New York City Creative Confab announced!

The Creative Confab is a combined panel discussion and networking event, in which creative professionals and hiring directors come together to hear a panel discussion on the state of creative employment, and find out who is hiring and what they're looking for. The first installment in Austin, which just posted video footage recently, was an excellent start, featuring an instructive hour-long talk with design pros from Dell, frogdesign and California College of the Arts, and plenty of post-talk business card passing.

So we're happy to announce that the second Confab, in New York City, has officially released its schedule and panel list. In a nod to the tremendous presence of interaction, new media and marketing-related design that goes on in the city, the panelists consist of four designers sitting comfortably at the forefront of these fields. They are:

Liz Danzico, chair of the MFA Interaction Design program at the School of Visual Arts

Michael Lebowitz, CEO of digital media studio Big Spaceship

Johnny Vulkan, partner at innovative branding agency Anomaly

Judy Wert, founder and executive recruiter at creative hiring agency Wert & Co.

I will once again have the distinct pleasure of moderating what promises to be a fascinating discussion. Topics will be similar to those from Austin -- the state of creative hiring, the changing requirements for career advancement in the creative professions, and plenty of first-hand anecdotes -- but with a greater focus on design for interaction and digital media. A wide array of representatives from some of New York's most creative companies will be on hand as well, to answer questions about their own talent needs and make contacts with local designers.

The Confab will take place on Friday, May 15th, from 2 to 5 pm at the Art Directors Club in Manhattan. For further information and to purchase tickets, check out the Confab page here on Coroflot.

Austin Creative Confab video

Video from first installment of Coroflot's five-city Creative Confab discussion series has just been released.

Having just watched it for the first time since moderating the panel, I can honestly recommend it as a dense source of information on the state of the creative economy, and some of the changing rules for finding good design jobs and hiring good designers. I write about this stuff, but for Nathan, Jon and Michael, these are issues of daily necessity, and they've clearly put a lot of thought into them.

For more information on the speakers, the Austin event, and upcoming dates in New York and (shortly) Portland, check out the official Creative Confab page.

Coroflot jobs via Twitter

Follow Coroflot Jobs on Twitter. We've recently started sending our job postings to Twitter, so if that is your preferred platform for tracking news items, just hit the follow button to stay up to date.

Design Observer joins the Coroflot Network

We are thrilled to announce that Design Observer, one of the most esteemed design communities on the web, has partnered with Coroflot to launch their new Design Observer Job Board. Design Observer provides a global readership with outstanding design discourse, criticism, provocation, and, well...observations on design and the creative industries, and we are proud to welcome them into our network.

If you've got a creative job to post and are looking to attract the best talent, check out Coroflot.com and its partner sites Design Observer, Businessweek, How Magazine, ID Magazine, Print Magazine, and the Art Directors Club.

Coroflot hits 75,000 Portfolios!

We wanted to spread the word that last night, Coroflot topped 75,000 portfolios. Thank you to all the members out there who make the site a thriving place for creative work.

Core77 Offsite Event: November 9th

Be sure to reserve you seat for this amazing event. Core77 presents a half-day panel discussion that will provoke and delight: Design, Wit & the Creative Act. Moderated by the supersensational Ze Frank, and featuring an all-star panel of Paul Budnitz, Steven Heller, Kelly Dobson and Tobias Wong, the event will take place on Friday, November 9th, a the Art Directors Club in NYC. Here's the pitch:

Business and design leaders are increasingly aware that some of the most successful goods and services are those that elicit emotion. Trading in this spectrum poses some unique challenges to the designer, however, since the creative process of generating this kind of work presumes a shared set of cultural experiences and some deft leaps of faith, especially when it comes to humor.

How do designers employ wit, irony—even subversion—in the service of making a connection with their audience, and how can they replicate these connections across a body of work? Are there limits to commercializing this kind of design, or are we seeing new opportunities for the provocateur in an ever-commoditized world? What is the role of the brand in this context, and to what degree does a sly exchange between designer and user create a new kind of brand experience?

This panel will discuss ways of leveraging the droll parts of the emotional spectrum to provide impactful products and experiences to users. Did we say users? We meant people. Smiling ones.

Cocktail reception afterwards, and hey, it's a Friday afternoon--great way to end the week.
All info and tickets at the site: http://www.core77.com/offsite/

Take the 2007 Design Salary Survey

Our 7th Annual Design Salary Survey is open for business! Come add your data, it is easy and quick to do so. When you are done you get a free sneak preview of the survey results; we compile them live on the spot so you can see what your colleagues are making - today!

Take the Survey Here
Thank You!

Coroflot Magazine #3: THE SHOE ISSUE!!!

Designers of all stripes will be dancing in the streets after they download and read the new Coroflot PDF magazine. Issue #3 focuses on Shoe Design, and it's full of incredible work from Coroflot members, a provocative essay by Molly Purnell, and a killer, KILLER! interview with Michael DiTullo and Richard Kuchinsky--two leaders in the field, moderated by Jesse Huffman. Beautifully art directed by Andrea Paustenbaugh, download it free-and-easy right here right now. A taste from the interview, from Mike D:

At Converse, we are starting to use 3d more and more, especially to develop forms in the midsole and outsole, explore new traction and cushioning systems, and better refine designs for production. Still, it is my personal feeling that a large portion of the exploratory process will still be 2d. I think this is important with any product type that is emotionally expressive--such as automotive design or fashion. A few years ago I had the pleasure of spending an hour with Chuck Pelly at an IDSA conference. The founder of Design Works, BMW's California studio, Pelly explained to me how his team pioneered working straight in 3d and within 5 years he had a team of designers that had lost sense of scale and expression, that created designs they new how to model instead of designs that challenged the industry. After making a sizable investment, they reversed course, and switched the studio back to 2d exploration and hand-cut models for design studies. I think staying in touch with the art of design is very important. Great design is about balance, from inspiration to implementation.

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