Full day masterclass: Beyond Big Type 2009

In partnership with Wire Design Ltd.

19th March 2009, 9:30am - 4.30pm, London

Beyond Big Type will help you to answer these questions and ensure confidence that your work is creative, interesting and accessible.

It will focus on how you can:

• Use industry guidelines, as well as your own internal guidelines, to ensure that you can maximise the impact of your design and marketing and remain innovative while ensuring your communications are accessible to everyone, including disabled people.

• This successful workshop has been run and adapted over the last five years, bringing together top designers and communication professionals across all industry sectors, to explore and engage in creating a more inclusive approach to design.

You will have the opportunity to listen to different organisations and their experiences as well as disabled individuals and their needs as your clients and customers.

Why attend?

This event enables you to: 

• Maximise your creativity while ensuring that you appeal to a wider audience.
• Understand the needs of different disabled users and the solutions available in ensuring that your communications are accessible.
• Understand the relationship with your suppliers, taking into consideration your legal and best practice obligations when outsourcing a service.
• Work with clients and departments across your business to ensure that the needs of disabled people are recognised, developing the arguments for good, accessible design practices. 
• Ensure that your websites are designed according to recognised web standards, whilst also giving you design flexibility.
• Learn to use software accessibly, including Flash and PDF documents.
• Learn from the experience of successful designers and marketing professionals who apply principles of creative design to a wider audience.

Speakers

• Simon Minty, EFD Associate and Director, Minty & Friend.
• Dr Hua Dong, Lecturer in Design, School of Engineering and Design, Brunel University.
• John Corcoran, Director & Daniel Collins, Senior Designer, Wire Design.
• Robin Christopherson, Head of Accessibility Services, AbilityNet.
• Peter Green, Access manager & Jennie Smith, Communications Executive, Severn Trent Water.
• Lucie Brown, Creative manager, Campaigns, communications and fundraising, Mencap.
• Case study from Fortune Cookie (UK) Ltd.

Agenda highlights

• The business drivers for making your communication and marketing accessible. 
• The principles of inclusive design and what this means for designers, including identifying your users, their impairments and potential barriers to disabled people. The future impact for designers and the consumer.
• Clear and accessible graphic design - finding solutions. Focus specifically on typography, using case study examples and the difference between on-screen type and web based type.
• Creating accessible websites. Demos of both good and bad website practice and guidance on how real-life accessibility can be achieved.
• Mencap case study: benefits of rebranding. 
• Severn Trent case study: Working across your organisation.
• Case study: Wire Design - Inclusion v creative control.
• Group work run by Wire Design giving participants an understanding of the differing needs of users with a range of different impairments and possible design considerations and solutions for the individual.

Who should attend?

Graphic designers, marketing and communications managers and disability or diversity champions.