Let's hear it for SmashingConf New York

Upon arriving home from New York, from my fifth Smashing Conference, I was able to reflect on not only another amazing conference but all the great people I was able to meet and connect with. Many great stories were shared regarding their work and problems they were trying to solve. What I love about this conference is the community of people trying to better themselves and share their perspective on how they've solved certain problems which could possibly help others in their own work.

Monday night (October 6), I attended the Jam Session event at the Figma office, which Smashing Conference always holds the night before the first day of talks. This was an event that I've always toyed with the idea of speaking at but would usually end up chickening out of submitting a talk. On August 29, I submitted my talk topic to the Smashing Magazine team to be included with the list of other speakers. It was the same topic that I spoke about at the Digital Collegium conference on September 29, but around a third of the total time to present it since they were just lightning talks. All the lightning talks at the Jam Session event were so good. I still remember after my talk, someone coming up to me and telling me how much my talk resonated with them and it felt rewarding to share my voice on what I'm passionate about. Many others, throughout the week told me that they saw my talk and enjoyed my message regarding the workflow of building a design system. A few called me "the Design System guy" 😂.

I attended two workshops, both of which will help me with my daily work. Stephanie Eckles workshop, Building Interactive, Accessible Components made me think about specific components we have on our design system that could use upgrades based on what I learned about in her workshop. Miriam Suzanne's workshop, Modern CSS Architecture simplified styling techniques which I've often overthought how to implement.

A conference trip post wouldn't be complete without mentioning the food. Before each trip, I do my food research to make sure I make the most out of my conference experience outside of the conference venue. As you can imagine, New York was filled with great food spots to check out. The three places that stood out where Katz's Delicatessen, Angelo's Coal Oven Pizzeria and Mama's TOO! The pastrami sandwich will always be a memorable from Katz's Deli. I was only able to eat half of it, so I took the other half back to my hotel to eat later. I went to Angelo's Pizzeria after seeing their rating (9.3) from Barstool's One Bite app. It was easily the best pizza I've ever had (sorry Chicago pizza). Mama's TOO! was a place I had seen reviewed by some food influencers that I follow. Their sandwiches were always the highlight of the videos. I ended up getting the cheesesteak, which was easily the best cheesesteak I've ever eaten. The counter I stood at, to eat my food, allowed me to see the artistry and love that they put into their pizzas. The next time I go back to New York, I need to try their pizza out.

The two conference talk days offered a variety of interesting topics, ranging from leadership to design systems to UX writing to typography. Each talk left me thinking about how I could incorporate each topic into my work as well as my colleagues. Smashing Conference always invites individuals who are not only experts in their field but genuinely nice people to get to know as well.

If you've never been do a Smashing Conference, I highly recommend going to at least one. It has always been my conference of choice since going to my first in 2018. To learn more about their conferences, or even online workshops, go to the following URL: https://smashingconf.com/.