30 Events a Web Designer & Developer Should Always Take Part in Every Year
Every year plenty of conferences and events meant especially for web designers and developers are held. However, it isn’t possible for one to attend all of them, as it will leave no room for project development (the main task of a designer and developer). Therefore, we have come up with 30 events and conferences that a web designer and developer should take part in to improve his overall skills, and learn about the latest trends, and build contacts that eventually help business to grow.
There are small things that shouldn’t be taken as pros for attending conferences but are still nice, it’s the contests which are organized and the free stuff which is given away by various companies in order to promote their products. So here are the top 30 events for you;
1. An Event Apart
An Event Apart is a highly intense educational learning session that’s organized every year by the designers and developers for designers and developers who love to follow web standards while crafting their work. Therefore, if you are amongst those who care about code along with the content, usability as well as design, then you should really attend An Event Apart conference every year, as there you get a chance to meet many industry experts, great speakers, and know about the latest trends in web designing. An Even Apart is exclusively sponsored by companies like Mailchimp, Square Space and Media Temple.
Scheduled For December 9-11, 2013, in San Francisco.
2. Reasons to Be Creative
Do you have a Creative Mind with zeal to excel in everything you create? If yes, then Reasons to Be Creative is an event where you should land every year. It is a 3 day event that is organized every year on the first Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, in the month of September in Brighton, United Kingdom. In these three days you get a chance to witness what and how experts in designing, coding, art, illustration, etc. do to overcome the problems they face at work, how they cope up with the pressure, where they get the ideas from, as all the expert speakers share their insights, passion, and knowledge, about their work.
Scheduled For September 1-4, 2014, in Brighton, UK.
3. The Next Web Conference
The Next Web is an ideal place for any web designer and developer to stay in touch with the industry news. Additionally, The Next Web also holds multiple conferences every year that you can take part in, where innovators, developers, investors and journalists come in to discover the new trends in mobile and internet. Moreover, in this event approximately 40 tech and mobile startups along with 1000+ attendees and more than a dozen speakers participate and talk about business practices.
Scheduled For April 24-25, 2014, in Amsterdam Netherlands, and October 2014 New York USA.
4. WordCamp
WordCamps are meant especially for WordPress designer & developers, and they are organized all throughout the year. Basically, a WordCamp is an informal and community-driven event that is staged together by WordPress users. The best part about WordCamp is that it is attend by people like Matt Cutts, Head, Webspam Team at Google. The attendees here get a chance to participate and meet with core developers, share their ideas, and hone their skills. In a WordCamp, speakers and guest speakers take sessions where they give lectures or share presentations, live demos, organize workshops, give interviews, etc.
Scheduled For December 14-15, 2013, in Las Vegas USA.
5. TechFestNW
The TechFestNW conference first started in the year 2012, in Portland, Oregon, to honor and explore the technology, startups, and design culture that makes Portland a digital hub. In this conference, speakers such as James Keller, Director of UX at Walmartlabs, and Ryan Carson, Founder and CEO of Treehouse, a company that offers online video courses on web design and development, Alex Payne, the Creator of Twitter’s API, take part to share their experiences, talk about the latest trends, and startups.
Scheduled For September 2014, in Portland USA.
6. Ng-Conf
The Ng-Conf is huge scale event organized specifically for AngularJS framework developers. The event would be organized in Salt Lake City Utah, and is scheduled on 16-17 January 2014. The event will see attendance by web-developer heavy weights such as Dan Wahlin, Misko Hevery & Brad Green, Dave Smith, John Papa and a whole team from Google.
Scheduled For 16-17 January 2014, in Salt Lake City USA.
7. FOSDEM
FOSDEM is Europe’s largest conference on open source technologies. It’s a two day event that is organized by volunteers and focus on promoting the uses of open source technologies. Every year it gets an attending audience of more than 5000 techies and this year also it is expected to see this number. In addition it is sponsored by big names such as Google, HP, Colt, Cisco and Oracle, so it is bound to be a really big event.
Scheduled For 1-2 February 2014, in Brussels Belgium.
8. UX STRAT
The UX STRAT event is meant especially for the UX/UI developers, as it brings together a group of well acclaimed UX leaders, researchers, strategists, and senior practitioners in the panel of guest speakers to talk about the latest trends in strategic experience planning and design. With this event you can expect to enhance your skills and work on developing something that can help improving the UX/UI experience with a more creative approach that will take designing to the utmost level.
Scheduled For Mid-September 2014.
9. Ready to Inspire Conference
Crafting beautiful websites with innovative approach is something that all developers aspire for. And the Ready to Inspire Conference is one such even where you get to meet with experts who have already proved their brilliance in the web industry, and always try to bring something new and innovative that can inspire others. Though, it’s relatively a new event started in the year 2012 only, it has managed to make its presence felt all across the globe.
