In the space of one week, Brighton played host to three excellent conferences:
- FF Conf on Friday, November 6th,
- Meaning on Thursday, November 12th, and
- Ampersand on Friday, November 13th.
I made it to two of the three—alas, I couldn't make it to Meaning this year because it clashed with Richard's superb workshop on Responsive Web Typography.
FF Conf and Ampersand were both superb. Despite having very different subject matter, the two events have a lot in common. They're both affordable, one-day, single-track, focused gatherings.
Both events really benefit from having a mastermind overseeing the line-up: Remy in the case of FF Conf, and Richard in the case of Ampersand. That really paid off. Both events were superbly curated, with a diverse mix of speakers and topics.
It was really interesting to see both conferences break out of the boundary of what happens inside web browsers. At FF Conf, we were treated to talks on linguistics and inclusivity. At Ampersand, we enjoyed talks on physiology and culture. But of course we also had the really deep dives into the minutest details of JavaScript, SVG, typography, and layout.
Videos will be available from FF Conf, and audio will be available from Ampersand. Be sure to check them out once they're released.
This was originally posted on my own site.