Brad Weed

Free Design.

The freedom to design is a right inherent in all humans.  So is the right to charge what you like for the act of designing.  Combine that with the ubiquity of and access to the internet and the next thing you know people expect design to be free.  The internet has unleashed entirely new economic models that have allowed for massively successful examples of free goods and services.  This in turn has put pressure on companies, firms and agencies with long traditions and convictions around getting paid for their hard work.  As it turns out, sitting back and complaining only makes you more vulnerable to the free competition.  In this talk, I’ll try to frame the issue and offer case studies of how companies and industries are reacting and responding to this phenomenon.  You have a right to design and you have the right to charge, but you also have the right to fail.  What’s for free and what’s for fee and how are you rethinking design?  That’s a question you may no longer afford to ignore.

Brad Weed is the director of user experience design and research for the Windows and Windows Live product line at Microsoft. Prior to Windows he was the user experience manager for Microsoft Office. His contributing work on Office 2007 is widely recognized as one of the biggest paradigm shifts in the history of the industry. In 2003, Weed received the IDSA IDEA Gold Award; Microsoft's first IDSA award for software design. With more than 16 years at Microsoft, he has been instrumental in shaping the role of design at Microsoft and in the industry.

He has also been instrumental in advancing the software interaction design education in schools around the world, most recently as a Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Before joining Microsoft in 1992, he worked as a user interface designer and engineer for Wavefront Technologies in Santa Barbara, combining his passion for information design, computer graphics and socio-behavioral geography.

 PRE REGISTRATION
AIGA Students – FREE
Non-Member Student – $5
AIGA Members – $5
Non-Members – $10

AT THE DOOR
AIGA Students – $5
Non-Member Student – $10
AIGA Members – $10
Non-Members – $15

Sponsored by: