Had a chat with friends after a design event.
Despite their experiences of presenting personal works in different conferences and lectures, they still think every presentation is a new challenge.
- To keep it meaningful, relatable and inspiring but to be careful not to trip into the areas of self-glorification.
- To understand that among the audience there would be fans and there would be strangers. There would also be old cynical designers amongst the young eager students.
- To maintain a level of insightful engagement and yet be entertaining – the audience wants good showmanship too.
By organising design events, I have the privilege of looking at how designers frantically tweak their presentations before the actual show — tweaking to make it more relevant to the audience:
“Would Malaysians understand this sort of things?”
“Is the audience mainly professionals or students?”
“Is this boring or is this interesting?”
In actual fact, presenting to designers (seasoned or aspiring) is a daunting task, especially when creative people are generally known as the most critical bunch.