Scheduled For 1-5 February 2014, Leiden Netherlands.
10. Jfocus 2014
Jfocus is the largest conference on Java development in Europe. This is a must attend event for every Java, JSP, AJAX, and JS developer living in Europe and will include speakers from companies like Spotify, Oracle, and Microsoft. The event is organized in Sweden and is sponsored by companies like Google, Redhat, Dynabyte and Computer Sweden.
Scheduled For 3-5 February 2014, Stockholm Sweden.
11. International PHP Conference
The International PHP Conference is one of the most famous events for PHP developers, IT managers, and people who are interested in web technology. Here they participating attendees get a chance to nourish their PHP based skills and learn new things like how to scale applications, continuous integration and evaluation of different approaches to NoSQL. Additionally, the attendees also get a chance to meet with guest speakers, globally acclaimed developers and consultants and discuss problems associated with PHP development.
Scheduled for June 1-4, 2014, Berlin Germany.
12. Mobile Tech Conference
Nowadays, Mobile is considered as the next big thing after computer, and it should be as it lets the people to surf internet and do their work on the go. And for people who are into Mobile Technology, the Mobile Tech Conference is a must attend event. This conference is basically a four day event, where 50+ experts in mobile technology share the best practices they follow via detailed presentations, arrange workshops, and exchange keynotes. The Mobile Tech Conference is a Munich based event that is being sponsored by leading tech companies such as IBM, Microsoft, BlackBerry and Qualcomm.
Scheduled for 18-19 March 2014, Munich Germany.
13. Future of Web Design
The Future of Web Design is a bit different from other design conferences, as it has been more than a decade since it is being organized every year, and the people behind this event are closely familiar with the trends, technologies, and stars that help make the web better and beautiful. It’s a two-track event, where you can choose the one that suits your taste. Additionally, here every session is recorded for all attendees so that if you ever miss out on anything, you can watch it later via video cd.
Scheduled for 7-9 April 2014, London United Kingdom.
14. UX Immersion Mobile
A conference dedicated to user interface designing and Graphic designing of mobile based applications. The conference will focus on how to design apps that are user centric not device centric. The conference will include full day workshops by industry leaders such as Ben Callahan, Cyd Harrell, and Nate Schutta.
Scheduled for 7-9 April 2014, Denver USA.
15. Play and Make
As the name itself suggests, this conference is for those people who like to do create playful stuff with computer technologies. The conference originally started with a focus on Flash based games and animations, but has now encompassed all types of genres including games, data visualization and visual experiments. The event is one of the biggest one that is related to gaming technology and is sponsored by bigwigs like Microsoft, Kirby, Mailchimp and Wacom.
Scheduled for 9-11 December 2013, Düsseldorf Germany.
16. Mobilize
It was in the year 2008 when Mobilize was organized for the first time, and it was one of its kinds to shape the future of mobility after Apple’s iPhone exploded on the technology horizon. Since its inception, it strives hard to keep track of the hottest inventions and technology up-gradations, the bold visionaries and those about to disrupt the ecosystem. This event is being proudly sponsored by companies such as Intel, Qualcomm, HP, and Ericsson. This year, the Mobilize is set to be host great speakers like Christine Herron, Director at Intel Capital, Jim Kohlenberger, Former White House technology policy advisor & Mobile Future, and current Advisor at Mobile Future will take part.
17. CSS Conference
The CSS Conference is dedicated, devoted and determined to the web developers and designers, who craft highly engaging web user interfaces to take the user experience to the utmost level. This event is organized every year by a community of developers for the community of developers. Here the speakers cover a variety of topics that include CSS, Saas, 3D Shapes, and other Web Design related issues in detail, etc. With this event, you can expect to meet world class web designers and developers, and people who have immense expertise in CSS. In addition to this, companies like Adobe, GitHub, SoundCloud are amongst its sponsors.
18. Webdagene
Webdagene is a 3 day event, where on the first day itself 4 different hands-on workshops are organized. And during the next two days a group of international experts discusses about web and user experience in detail. Even though it’s a Norway based event approx 70% of its content is delivered in English language so that developers from other countries can also attend it.
19. Web Expo
The Web Design and Development industry is not restricted to the HTML, CSS, and Scripts, in fact there’s much more to it. And the Web Expo is one such event that covers a large number of aspects of Web designing and development than any other event. For instance, here the guest speakers discuss issues such as Accessibility, Creativity, Content, Product Development, the Designing Process and Cross Channel Design. In addition to this, to inspire the upcoming entrepreneurs, many established entrepreneurs share their own stories.
