Dribbble Meetup 2014 was held in Moscow on May 24. This informal conference for designers was attended by two dozen strong and interesting specialists represented in one of the main thematic social networks Dribbble.

Stepan Burlakov (Freeger), Pokras Lampas, Max Kostenko, Alexander Zaitsev, Tanya Sayenko (Ryazhanka), Alexander Khmelevsky (SoftFacade), Dmitry Novikov (MacPaw), Andrey Davlikanov, Alex Bender, Alexander Nokhrin, Roman Khramov (Cuberto), Dmitry Chuta (Chapps), Pavel Skripkin (Mail.Ru Group), Alisher Yakupov and Oleg Andrianov (Odnoklassniki), Sasha Burt, as well as an unscheduled speaker Anton Kartashov (Innova).

There were many practically useful stories and stories from the lives of designers and companies with a lively and cheerful dialogue with the audience.

Dribbble was created by Dan Cederholm, founder of the American design studio SimpleBits. It is not easy to get an invitation to publish your work and, as a result, the site contains only high-quality works and the best designers from all over the world. And with the advent of team accounts, large Internet services like Facebook, Dropbox, Evernote, Google promptly publish fresh pieces of their fresh work. Our team at Mail.Ru Group also publishes its developments during the redesign of the company’s products and the creation of new services.

Alisher Yakupov

I reopened the program Alisher Yakupov from Odnoklassniki, which announced the Russian Design Cup 2014 competition for designers. It will be held for the third time, and this time also offline. Details will appear in the summer, but for now he described the main changes and plans for the future.

Alex Bender

The next one was Alex Bender… He is well known in the community for his juicy skeomorphic icons, which he did not abandon even after the total flatization of everything and everyone. Alex explained why he considers this approach relevant and in demand, and also described the process of creating them step by step.

Dmitry Chuta

Dmitry Chuta shared his vision of how animation helps make apps and websites more lively and interactive. In the presentation there were many examples that solve various problems, including from the Chapps studio itself. Plus the analysis of tools and nuances of the process of implementing spectacular transitions in a live product. At the last meetup, Dima had his first public appearance, and over the course of a year he has developed very coolly as a speaker. This is also why we give inexperienced speakers the opportunity to tell about ourselves from the stage – the main thing is to start.

Alexander Nokhrin

Another story about juicy skeomorphic icons prepared by Alexander Nokhrin… He also walked through the main stages of their creation and toolkit step by step. In the second part, he talked about the case of working with one of the clients, in which the set of icons changed a lot during the course of creation.

Dmitry Novikov

Just like last year, Dmitry Novikov from MacPaw gave a workshop on Sketch, the recently released version 3. This time, the interest in the instrument was even higher, and there was more time for the performance. So Dima was not released with questions either immediately after the performance or during lunch.

Alexander Zaitsev

The second part of the meetup was opened Alexander Zaitsev… He shot very powerfully after the release of iOS7, managing to offer something more than an emasculated monochrome visual style of the platform’s basic guidelines. In his story, he walked through the most interesting of these works, also revealing the nuances of interaction with Western customers.

Stepan Burlakov

This time the creator of the Freeger studio Stepana Burlakov it turned out to speak at the meetup. He talked about his experience of moving to the United States and working both as an independent designer and his own studio. He has extensive experience working on large-scale projects with large customers, as well as a successful example of running an agency’s business. We managed to find out a lot of details and nuances, and Stepan was not released with questions for a long time, and he made a spontaneous speech in the hall after his story.

Tanya Sayenko

Tanya Sayenko became the first girl to speak at the meetup. She draws the kindest icons on Dribbble and talked about the nuances of creating them, including a step-by-step process and specifics of interaction with customers. During and after her presentation on Twitter, cuteness went off scale – Tanya was called “Sayenko-chan” 🙂

Alexander Khmelevsky

Alexander Khmelevsky from SoftFacade spoke about the experience of using the InVision prototyping tool for mobile applications that the company makes. It is one of the strongest among the existing variety and greatly facilitates the work of designing interfaces and interacting with clients.

Max Kostenko

A small master class on creating illustrations was conducted by Max Kostenko… His characteristic spectacular works are in demand not only in Russia, and using the example of the famous poster for the Cannes Young Lions festival, he showed step by step his technique for creating such works.

Andrey Davlikanov

Working on 2D games Andrey Davlikanov talked about his several projects. It turned out to be a good overview of tools, techniques, pros, cons and pitfalls. Much time has been devoted to animation, which has a number of limitations.

Pokras lampas

A spectacular story about his works made Pokras lampas… He performs a lot in different cities of Russia and actively teaches, so the presentation turned out to be lively and vigorous. The presentation was also devoted to the works and the history of their creation, as well as the techniques of execution. After her and a lively series of questions, Pokras left a series of his signature autographs.

Oleg Andrianov

A more detailed overview of mobile application prototyping tools was prepared by Oleg Andrianov from the Odnoklassniki team. He went through the capabilities and limitations of the most demanded of them – Flinto, Marvel, InVision, and also provided a set of useful plugins and add-ons for working with mobile design.

Roman Khramov

How the St. Petersburg studio Cuberto works was told by its co-founder Roman Khramov – what they have learned while working with clients. His brother Dmitry spoke at the first meetup, but since then the market has moved away from colorful skeomorphic icons, so it was interesting how the company increased its focus on applications.

Pavel Skripkin

My colleague Pavel Skripkin gave a comparative overview of Adobe Edge Animate and AfterEffects as tools for creating front-end animation. The emphasis was on the first, as more suitable for systemic work on complex interactions and ideologically modern.

Alex Burt

Latest presentation from Sasha Burt put a powerful point – he talked about the theory of color in relation to the nuances of display on the screens of modern devices. There was a lot of theory and difficult concepts, but Sasha is an excellent storyteller and even the audience, tired of a 10-hour marathon of presentations, managed to cheer up again.

Anton Kartashov

A small master class became a bonus at the end of the main program Anton Kartashova from Origami Animation Innovation for Quartz Composer. His story and presentation by Alexey Solomatin from Digital October on the same topic were not included in the main program due to its overload. But for the remaining couple of dozen people, Anton went through the basic techniques of working with the tool and the superstructure.

In addition, we managed to gather many interesting listeners, including from strong domestic companies and teams. Thanks to this, active communication took place not only on the stage, but also outside the presentations – and this is an equally interesting part of any good event.

We tried to maintain a balance between the practical usefulness of the stories and the opportunity to introduce the community to each other, as well as show the most sought-after members. Many of them performed for the first time and it was noticeable. But a meetup is not really a conference and it is important to combine the cognitive part with the party part. We think this informality is what makes Dribbble so interesting. We will adjust the format next time to make it even more cheerful.

Source: company blog Mail.ru