20 in 20.

The last session of the evening was an excellent presentation with a lot of variety.  The concept is to present 20 slides, at only 20 seconds per slide.  The content could have been anything ranging from what you do outside of design to what is on your mind at the moment.  There were several presenters with very unique content.  One of the presenters was a graduate student from ASU requesting ideas to begin a conference on design research.  She gave some examples and experiences from a past attempt, but was very open to out of the box thinking.  Another presenter was an interaction designer with a desire to start a business model dealing with iPhone art.

One of the more significant presentations was given by Paul Hatch, the director of TEAMS design in Chicago.  His presentation was a collection of observations and experimentation regarding the influence of music on design and designers.  He showed how his office used to play a mix of music all throughout the day.  He went on to discuss the usage of specific genres of music at different times of the day to increase productivity and creativity for respective tasks.  He also gave an example of a case in which one person who listened to one type of music was given that of another designers.  It illustrated the connection between the type of music one listened to and the type of design one produces (regarding aesthetic details or emotion).  He talked about the possibility of implementing certain types of music into mood boards.  This would let designers get a feel, and sound, of what a proposed product is supposed to be like.  All in all, it was an extremely interesting and  thought capturing presentation.