Killer Graphics

"I'll put you in [room] number one... ... ...because ONE stands for MURDER! Hwahahahah!"

- Zorak, The Brak Show

If there was anything I sensed about the Murder by Design conference last Saturday, it was the fact that the venue needed a bit of air-conditioning. The stamp that they placed on my right arm to certify my entrance easily started to melt from the moment I entered. I find it strange, for that matter, that they would hold the conference in an unbusinesslike establishment, but I'll chalk that up to a designer "thing".

Murder by Design was actually a workday for me -- the company was paying for my time there, and I whiled away the hours with a couple of staff members who had similar duties. All three of us expected to gain some insight into the nature of the graphic design business, and I don't think we were disappointed by the proceedings.

With all that said, however, I eventually came to a startling conclusion after watching three or four speakers come up on stage and do their little verbal dances. It was a conclusion borne from various other seminars and conferences, and it was a conclusion borne from even the iBlog summit held last year. That conclusion was a simple one: You can be as skilled as you please, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be able to speak well in front of an audience.

It's true, ladies and gentlemen. Oratory is quite a different animal, as compared to literary writing, graphic design, and all those other endeavors we've come to know and love. I find it funny, in a way, that the schools and universities have probably known this for decades now, and yet most of us don't seem to have realized the fact.

But then again, I'm not complaining. After all, Oratory is hardly a pursuable art nowadays. It's difficult to practice, especially considering that the average person doesn't see many invitations to speak in front of a live audience. For that matter, it's usually only field-based professionals who are invited to speak in this fashion, and even then we probably shouldn't expect a good show. I imagine that being good at graphic design, software development or blogging doesn't leave one with much time to practice speeches in front of a mirror.

Despite all these assumptions, however, one has to wonder about Dean Alfar.

I've seen Dean Alfar speak twice so far. The first was at the iBlog summit, where he easily blew away an audience that was prepared to hear about creativity in blogging (and consequently got it in spades). The second was at last Saturday's conference, where he was able to grab the attention of a tough crowd and somehow managed to toss them a few tips on starting and running a design business. He seems to consistently do very well at this speakership thing, and I wonder how he does it.

I know that he's gotten up and spoken to audiences before, but I'm not sure if it's to a level where he's become adept at it. I know that he's a consistent writer, but there's always the question of whether or not writing has anything to do with oratory in the first place.

Maybe it has something to do with the way his mind works. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he seems confident enough to do what he does. Maybe he's just been lucky so far, and that he'll crash and burn somewhere in his next outing. (Or maybe not.)

Whatever the case, he bears watching. As with any person who seems to do something well, it's probably worth observing him to see just how he does it.

I spent most of the conference in a state of bewilderment, to be honest. A good chunk of the lectures seemed to involve a bunch of professional designers going up on stage and explaining their portfolios. They would hook up their laptops to the projector and open up a bunch of demo files, for example, essentially explaining how and why they came up with certain designs for certain clients. While these were enlightening, they brought to mind the question of what most of the designers in the audience were supposed to learn from them.

But then again, good design isn't something that you can learn from a single conference. Good design, like writing and oratory and many other things, is something that you learn from experience. That may have been the point of the entire conference, I think. Heck, if anything, that may be the point of any conference:

"We're giving you a bunch of speakers who probably aren't all that good at speaking. But they're professionals in their chosen fields, and they've been around. You have to realize that they've gone through a lot to get where they are right now, and they're going to share some of these lessons and experiences with you, so that you'll know what to expect."

It's priceless in every sense of the word, now that I think about it. Talks, round-table discussion groups, and even TV dialogues probably work under the same realization.

I unfortunately had to leave the conference early because I needed to return the family car, so I missed out on the latter proceedings as well as the ever-present raffle. It was fine, though... they were generous enough to give their attendees a fair share of giveaways in any case.

By this time, however, the stamp was nothing more than a half-congealed mess that needed a good amount of rubbing alcohol to remove. I figured, however, that if it left any vague marks on my right arm, I could always claim that it was the hallmark of a rare disease that was turning my skin blue.

Yes, no one would probably believe me. But then again, I do have a propensity for telling tall tales, and both the confidence and experience to back them up. At least I have that much to go on...