Kristofer D. Layon

My archived presentation from the 2008 ACUI / NACAS conference. Click on the Scribd logo on the upper left of the frame to view the full-screen version.

I will be co-presenting with Colin McFadden at this ACUI / NACAS conference in August. Working title: Agile and Accessible Web Communications.

Click on the Scribd logo on the upper left of the frame to view the full-screen version.

Since late 2007, I have been chairing the planning committee for a conference that will take place on April 14, 2008. To our knowledge, it is the University’s first conference of its kind: a full-day continuing education event that focuses on standards and best practices for Web design and accessibility.

This week we finalized most of the program details, got the online registration closer to its launch pad, and started posting some basic info to the Web. After the keynote presenter returns a signed contract, there will be a collective sigh of relief as we (hopefully!) watch registrations begin to pile up. Stay tuned here:

Thanks to my office for being the lead sponsor of this event, as well as to the Academic Health Center, College of Liberal Arts, Disability Services, Extension Service, Student Unions & Activities, and Office of Information Technology.

On Saturday I spoke with one of my students from fall 2006, Sergey Trubetskoy, at his class's senior design show. He had some fabulous photos of the round expedition logo that he designed being used during Will Steger's trip to Nunavut last spring—click for full size versions.

(and congratulations, Sergey, on being hired as a User Interface Designer at Activision!)

More about the project here.

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Today I received some very pleasant news about a project that my class did last semester: a poster that we designed won first place in its category in a national competition. To quote the email I received from our printer:

Good news! We entered the "Dollar Redesign Poster" in the 2007 In-Print Competition, cosponsored by the national In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA) and In-Plant Graphics magazine, and won Gold (First Place) in the poster category! More than 550 pieces were entered in the competition. Five judges scrutinized every piece, inspecting the quality, using loupes to check for poor registration and imperfections. We are thrilled to have won a printing award but I'm certain the interesting design of your poster captured the judges attention and contributed to our success. Thanks!

While I am proud to have facilitated this project and consulted on the design and pre-press processes for the poster, my congratulations go out to the 19 students in the class who did the fabulous dollar bill designs for this project—without these, we would not have had a poster to design! Also, my profound thanks to our printing consultant Joe Sobota, who provided us with excellent customer support, a generous 2 hour tour of his facilities, and the printing expertise that enabled the project to win this award.

Enlarged view of the poster.

One of the projects I coordinated for my class was design work for one of Minnesota's most famous sons, WIll Steger, the international polar explorer. He has a new arctic expedition, Baffin Island 2007, scheduled for spring 2007.

This expedition is to promote his Global Warming 101 initiative, which is designed to draw attention to global warming in a new and dramatic way: how it is intimately affecting the lives of the Inuit people today.

The class designed page templates and logos for GW101 educational materials, as well as the expedition patch above that will be featured on all of the expedition communications, outer wear, and other gear. Visit www.globalwarming101.com for their summary of our involvement.

My favorite project to assign to my graphic design students is an assignment that I came up with in fall 2003: redesign the United States dollar bill, but using another theme or genre. The creative ideas that the students come up with are always surprising and often well-executed. And while I take on the role of design director by helping to bring out the best in their idea and design development, I also enjoy stepping back and allowing their concepts to blossom.

Some of my favorite designs from the three semesters that I have taught this assignment are below (click to enlarge):