbo-boosting your form fields
  • Changes in semantics
  • New structural elements
  • The new outline algorithm
  • Using ARIA roles with HTML5
  • New content models
  • Strategies for using HTML5 today

Defining a Flexible Process

Led by Simon Collison

£345 + VAT until 6th August

Sold Out!

Simon has spent a decade working with some of the most demanding projects and clients known to man (with scars to prove it), and has established a rigorous yet flexible approach to getting the best from the brief, the client and the creative team, whilst never compromising on audience needs.

Theoretical, practical and hands-on, Simon’s workshop will follow the project journey from beginning to launch—and beyond. You’ll learn about backbone and research, collaboration, methodology, convention, prototyping, testing, narrative and much more, with a strong emphasis on maximising creativity throughout. Whatever your experience, you’ll learn common sense and engaging approaches for dealing with client projects big or small.

This workshop will cover:

  • The project backbone (defining a process, engaging with clients and meeting the needs of their audience)
  • Collaboration and the creative team
  • Audience groups, user scenarios and accountability
  • Methodology (waterfall versus agile, collaborative versus competitive)
  • Using systems
  • Project spaces, scrap-booking, mood boards and finding inspiration
  • Prototyping (testing and getting feedback)
  • Launch and beyond

Improving your productivity

Led by Steven Stark & Curtis James

£345 + VAT until 6th August

Sold Out!

In the face of global recession it is our creativity that gives us the edge. Yet finding the space to be creative is harder than ever. Modern working practices mean we juggle diverse work loads whilst fielding increasing interruptions from email, tweets, text, phone, letters and colleagues.

Steven and Curtis will run a practical workshop that will help you improve your productivity, and increase your capacity for creative thinking and doing.

They’ll walk you through a brilliantly simple and straight forward framework designed to be habit forming: fading into the background of your work and freeing your brain to focus on what really makes a difference. It’s an intense day but you’ll enjoy the benefits immediately: feeling in control and on top of your work.

You will actively review your current activities giving consideration to every task and project before constructing your own productivity system. The review will allow you to reconsider what, how and why you are doing what you are and to effectively plan and prioritise all your work going forward.

The ability to access your email to do lists and calendar (e.g. via a laptop) during the workshop is useful and helps with immediate application of the learning.

By the end of this workshop you will:

  • Understand what increases productivity
  • Have developed a sustainable framework to make permanent improvements to your work
  • Review all your live tasks and projects
  • Implement a full personal productivity system
  • Have rediscovered space for creative work
  • Have gained a renewed sense of control over your work and life
  • Feel highly motivated to move forward across all your projects.