20. Web & PHP Conference
The Web & PHP Conference is a 3 day event organized especially for developers indulged in ever green web technologies that includes PHP, Architecture, Frameworks, Responsive Design, UX/UI, Security, Cloud, HTML5 & CSS3, Testing, Mobile Web and Mobile Apps.
21. BGF
The BGF is a two day conference, where leaders in web based technologies, be it for the mobile or the desktop, give lectures on current and future topics including cross-platform gaming industry. Additionally, this event also offers a unique opportunity to the attendees to join a network with the most prominent members in the world of web browsing and mobile games.
22. Fronteers
It was in the year 2007, when the foundation stone was laid for Fronteers, which is also known as the union of front-end developers. Basically, the Fronteers is a non-profit trade organization established by a group of Dutch based front-end developers. Since 2008, every year it brings experts in web technology on stage to discuss and share their experience, and provide their inputs on the latest trends and possibilities. Moreover, it also arranges workshops for developers on a regular basis.
23. MobileCon
The MobileCON is one of the most prestigious conferences that are 100% business and mobile IT focused. This event is meant for those who are into mobile web development, and are fervent about learning how to solve the most pressing problems faced while developing for mobile. Experts and peers from top leading companies such as Apple, and China Mobile USA Research Center also take part in the MobileCon, where discussions on topics ranging from Cyber Secutiry to Enterprise Apps, and Networking take place.
24. UI 18
Adding value to a site via strategic design, and providing users with impeccable browsing experience is the key to online success, and the UI 18 or User Interface Eighteen Conference is meant for those who value and understand how important UI/UX to be successful on the web. It’s basically a 3 day event where for two consecutive days intensive workshops are arranged, and on the last day speakers talk about UX processes, team or group-based techniques, and bringing innovation into designing.
25. HTML5 Dev Conference
Do you love HTML? If you do, then you really can’t afford to miss the HTML5 Dev Conference, where speakers such as Robert Nyman from Mozilla, Joe Marini from Google, Divya Manian from Adobe, and Elika J. Etemad fro W3C, give lectures on the latest trends and technology, and share their own stories and experiences on a one single platform. This conference is sponsored by some of the leading tech giants including Google, Microsoft, IBM, Adobe, Yahoo, GE, Twitter, and Snecha.
26. Frontiers of Interaction
Frontiers of Interaction is an Italy based conference, which started in the year 2005. And in the last 8 years, it has become one of the most popular events to attend for developers in Europe. Here everyone including individuals, startups, and well established companies take part and discuss about design, technology and everything interactive that can lead technology to a higher level.
27. Smartdevcon
The SmartDevCon event is for organizations and web specialists connected with modern-day device solutions that have conquered and reinvented this market segment in the recent years. Basically, Smartdevcon is a Europe oriented event, and its main purpose is to keep, the massive revolution and advancement in the field of in-built and mobile solutions the world has witnessed in the last few years, in focus. Additionally, it’s also a platform to respond to the great demand of web technology in the exchange of knowledge, skills, and trade contacts.
28. Mobility and Modern Web Conference
The Mobility and Modern Web Conference is for developers who think themselves as a top-notch, are passionate about coding, and typical web enthusiast, who love to transform the world through HTML 5, CSS 3, Javascript and responsive design techniques. Here, developers get a chance to get together, team up and create with a “who’s who” of the mobile and modern web community. Additionally, this conference is a perfect fit for people who are interested in learning about and going deeper with open web technologies and tools. Basically, this conference is all about a 3 day event where expert speakers share their inspiring keynotes, take sessions and workshops on the standards and practices of the modern-day web technology, tools, and open-source frameworks that make it easy to handle the mobile oriented responsive design.
29. Joomla! World Conference
Are you a seasoned Joomla! developer and are in love with it? If yes, then should really not miss the Joomla World Conference every year, as here you can get to meet with other Joomla developers, discuss and share your own experiences. Additionally, at Joomla Conference, many leading personalities from the web development industry take part as guest speakers, and share their own experiences, arrange workshops that help you go a step ahead and improve your development skills.
30. IndieWebCamp
IndieWebCamp is a two day gathering of web creators developing & sharing open source technologies to improve the state of the indie web. It is being organized every year since the year 2011. Here, the people meet for a weekend to talk about how they can educate and empower others to own their identities and data, then spend a day hacking & creating.
In all the events listed above, you not only get to learn and improve your skills, but you also get to enjoy community based parties where individuals like you come from different parts of the world and share their own experiences and enjoy the best music of the season. So if you attend any of the listed events, don’t forget to share your experience with us.
Thank you for the upcoming events in Web design and Development. It’s really important to be up-to-date about the latest technology trends.
I have read your blog its really good.